I Learned to Read at 79

I am 82 years old.

Three years ago I could not read this page.

Now I wrote it.

My name is Raymond Nellis. I live in Pittsburgh. I laid brick for 47 years. I hid something my whole life. I want to tell you about it, because maybe you are hiding it too.

* * *

How it was

I left school in 1929. I was twelve. My father was sick and we needed the money. I swept out a bakery and then I carried hod for a bricklayer.

I never learned to read. I knew my letters a little. I could write my name. That was all.

I learned the trade with my hands and my eyes. You do not need to read to lay a straight wall. I was good. I was proud of that.

In the Army a buddy named Bill read me the letters from my girl. I told him my eyes were bad. He knew. He never said a word. He wrote my answers too.

The girl was Nadine. I married her in 1946.

* * *

How I hid it

I had a lot of tricks.

I forgot my glasses. I forgot them for seventy years.

I hurt my hand. "Could you fill this out for me? My hand is sore."

In a restaurant I said, "I'll have what he's having."

I took the bus by its number and its color. I knew the streets by the buildings. A lot of them I built.

Nadine read the mail. She read the menus and the bills and the letters from the union. She read the ballot to me in the booth, very quietly. She kept my secret for 49 years. She never told anyone. Not even our daughter.

I was ashamed every day. I want you to know that. Every day.

* * *

The library

Nadine died in 1995.

After that the mail piled up on the table. I could not read it. I could not ask. I was alone with it.

One morning in the spring of 1996 I put on my good coat and walked to the library. I stood by the door a long time.

Then I went to the desk. I said to the lady, "I can't read. Can you help me?"

She did not laugh. She did not look at me funny. She said, "Yes, we can." She wrote down my name. A week later she called me.

That is how I met Martha Yoho.

* * *

The first lessons

Martha is a retired schoolteacher. She is a volunteer. She does it for free. She has met with me two times a week since 1996, at a table in the back of the library.

We started with sounds. B-r-i-ck. Brick. Then mortar. Then trowel and level. My words first. That was her idea.

I would tell her a story about a job I did, and she would write it down. Then I would read it back. My own story. It was slow. It was very slow.

Some nights I came home tired like I had laid a thousand brick. Some nights I wanted to quit. I felt like a little boy. Martha said, "You are not a little boy. You are a man who is learning something hard." I kept going.

The first time I read a whole page by myself, I put my head down on the table. Martha waited. She is good at waiting.

* * *

What I can do now

I read the sports page. Every morning. This month I read that the Steelers beat Cleveland 43 to nothing in Cleveland's first game back. I read it two times because I liked it.

I write my own checks. I read my own bills. I read my own mail at my own table.

Last November I read the ballot myself.

My grandson Myles is eight now. For his sixth birthday I wrote his card myself. I wrote, "Happy birthday Myles. I love you. Grandpa." He showed it to his mother. My daughter Georgia cried. That was when I told her. She said, "Dad, why didn't you ever say?" I said I was ashamed. She said, "Not anymore."

I have read 17 books. Here they are.

* * *

If you cannot read

If someone is reading this page to you, that is fine. That is how I started.

You are not stupid. I was not stupid. I just never got the chance.

Go to your library and ask. Nobody laughed at me. Not one person.

The programs are free. The tutors are volunteers. They will not tell anyone.

Two big groups help with this all over the country. One is Laubach Literacy. The other is Literacy Volunteers of America. Your library can help you find them.

It is never too late. I was 79.

Raymond Nellis

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