"I wanted to read."

While clearing out the basement I ran across my remaining files from my time as a newspaper editor. This would be in the late 1980s.

I wrote a feature on the local Adult Literacy Program and I kept a photocopy of it. A student of instructor Maxine McAdoo agreed to let me interview him for the paper. Here's a passage that has always stayed with me.
(He) found grocery shopping restrictive. "I never got anything different because I never knew what it would be.
"My soups was the biggest problem. I had cream of mushroom memorized because Mother always bought that. If I wanted something different either somebody had to be with me or I'd do without. When I went in a fast-food place, I never looked up (at the menus) because I couldn't read them anyway."
Things were looking up for him, thanks to his resolve and his teacher. I think of him sometimes when I glance at those overhead menus.