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Featured Student of the Month:
James Moore February, 1999 James Moore has been happily married for 47 years, raised three daughters, and retired several years ago after a long, productive career. Yet somehow, his life felt "shallow" to him. Then one day, enjoying his retirement by watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, his life changed. "I saw a man on that show who was a millionaire, but couldn't read," he recalls. "Until that day, I thought I was the only adult who couldn't read." And James decided that learning to read might be the key to finding the sense of fulfillment he had been lacking. It wasn't easy for him to tell his daughters the secret he'd kept for so many years. "I couldn't read to them when they were little, so my wife took care of that," he recalls. He still remembers the pain of his birthdays and Christmases through the years - "I'd have sweaty palms, knowing I'd have to pretend to read the cards from my family," he recalls. "I hated it." But when he told his family he was going to go to Literacy Volunteers of America to learn how to read, he found loving support. His daughter said, "Daddy, go for it. You raised us, you sent us all to high school and college, and now it's your turn." As a child in Tennessee, James frequently begged to be allowed to stay home and do chores rather than going to school. "It wasn't my parents' fault," he is quick to state. "They only went to third and fifth grade themselves. They wanted me to get an education, but I didn't understand then how important learning was." He continues, "In third grade, instead of learning to read, I was hauling coal and kindling and delivering groceries." When he was 13, the family moved to Indiana. "School scared the heck out of me. I'd look down to avoid being called on." He dropped out just short of tenth grade, and went to work sorting freight for a railroad company - "I learned to recognize the letters that stood for the states, and that got me by," he says. In the 1960s, James moved from the railroad job to a company that made batteries. "I was promoted to foreman, but had to turn the job down because I couldn't fill out the forms," he recalls regretfully. Nevertheless, he had the highest average production in his department. Looking back, he divides his life into two parts: "before Oprah" and "after Oprah." He found Indy Reads, the Indianapolis affiliate of Literacy Volunteers of America, and Bonnie Frazer became his tutor. "We started reading about sports because I was interested in that, and I could recognize some of the words and the names," he says. Now, James is working toward his GED. How has his life changed? James responds with a huge, heartwarming smile: "I don't have footprints on my back anymore. Nobody walks on me. I don't have to hide anything. I can talk to anyone about it, and I want to tell the world."
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