08/30/2002

By JAMES RAGLAND / The Dallas Morning News

There's an old man I wanted to meet, but he died before I got to see him in person.

George Dawson was the grandson of slaves. He died last summer at the ripe age of 103. Some of you may recall that a year before his death, he co-wrote a book called Life Is So Good.

Mr. Dawson inspired me for a couple of reasons. First, he grew up in the same area that I did, a small town near Marshall, Texas. Second, and most important, he took advantage of an adult literacy program and learned to read at age 98.

Mr. Dawson came to mind recently when I was asked, along with two other Texas journalists, to tape a TV spot promoting National Literacy Month, which starts Sunday. The promotion involves Texas Cable News and WFAA-TV, and it was sponsored by Half Price Books, a place where I like to hang out in my spare time.

Maybe it sounds like a cliché, but it is absolutely true that Reading can change one's life. I can say unequivocally that it changed Mr. Dawson's life and mine.

My parents, the products of a generation that emphasized hard work and making ends meet, didn't get the education I was privileged to receive. My mother was compelled to stay home to cook and clean while my grandparents labored in cotton fields. Her schooling stopped at the sixth grade. My father, I believe, graduated from high school and immediately went to work.

I mention my parents' upbringing only because it helps to understand why they stressed the importance of their own kids staying in school and learning as much as they could. They realized that, no matter one's station in life, a good education is a great equalizer. It may be the only one.

Reading, of course, is the foundation on which a good education is built. For me, it made the world at once seem larger and smaller. Larger in the sense that I realized at a young age that there was far more to life than my small town, and I was inspired to discover it for myself. Smaller in terms of making me feel connected to places, people and events that I could only read about.

Maybe Reading won't change your perspective, but it certainly should enhance it. That's why it bugs the heck out of me when I ask a kid if he's read a good book lately and he can't summon a response.

This would be a good spot to start ranting against the proliferation of mindless TV entertainment, but that would be pointless. The truth is, once someone develops a love for leafing through the pages of a good book, TV can't compete. It certainly can't overwhelm the fertile mind of a reader; if anything, it underwhelms.

I can tell you that there's precious little that's more enjoyable than sinking your tired body into a hammock or a well-worn sofa and cuddling up with a mystery or romance novel. As a kid, I used to plant myself in the fork of a tree in my back yard and read for hours. Of course, that may be why I'm nearly blind now.

My wife and I started Reading to – and with – our kids at a young age. That makes a big difference. I can't tell you how giddy I was when my son, Alex, once held open an old hardback and asked me to breathe in the fragrance. "I love the smell of old books," he said wisely.

He keeps books at his bedside. He takes books on trips. He reads to learn and for pleasure. He's plowed through dime-store R.L. Stine novels, classics such as Old Yeller and the runaway favorite – the Harry Potter series. Our daughter, Andrea, has read her way through graduate school.

Mr. Dawson never had the luxury of crawling into bed with a book tucked under his chin as a kid. In his memoir, he recalls how embarrassing it was for him to go into restaurants, because he couldn't read the menus. And he often got passed up for job promotions because he couldn't fill out applications.

But shortly before he became a century old, Mr. Dawson offered an ageless and priceless lesson. "George Dawson recognized how important Readings," says Allison Neal, event manager for the annual African American Read-In, a campaign designed to get folks excited about Reading. "Reading totally changes your life. It changed his life. He became an international folk hero... and he was saluted by the White House."

The event's founder and director, Carla Ranger, who works for the Dallas community colleges system, started the local Read-In. And right now, the African American Read-In is trying to raise money to pay for a bust created to honor Mr. Dawson and to subsidize the George Dawson Hold Fast to Dreams Scholarship.

If you want to find out more about the fund, you can write to: African American Read-In, Dallas County Community Colleges District, 701 Elm St., 7th Floor, Dallas, TX 75202. You can also call 214-860-2005. The web site is www.Readin.dcccd.edu; check it after Tuesday for fund information.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate National Literacy Month than by helping to preserve the legacy of a man who was determined to know how to read before he died.

And fittingly enough, he left a good book behind for anyone curious enough to know what it was like to grow up the way that he did.

- James Ragland is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News.