Nobody taught me...
“Nobody taught me. There were so many of us in the house, and even my Nanna didn’t know how to read. So I never learned to read. I was so bad at school that I acted like a clown just to avoid everything; then I got caught running around here with a pistol when I was thirteen.
They sent me to Tryon Juvenile Detention Center, and that’s where I met Ms.Lakewood. She taught the computer class. Heavy-set Italian lady, about 4’ 10”.But attitude, huge. Aura, big. She was like the grandmother in a mob movie. You know how you’ve got all the bosses, but when the grandmother comes in—everyone shuts up? She was like that. But she was loving too.
She had pictures on the wall of all her favorite students; she called them her babies. She even had a picture of Mike Tyson up there. He was one of her babies. One day we had this contest, on the computer. The winner got $50. And I was looking at the screen and getting so angry. I’m crying, because I couldn’t read. And that’s when this Spanish kid called me Forrest Gump.
He had the whole class laughing at me. MissLakewood was like: ‘What’s going on?’ She came over to me and said: ‘Fix your face. Fix your f*cking face, I don’t want to see another tear.’ Then she said:‘Tomorrow, you better get ready.’ She started working with me for an hour-and-a-half, every night.
She started me on Lion King. It was a preschool book, so I didn’t want to do it. But she made me. Every night she made me keep reading until I was able to read on my grade level. I started getting report cards with nothing less than 85. I was sending them home; my mom was getting hyped.
I got my GED. I started reading so much. Today I can finish a five-hundred-page book in two days. If I sm*ke a bl*nt first, I swear to God I can picture the whole book like it’s a movie. Miss Lakewood passed away when I was eighteen. I heard about it while I was in prison. Some new guys came in; they’d been in Tryon too. They heard me talking about her and that’s when one of them told me. But he said: ‘Yo. I’m pretty sure she had your picture on the wall.’”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/100050429952420/posts/pfbid031v8pTcRUA4Z9z8DKPQbwzChwHujDErMUiMeNN1nLrxdg1UtyvdQvhrmZ2ktoFrM9l/?app=fbl
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