Louis Spector

I don’t have a flair for words or understand the nuances of writing. It all seems convoluted and complicated to me. Of course, I came to it late in life.  I didn’t learn to read until I was 14, writing came much later.  It was believed I had some form of brain damage, or so my father assumed. To enforce that proclamation about me, my grandmother called me the ‘retarded’ one in the family, while my twin brother was referred to as the ‘genius.’   He knew how to read when he was three.

For a long time, I believed reading was just something that happened naturally, like walking and talking, though even talking was also a struggle for me. I was born with an auditory deficiency known as Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), a condition in which the brain has difficulty interpreting sounds, even when hearing is normal.  

Rather than seeking a diagnosis, my father assumed the worst— brain damage— and saw no point in my education.  The school I was sent to was more of a dysfunctional daycare center than an institute for higher learning. For five years, from the age of 9 to 14, I never opened up a book to read or wrote a single word. In fact, all I learned from that school was how to play backgammon and that I had a talent for drawing.

It wasn’t until Dad enrolled me in my first real school, Bancroft Jr. High, that I heard the term “learning disabled.”  It was also where I had to join an E.H. program, E.H. standing for ‘Educationally Handicapped’ or ‘Extra Help.’  Considering how far behind I was in everything, I couldn’t be in the main building with the regular students. Instead, my classroom was in a small bungalow separated from the main building, across the courtyard, in an area other students avoided.  It was that blatant separation that motivated me to learn to read.

For the first few months, I was depressed, knowing my grandmother was right about me. I was ‘retarded,’ plain and simple.  Still, once I realized reading was something you had to work on, I decided to pick up my first book and started to teach myself how to read. I was more determined to get out of the E.H. program and join the “normal” kids more than anything else, and it seemed learning to read was my only way out.  I was an 8^th grader at the time, and the books I was reading I hid between the pages of a Charles Dickens book, Great Expectations, as I didn’t want anyone to know what books I was actually reading.  By the 9^th grade, after pushing myself forward, I was free of the E.H. program and placed in my first English class, where I discovered writing.  That would be a challenge that I still struggle with to this day.  

When I enrolled in junior college, I was placed in an ESL class, though English was the only language I spoke. Each time I thought I was ahead, I realized how far behind I still was.  For years, I would struggle with reading and writing, never truly feeling comfortable with either, but never quitting on myself to get better.  Then I started writing for pleasure, gathering all my journals from high school and reflecting on my childhood, I ended up with a very poorly written book.   A book that, for the past 20 years, I’ve rewritten many times, improving my writing skills along the way.

Now, at 59, I’ve turned my messy journals and 20 years of rewriting into The Gingerbread House on La Collina Drive. I’m still no writer—not the kind with a flair for words or fancy degrees. But I had a story to tell, and I fought like hell to tell it. That’s enough for me