Being functionally illiterate in old-time Phoenix


In my lifetime, I've assumed that people can read at a basic level. If someone were to shout, "What's the matter, can't ya read?" I would think of it as spoken in anger, not a genuine question. But I've often wondered what it would feel like to look at a bunch of dots and lines and not be able to decipher any meaning, not see any words.

Oddly enough, this idea popped into my head while I was watching a Three Stooges short, whereupon Curly is asked to look at a sign and says that he wasn't smoking, or wasn't going to park there, or whatever (I really don't remember). It was done for a laugh, but if I were really true, it would be far from funny.

Being functionally illiterate is different from neurological blindness. Admit it, even if you're a good reader, you may have never seen the sign that says, "No Parking". No, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about being unable to read even the simplest sign.

Time-travel with me to old-time Phoenix and let's ponder it. Learning the "Three Rs" (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic) is such a given nowadays it's hard to imagine that not too terribly long ago there were people who simply never got around to it. There would have been a lot of reasons to never bother with what many people would consider simply trivia, learning to read and write. Many jobs didn't require anyone to follow written instructions, and to this day a witness can attest to a signature, even if it's just an X (although it wouldn't be wise to write a check like that!).


Delving into my own family history (although it's not in Phoenix), I know that my grandfather was considered the "scholar" of his family by making it to the sixth grade. He must have learned a lot, because eventually he became an engineer (not trains, mining). So the number of people his age that were around him would have considered him amazing that he could read as well as he could. I'm sure that he made light of his scholarly achievements, and didn't want people to dislike him because of his "book learnin'". He was a generous and sociable man, and I can't imagine him being snooty, and "putting on airs" because of his education.

It really doesn't take much of a stretch of imagination to picture myself as functionally illiterate. Some of my Facebook friends write in languages I don't understand, and often even the characters just look like gibberish to me. I can click "translate", but someone who is functionally illiterate just has to figure it out, and talk to people.
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