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Reading. One of the most important things a human being can learn. If you can read all things are possible. Everything ever made came with an instruction sheet or in some cases an instruction book. Most everything that has moving parts comes with an exploded diagram an the part numbers for each part. I managed to get through 3 years of George B. McClellan elementary school without learning how to read. How this is possible is a 75 year old mystery to me. In any event my father took on the job of teaching me. A few words about my father. He is the classic case of someone who has all the bad breaks and very few good ones. He married my mother in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression. Nine months later my brother was born. In those days there was massive unemployment so families tended to group together. My father and mother lived with my grandmother and his sister aunt Helen and her husband Matt. That had to have been hard. Everyone picked up part time jobs and chipped in to keep things going. My mother did cleaning for a wealthy Jewish family while Pa was a truck driver that picked up runs on an as need basis. all part time no full time work. My brother was a Preemy. I forget the ounces but the story as it was told to me was that he would fit in the palm of Ma's hand. They had no money so they had to go to the County Hospital which took care of the indigents and welfare cases. The nurses and doctors at the hospital told my parents there was nothing they could do for such a premature baby and to take him home and let him die. My grandmother who I always accused of being some kind of witch doctor said she knew a midwife that could possibly help. The midwife came to the flat and told my mother to pump some of her breast milk. She pulled out an eyedropper thing and filled it with the breast milk, opened Stew's mouth and put a couple of drops in. She worked out a schedule where someone would give Da Bro a couple of drops of milk every so often. Darned if he didn't survive and grew up to be 6'3" tall. From 1934 to 1939 when I was born my family was on a combination of welfare and part time work. By the time I came along in 1939 the military/industrial complex was coming alive and preparations were being made to go to war. After 1939 my father worked a fair amount of full time work until he was drafted in 1944. The war was mostly over by then and a couple of months after Pa got drafted they stopped taking 30 plus year old's with kids. He was one of the last one of the 30 year old's with family that got drafted. From 1944 to 1948 it was back to a combination of welfare and part time factory work for my mother. It was during this time I developed my respect for the Salvation Army. My tonsils were taken out and my first dental work was paid for by the Salvation Army. For decades I kept my Salvation Army ID card in my wallet for decades until it literally wore out. I never failed to donate to them twice a year after I became and adult and I still do. In any event Pa was in the army in 1944 and 1945 and then spent 1946 and part of 1947 at the Blinded Veterans rehab center in Massachusetts. Ma went over there to be with him so during this period I became acquainted with the Salvation Army. My grandmother and my Aunt Helen took me there for my various problems. The Doctors wouldn't sew up my artery and they wouldn't do anything to save my brother but the Salvation Army was there for my sinus infections and ear aches, my tonsils and my first dental work. The next page I publish will get back to reading.