Henrietta Hay's Column

"Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock." Those may - or may not - have been the first words I ever read, but the wonderful sounds and rhythms and foolishness of Mother Goose have helped me and millions of other kids learn to read and to want to read more.

To those of us who started reading as little kids, and have known the joy of reading and exploring and stretching all our lives it is hard to comprehend the latest news on literacy. Nearly half of American adults have only "rudimentary" abilities in reading, are functionally illiterate. If you were too horrified to read the details in the paper, the Education Department says that 90 million adults cannot perform tasks any more difficult than calculating the difference in price between two items, and filling out a Social Security form. Those 40 million with the lowest skill rating can locate the expiration date on a driver's license, but not an intersection on an ordinary city map.

These figures are enough to give us nightmares, and illiteracy is a national tragedy. We must support every effort that is being made to eliminate it.

When we bemoan the dumbing of America, however, I think that we are talking about more than illiteracy. A lot of Americans, who can read quite well, thank you, have lost some of their literacy skills through disuse.

What would happen if we all read and understood all the paper that goes through our hands every day? Just for fun, I pulled out my automobile insurance policy this morning. Please don't tell my insurer, but up until now I had never read every single word of that policy; oh I had read the bold print, sure, but not every single word. The companies count on that. If they had to have enough telephone operators and salespersons to answer and explain every single detailed question from every single policyholder who read his/her policy completely through, I couldn't afford the insurance.

And while you're at it, did you ever read every word of your medical insurance policy?

On the lighter side, we flippantly say that nobody over ten can program a VCR, but we could all do it quite easily (well, kind of) if we would read the manual. The kids get it by osmosis, but we adults are not too dumb to figure it out.

The same is true of the newer TV sets. When the channels got all switched around recently I just knew I was going to have to call a service person to realign my set. But as somebody said sometime, "If all else fails, read the manual." I read it and presto - the channels are all where they belong.

There is one exception to this. Knowing how to read does not help when you have a problem with computer software. Those manuals were written by Martians, and we simply do not know the language.

OK, so we all get sloppy about reading what we don't really want to know, but being able to choose what to read and what to ignore is a gift beyond price. TV does not change the fact that most of our knowledge comes from the printed word and those who cannot read it are handicapped for life.

Tom Sutherland, who spent six years of his life as a hostage in a Lebanese prison says, "What a great salvation that was to us, to be able to read and have the books to read...It kept our minds involved and active, giving us literally 'freedom in captivity.' We could escape from those prison cells, and from those chains that were around our ankles, and instead we were on the moors of Yorkshire with the Brontes ...or in Devon with Thomas Hardy, or in Paris on the banks of the Seine with Les Miserables.

"I took my reading for granted until it became a lifeline -- now it is one of my greatest pleasures, along with sunlight, fresh air, grass, trees and color."

Hickory, dickory dock to a prison in Lebanon -- a lifetime of riches.