Writing will improve when readers demand it. Reading will improve when there's something worth reading.

A recent article entitled, “SOL SCORE STAGNATION” highlighted the fact that

reading and writing scores are down. State officials point out that like math scores, which were once also down but are now on the rise, reading and writing scores will also rise once students become more comfortable with the tests. Interesting. They do not say that reading and writing will become better—only that scores will get better.

I garnered this information from my Thursday edition of the Virginian-Pilot but the vast majority of people getting this news will pull the story off the Internet. There, they will be free to go immediately to the comment section and read what anonymous people everywhere were saying about the story; and by the fifth or sixth comment also discover what these anonymous people were saying about everything and anything else under the sun while breaking every imaginable grammar rule in the book—assuming there still are grammar books.

They can then Tweet and text their friends about the article. The good news is no one will be grading those.

Reading and writing scores are down because reading and writing serve no purpose in the modern world—at least not reading and writing the way it used to be. Today, words are out, punctuation is out, complete sentences are out, and coherent ideas are out.

LOL, !!!!!, & :'(  (for crying out loud) are in.

For the past year, I have been transcribing letters between my father, when he was a POW in Germany and my mother, a WAVE serving in Pensacola, Florida. Their engagement, like those of most of their friends from that era, was carried on through the mail. These letters help to point out the stark differences between then and now. They also say something about reading and writing.

Most importantly, I can hold these letters, which are over 70 years old in my hand just as my parents did when they sent and received them. Most of the millions of Tweets and comments that have been posted online over just the short time I have been writing this have already been forgotten and been moved down the page—never to be seen again, replaced by even less important and equally forgettable stuff.

My father was captured in Sicily on July 22, 1943. She continued writing even though her letters were being returned, “addressee missing in action.”  He continued to write not knowing if his letters were even being received. Finally, on February 4, 1944 he receive his first letter from home. He responded immediately, “Finally received a letter from home. You can imagine what it meant to me.”

Waiting for something makes it more important. Knowing that someone else is waiting for your response makes what you say and how you say it even more important.

Today, if something is posted on Facebook and doesn’t receive a “Like” within a reasonable amount of time—usually a few hours—the poster wants to know what happened. With so many words going out to so many people so many times on so many subject, the obvious question becomes, “How can any of it be important?”

The answer is, it isn’t.

And neither are the writing skills that go into texting and Tweeting. Once you become used to reading misspelled words and miss-punctuated sentences, not to mention sentences that don’t even make sense to begin with, it’s not long before reading skills also go out the window.

In today’s world, speed is of the essence. That and ease—easy to write, easy to read. If it isn’t easy and it isn’t fast, then it isn’t getting done. In today’s world of low reading and writing scores, nobody is going to wait almost a year for a response. Who has that kind of time?

Lest a young reader think I’m just another disgruntled old dinosaur out of touch with the always changing times, I’d point out that when I was their age we had abbreviated, coded messages, too.

Whether as students away at college or soldiers in Vietnam, our correspondence often contained the cryptic message S.W.A.K. (sealed with a kiss) on the flap of the envelope. The only difference between then and now is that we also had a written letter inside that could be held in our hands and read. Some of us still have those letters.

 

  

 

 

Ted Williams

Ted Williams broke into major league baseball with the Boston Red Sox on April 20, 1939. Because there is so much going on in today’s world and because baseball plays such a minor role in today’s world, that anniversary went unnoticed. Even in Boston, the big news yesterday was today’s Marathon—and that’s all right.

  

Ted Williams wanted to be known as the greatest hitter ever and the general consensus is that he was. By its very definition, being the “greatest” anything puts one on a very lonely plateau. You are separated from the common man by your uncommon skill and the common man is separated from you.

While Ted Williams wished to isolate himself from everyone else when it came to hitting a baseball, in every other sense, he was very much a part of the world we all live in. And that might be his greatest legacy. He never allowed his greatness to exclude him from responsibilities that even those who are not great must perform.

Many athletes, today and in the past, as well as singers, actors and other famous “stars” use their celebrity as a ticket to be aloof. Maybe they have that coming. Maybe everybody deserves a private life, but taken to an extreme, many stars abandon the real world for a fantasy world where only the rich and famous live.   

The problem is not so much that they lose contact with the real world but that the real world is unable to connect with them. The common man cannot touch greatness. 

  In World War II and again in the Korean War, Williams went from being the greatest hitter ever to being a fighter pilot trainee and then a fighter pilot. The standard line applied to this action is that he was patriotic enough to do his duty, but that it prevented him from setting records that might be unapproachable even today. But there is something else that needs to be recognized.

In 1941, there were just 400 major league baseball players and Williams was arguably the best. But there were millions of soldiers and sailors, and tens of millions more people supporting the war effort. For five years, in two wars, he wasn’t one of them—the 400; he was one of us—the millions.   

My mother became a part of this team of proud Americans from all walks of life who put their lives on hold to serve their country. Of course, she wasn’t coming off of a .406 season, but everyone gave up something. When she joined, she became a teammate of her future husband, her brothers and brothers-in-law, and Ted Williams.

In fact, she was trained as an airplane mechanic and like Williams, was stationed at Pensacola. Although she was just a very casual baseball fan, she did grow up just 25 miles north of Boston, and so was familiar with the Red Sox and with Ted Williams. But baseball wasn’t a big part of her life. Certainly my father and uncles were bigger fans.

Nevertheless, when I was growing up she would tell us about her Navy days in Pensacola, stories that almost always included, "Ted Williams was stationed there at the same time.

She could say this because Ted Williams chose not to stay up atop the mountain, but rather to come down in the valley with the rest of us. It was good of him to do this, no matter how many hits and home runs he lost. But it was good for everybody else to have him on their team.