A Chevy, a Cracker, and the Cross
My grandson Jakub, whom many of you know, just began kindergarten. His teacher explained to his mother that this was not the kindergarten of years gone by, with much time spent eating cookies and sleeping on nap rugs. She said that he would know how to read by Christmas. What a momentous event that is. I believe it was while in first grade that I took my first trip down Main Street in Elkhart , after I began to learn to read. I watched out the car window. I vividly remember in particular one red neon sign with the word, "BAR" on it and how wonderful it was to recognize for the first time, a word outside of a schoolbook that could be read and could understood to mean something. Symbols abound around us. They become such an automatic part of our consciousness that we don't even think of them as symbols. Think of learning to read. There are two stages to the process. First comes the learning and recognition of the a...