Recently, my college degree has just been completed. The last project was called “Smile”. The class was asked to go out to smile at three people and write down their reactions. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake.

My husband, the youngest son and I went out to McDonald’s. We were standing in line when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away. As I turned around, an unpleasant body smell came to my nose and two poor homeless men stood just behind me. As I looked at the short blue-eyed gentleman closest to me, he was “smiling”. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, “Coffee is all, Miss,” because that was all they could afford.

Then I really felt it—I embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action. I smiled and asked two more breakfast meals and gave them to the men.

The blue-eyed gentleman looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Thank you.”

I turned in my project. My teacher asked, “Can I share this?” I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings share this need to make people happy and to be made happy.

In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald’s and every soul that heard the story in the classroom. But, I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn.

A Writing Fool

In the seventh grade I realized I was dyslexic, which made it difficult for me to read and spell. I did really badly in my history course, so my mother said to me, “I’ll work with you for a full week. I’m going to show you what you can do if you put in the right amount of effort.” So we did. We worked on history for a full week, an extra hour every day. Then I went to school and failed the test, as always. It was really upsetting.

By the time I got to college I came to know that I couldn’t spell no matter how hard I tried. So I would sign up for extra courses. I’d be in registration lines all day. Then I would go around the first day of class and ask each professor: “What’s your policy on misspelling?” If he said, “Three misspellings is a fail,” I’d drop it.

Although I was an academic failure, I had a great time. I had many friends and I was always popular. I was a good football player, which was important in those years because I could read my name in the newspaper. I never had a day when I would think, “People don’t like me.”

In spite of my obvious weaknesses, I became successful in my career, so much so that people say to me, “So you’ve overcome dyslexia.” No. I don’t overcome it. I just learn to compensate for it. Some easy things are hard for me. Most people read 500 words a minute. I only read 200. I try not to dial a phone because I sometimes have to dial three times to get the number right. I owe my successful career to my writing instructor, Ralph Salisbury. He looked past my misspellings and gave   me   encouragement.   So   I   always   feel   confident.   When   I   write   my   books, I’m   seeing everything in my imagination. I write quickly and go like the wind.

The real fear that I have for dyslexic people is not that they have to struggle with their reading skills or that they can’t spell correctly, but that they will quit on themselves before they get out of school.