38 Julie Hesson – Literacy Narrative
Julie Hesson (She/Her/Hers) is a Junior from Boonville, Indiana . This work was prepared for Sara Baxter’s ENG W131 (27010), who states, “Julie embraced the storytelling qualities of the literacy narrative genre. You really feel like you are there with her in the moment as you read her story.”
Literacy Narrative
I remember summer break of 1980 as if it was yesterday. I was eight years old, living my parents and my older sister, in an eighteen-house subdivision in Boonville, Indiana. There was ten of us kids that ran together in the neighborhood and six more from the street down from ours. We would ride our bikes, roller skate, play kickball, dodge ball and baseball, explore in woods and go swimming in the stripper pit connected to our sub-division, build blanket forts out on my parents’ carport, anything and anywhere our imaginations would take us.
A month into summer break on a hot and humid sunny day. Theresa, age nine and Terri, age eleven and I are sitting in the porch swing on my parents’ carport. The three of us have some strategizing to do, on the books we want check out and read for the Summer Reading Book Club, (you had to read so many books on the list at your grade to earn a coupon for a free ice cream cone.) and our adventure to the Warrick County Library just off the square in Downtown Boonville. We do our checklist; library card, books to return, personal book list, official reading club booklist paper (the Librarian would place a special sticker and write her initials next to books you read when you returned them), money for a hot fudge sundae afterwards at Jullian’s Drug Store and for shopping at Miller’s Five and Dime Store. Most important is does everyone have their phone call quarter? Cell phones did not exist back then nor did home computers and laptops. If they did? They were extremely expensive and not affordable.
We had exactly four and half hours to complete our adventure. If we were going to be late getting back home? One of us had to use our quarter to make that phone call, from a payphone, informing one of mother’s we would be late but we were never to be late. With our checklist completed, we make the forty-five-minute walk to the library. While at the top of steps and entering the library, the cold air from the air conditioning hits our hot bodies as does the smell of the many books, old and new, hits our little noses. We are inside, Theresa takes off to find V.C. Andrews Book Flowers in the Attic and there is a copy. Theresa sneaks up behind Terri and I giggling and informs us of her find. The three of us, rush off to the corner furthest away from librarian and we sit down on the floor, trying to hide and be as small as possible.
Theresa opens the book; she starts reading and it’s like something magical. I can’t believe my ears. I haven’t heard anything like this before. Theresa hands the book to Terri and she starts reading. Again, I can’t believe it, then I start reading, over and over we take turns reading aloud using our church voices to each other. Before we know it’s way past our time to leave, no time for our other two planned places to visit, we have to go! The three of us walked the fastest we have ever in our lives while talking about what we just got away with, as if we just robbed a bank. Our minds are racing over the mystery and terminal of the people and the three children in the book. Our walk seemed only to take a few minutes, when it did not.
The next day the three of us meet on the carport. It was all the three of us could talk about while sitting in the porch swing, swinging back and forth. We would not do a book a report on this book, as each of us would write a book report when we all three had read the same book. NO HOW! We Would be caught! We had our own book club decades before book clubs became popular. The three of us would take two more adventures to the library with sole purpose to read the next plot twist of Flowers in the Attic. Over the next several years, the three of us along with our fellow neighborhood friends would continue our trips to Library.
In 1989, I am in the second semester of my sophomore year of High School. I’m in Mr. Stillwell’s Advanced Literature and Composition class. We are reading the classic books, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Great Gatsby. I write book report on each and present my book report in front of class. Mr. Stillwell graded me heavily on my incorrect cursive hand writing. “When teachers read your papers and ignored your ideas but corrected your grammatical mistakes, they were telling you this story: Writing is nothing but error avoidance” (Wardle & Downs, 2020, p. 5). My older sister is left-handed and I am right-handed. I learned to write in cursive by watching her. Still there are no cell phones or computers for us to use in the classrooms. I was so excited to finally be able to have and to use a college-ruled notebook. All changed when Mr. Stillwell introduces me to poetry and the writings by Edgar Allan Poe. The Black Cat, The Raven, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and mostly The Masque of the Red Death. While reading Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death. I recall the visions in my head of the elaborate iron gates, the décor to every last detail in the seven colored rooms from top to ceiling, the ornate and lavish costumes and masks of one thousand friends and guest attending the masquerade ball, the sounds of laughter, the music and the clock as it chimes. Then as the Red the Death enters, the killings and how all changes from happiness and laughter to sorrow and then silence. The moral of story no matter how rich or poor you may be, no one ever escapes death.
After high school, I go on to college at the University of Southern Indiana, USI, in Evansville, Indiana. USI a forty-five-minute drive from home and live on campus. My parents want me to have the full college experience. A couple of months into the 1994 spring semester, I make the decision to change majors, nursing and psychology, and transfer to the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, CCMS, in Ohio to be a Funeral Director/Embalmer. One day while driving to my parents’ house, I was having a moment of crisis. I was doubting my decision and prayed to GOD…. to please give me a sign. He didn’t give me a sign; he gave me billboard. A few minutes later, I’m right behind a Batesville Casket Company delivery semi-van trailer on the back “Batesville Casket Company, Committed to the Dignity of Life.” GOD has a sense of humor when it comes to me. Reading a company’s motto on the back of a semi-van trailer at the right moment in time, would have such an impact on my decision. I ended up transferring to CCMS, graduating, accepting a position as an Indiana Licensed Funeral Director/Embalmer in Rensselaer, Indiana.
Fast forward to May, 2015, I’m still at my job, my husband and I have been married fifteen-years and our daughter, Addison, age ten. Addison auditions for a part in Fendig Theatre for Children 40th Anniversary production of Mary Poppins The Musical. Fendig Theatre for Children is a non-profit and is FREE to all students within the Rensselaer School Corporation, after completion of their school year, fourth through eighth grade. Fendig Theatre for Children is funded by an endowment set in place by late Ralph and late Lilian Fendig. Rehearsals start on the first day of summer break from eleven am to four pm, Monday thru Friday in the Rensselaer Central High School Ralph and Lilian Fendig Auditorium, for six weeks, with full dress rehearsals and play productions at seven pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the seventh week. During the three nights of production there is no adult backstage. The kids do all the costume, make-up and set changes, in the tech booth there is only one adult, (so, no one’s ear drums get blown out by a sound error and/or should a spot light bulb go out.)
The children of Fendig Theatre, costume and set designs, past and present, are truly amazing and all their productions are comparable, to any Broadway in Chicago Theatre Production! I have seen.[Fendig Theatre for Children Mission and Philosophy; The missions of Fendig Theatre for Children are to provide youth with an opportunity to be involved in all aspects of the production of theatre; to provide the community with theatre that is both artistically and educationally challenging; to help local youth develop a better understanding of the potential of theatre for fostering human development, while also helping them understand the technical aspects of theatre; and to use theatre as a means of developing a sense of community. The Philosophy of Fendig Theatre for Children is to let the children run the run the entire performance. There are no adults backstage or handling the technical aspects of the production on nights of performance. It is all done by the children](Fendig Theatre for children website, 2024).
After the production of Mary Poppins The Musical, I join Fendig as a board member and as treasure, 2015-2020. Each year starting in October the Fendig board starts accepting applications for paid staff; play director, assistant play director, musical director, set and tech director, and costume designers. Once the play director is hired, the board members; take the directors top three picks for production into consideration, orders copies of and reads each script, and then votes on which is the next production. Also, as board member after rehearsals we go in and construct the sets for the production’s way into the early morning hours up till the night of production. The Arts and Literacies, Arts Education Partnership website and mission expands on the definition of Literacy; [Traditionally, literacy has been defined as the ability to read and write text. From the beginning of our work, we wanted this project to expand the narrative of literacy to be inclusive of the different ways people make meaning, beyond just reading and writing. The arts education field is active in supporting a broad concept of literacy that includes media, movement and sound, and it was our goal to bring together a group of people to build on this work and surface different perspectives across communities and fields] (Arts Education Partnership Website, 2024).
The scripts that I read, were all based off of novels and written as a musical stage production, that ended up as a production of Fendig Theatre for Children, during my time as a board member and treasure, are the following; 2016-The Wizard of Oz, 2017-Hello, Dolly! 2018-Disney’s Newsies, and 2019-The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Unfortunately, I had to resign in April of 2020, due being made and defined as an essential worker #Lastresponder, due to the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. Today, I am at crossroads in my life. Leaving the job I had worked for over twenty-eight years. Having to think back on the literacies throughout my life. The types of reading and writing I enjoyed as child and for brief moments while in high school and in college was books, novels, and reports. The reading and writing I enjoy today is more research, science, factual, and structured based and the nontraditional aspect of literacy through the performing arts, I truly enjoyed then and to this day. How has literacy made me who am today? My friends, teachers, professors past and present, employers, families I have cared for, my past fellow board members, the staff and the children of Fendig Theatre for Children, all organizations as a member, my schools, colleges and classmate’s past and present are my Literacy Sponsors. “All of us were shaped by what Brandt calls literacy sponsors — people, ideas, or institutions that helped us become literate, but literate in specific ways” (Wardle & Douglas, 2020, p. 226). I truly appreciate all of my literacy sponsors as they continue to have an impact on my life. I am left with the thought and question; How do I serve as a literacy sponsor to others?
References
Andrews, V.C. (1979) Flowers in the Attic. Dollanganger Series, Simon and Schuster. Arts Education Partnership, The Arts and Literacies. (n.d.). The Arts and Literacies. Arts Education Partnership. Retrieved May 3, 2024, from https://www.aep-arts.org/the-arts-and-literacies/
Fendig Theatre for Children. (n.d.). Fendig Theatre for Children. Retrieved May 3, 2024, from https://www.fendigtheatre.org/#/
Fendig Theatre for Children. (2017, July 12). Hello, Dolly! from Tams-Witmark Music Library, Rensselaer Central High School Auditorium [Video]. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxjp9Ex0v7NHUnk3UFdjUGF3Q00/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-YAiWhhVfZhZb_j5o8abjMw
Fendig Theatre for Children. (2018, July 12). Based on the Disney film by Tzudiker, B., and Noni White. Disney Newsies The Broadway Musical from Tams-Witmark Music Library, Rensselaer Central High School Auditorium [Video]. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vJdMfy09ER0CxMYQwzfIz1DUY9eR-B59/view?usp=sharing
Fendig Theatre for Children. (2019, July 12). The Hunchback of Notre Dame from Music Theatre International, MTI, Music Library, Rensselaer Central High School Auditorium [Video].
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mmH5mZ6YqGeEqgtWeZ8xaVMkkuuzzZim/view?usp=sharing/
Fendig Theatre for Children. (2019, July 12). The Hunchback of Notre Dame from Music Theatre International, MTI, Music Library, Rensselaer Central High School Auditorium [Video].
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SWUqGH_7v64UK1sWcZBf_RlfBRjf2fb9/view?usp=sharing
Poe, E. A. (1882, April). The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy, The Masque of the Red Death. Graham’s Magazine.
Wardle, E., & Downs, D. (2020). Writing About Writing for Indiana University East-English 131 (4th ed.). Bedford St. Martin’s. IU eTexts (Unizin Engage), https://indiana.courseload.com/#/content-40122