Dyslexic Dick

Synopsis

Title- Dyslexic DickSubtitle - True Adventures of My World Volume - 1About The Book I first discovered that I had dyslexia when I was 44 years old. At the time, I reached the peak of my career as a Director of Production in information technology for the fixed income service bureau, a division of ADP Automatic Data Processing Inc. My mother was dying of cancer and I was helping her put her affairs in order before her agonizing death. She had pulled out a box that she had hidden away for years, and handed me a big folded piece of vanilla crepe paper. I open the paper to reveal my first kindergarten attempt at spelling my full name, and that almost every letter was painted in the reverse image. Shocked at what I had discovered, I looked at her and asked, "I'm Dyslexic?" My mother acknowledged, and told me that she and my father had learned of my dyslexia when I was 13 years old. She continued to explain how my parents decided to keep it a secret from me and everyone else they could. My parents thought I would grow out of it. Blinded with anger of what I learned, knowing that I had certainly not grown out of my dyslexia. My life shot before my eyes, of all the difficulties I had even to this day due to dyslexia. Later that evening at home I had sworn my wife to secrecy, had a few drinks, and decided to bury this family secret forever. After 10 years of concealment of my learning disability, I had done an in depth research on dyslexia. I discovered that 1 out of 5 Americans have a reading and writing disability in which 70% are dyslexic that is about 43 million people. In addition, because of the social effects of growing up as a perceived illiterate through learned behavior, a dyslexic's personality becomes defensive by hiding the disability. Some of the personality traits of a dyslexic are isolation, only 25% are married or in a long-term relationship. They are masters of deception when it comes to concealing their disability. Because dyslexics feel inadequate personally and socially, there is a very high rate of long-term depression, drug and/or alcohol abuse. During my research I had this Big Ah-Ha moment, these were all the personality traits I had experienced, although I went through life thinking that I suffered from a bad case of stupidity. But, now this problem has a name-Dyslexia. Then for the first time I took a trip down memory lane to my childhood, and began to write. I never wanted to go back there before, because I didn't want to remember those days. When I started writing, I couldn't stop. Once I finished writing I realized that I had lived a pretty crazy childhood, filled with many funny, suspenseful and emotional stories. So strap on your seatbelts and keep your hands inside the window. This is your wild ride of Dyslexic Dick, True Adventures of My World. Richard "Dick" W. Kraemer