wide reading#2- my father’s hands

My Father’s hands

Written by Calvin R. Worthington

Short story

February 2019

This short story is about a son describing his father, and his father’s hands, explaining the hard times his father went through with being illiterate. this story follows them through their ups and downs during the narators childhood.

In this short story, I found the father interesting because of all the troubles he went through and how he dealt with them with being illiterate and all, although it would have been nice to see this story in his point of view also because you don’t hear about people talking about how they deal with being illiterate. It is very common in our day and age of society they have specific names and they have many ways to help people that struggle. ”maybe he maybe suffered from some type of learning handicap such as dyslexia”. The narrator was also a very interesting character because of the was he illustrated his father’s story, I believe it could have turned out very different but he tried to portray his father in the best light as possible.

In this story it made out the father to look dumb, stupid etc ” he could draw and saw a square with quick accuracy, the father’s hands failed him by never learning to write”. Just because the father couldn’t do things like others, he struggled to read and write didn’t mean he couldn’t do other things he was actually really good and efficient in the things he could do. As he knew all about the stars “he knew where the big dipper and all the other stars were located” and ” he could recall every twist and turn of the pipes” at the shipyard. That’s like in modern day society people classify you as dumb if you can’t read or write or can’t do something most people can do or what you would classify as “normal”, I know for a fact I’ve been told I couldn’t do things but when people tell me that, it makes me more determined to prove them wrong. It doesn’t mean you can’t be good at other things, it’s just labelling a person for what they cant do but not focusing on what they can do. From this I took that just because you can’t do one thing doesn’t mean you can’t do many others and that shouldn’t label someone on what they cant do.

The father had the challenge of being illiterate. When the father was in school his father took him out of school because “for some reason shapes, figures, and recitations just didn’t seem to fall into the right pattern”. The father still carried on trying to get help by getting his son’s second-grade reader-writer to help, but the father couldn’t even get through his son’s second-grade book “The father stopped trying to learn how to write because one night he tried to read his son’s second-grade book until it just became too difficult”. So the father took to his work, working on the farm, cotton mill, a pipe fitter at the shipyard ” during WW 2, he was a pipe fitter in a shipyard and installed the complicated guts of mighty fighting ships”. He just did things he knew he could do and do well. The narrator (the father’s son) had to face challenges as well, with his father being illiterate means there were times where he would have to help his father if he couldn’t read or write things. The father got his son to read the bible to him “often he would ask me to read that part to him, but I was never able to find it. but through the story, they helped each other through the difficult times best they could. This just proves the father and son bond, I feel like I have a really good bond with my father its not quite the same as what’s in the story I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for the son. As we children look up to our parents as role models, people that can do everything and having to see your father struggle with something you can do yourself must be very very hard, I know I look up to my father as a role model cause he can do everything and he does it well. So it makes me really feel for the narrator because it wouldn’t have been an easy life.

I believe that the title of this short story was appropriate because the title just describes what’s going on in this story. The story is about the narrator’s fathers hands, how they helped him and how they hindered him “They were good hands that served him well and failed him in only one thing: they never learned to write”. when you hear the title of the story you expect it to be about “my father’s hands”.

I would highly recommend this short story to early-mid teens (15/16). It shows them to appreciate your elders and to not take them for granted while their around cause you never know what might happen or, when they could leave you.

I find this story not as easy to relate to as other stories I have read because I don’t have an illiterate father in my household. It does really make me feel for the narrator having to see your own father struggle on something that’s so simple for you because like I’ve said they’re our role models we grow up copying what they do, relying on them to be there and help us out when we struggle. When the roles change for the father and narrator they’d have to adjust to the fact of that. We admire what they do and appreciate what they do for us because I think speaking on behalf of all children we know our parents just want the best for us.

while reading this it really made me appreciate the life that I have. I know that I have struggles of my own in my family life but, I always know that if I need my dad he’ll be there for me. Because I have quite a close bond with him as the narrator in the story has with his father.