RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Still realizing his dreams
Arnett Lathan is 83 years old, and a resident of the Washington County Nursing Home. He has begun a project of which he is very proud and loves to talk about: he is reading the Bible through. At present he is not almost half finished. One might consider that reading the Bible through is not all that rare as the Southern Baptist Convention has a perpetual plan for reading the Bible through in one year; however, Arnett is reading his Bible through and teaching himself to read at the same time. "I spell out the letters of each word and then I say it," he explained. Lathan was raised in a community called Lathan Fork which lies off Highway 56 past Springbank Baptist Church. He walked two miles one way to the Laton School at Laton Hill; sometimes over frozen ground. The school stood about where the Laton Hill Baptist Church parsonage stands today. Lathan said, "I never finished the third grade," however, he remembers the names of the three teachers he had for his limited schooling at Laton Hill: Hattie Brown, Mattie Scarbrough and Wesley Scarbrough. He recalled some of the games he played at school. One of them was "foxes and hounds." He said they used real dogs to chase the boys (foxes). "We used Grady and Russell Scarbrough's dog and they ran us up trees. "I tell you, I shot some marbles at that school, too." He said with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. Lathan's niece said he did attend a very limited number of adult literacy classes after he was well into his seventies. She said he made the decision to do that after retirement at a stage in life where education is over for most people. Lathan has determined on his own initiative to read the Bible through. Lathan is an "overcomer" in several ways: he has largely self-taught himself to read and he has battled back from infirmities. He said that at one point, "I couldn't walk or talk." Now he often pushes other nursing home residents into the dining room or other common areas and his conversation is as clear as anyone's. An amazing fact about Arnett Lathan is that he retired from Olin Corporation and served in the United States Navy with his second grade education. How he compensated for his literacy handicap would surely make an interesting account. Upon retirement, he was the proud recipient of a gold watch from the Olin Corporation which he handed down to his niece when he entered the nursing home.
Arnett Lathan comes from the generation born in the 1920s who were children and teens during the Great Depression, a time that tested the mettle of people to overcome seemingly insurmountable hardships and great odds. His accomplishments are a tribute to the determination of the human spirit, which at an advanced age, still sets and reaches goals.
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
