Learning Center A Lifesaver For Hearing Impaired Man

Less than a year ago, David Cook was sleeping under bridges and getting most of his nourishment from a bottle.

Now he has a new lair - the Learning Center in Kellogg.

“My self-esteem when I came to the Valley was like this,” he said, pressing two fingers together. “Now it’s like this,” he said, spreading his arms wide.

Cook, 50, said the chance to get an education has turned his life around. Entering first grade in 1953, he recalls being immediately singled out.

“They said I was retarded, that I would never learn to read. Know why? Because when I take this out,” he said, removing his hearing aid. “Nothing.” He both spoke and signed the next sentence. “That’s why I didn’t learn to read.”

Cook still remembers the names his classmates called him. He claims the humiliation made him mean.

“One time I even let a skunk loose in the fourth-grade class so they’d have to shut the school down,” he said with a grin.

It also made him self-destructive.

“The rejection hurt,” he said. “I started drinking in the third grade.”

Cook struggled through elementary school. His Leadwood, Mo., school system stopped issuing report cards for him when he reached junior high. “They were tired of giving me all F’s,” he said.

When he reached 10th grade, Cook dropped out.

Taking off for St. Louis, Cook landed a job in the shipyards, then promptly lost it. He applied for a job at a car dealership. The owner said he knew Cook could do the job, but rejected him because he couldn’t read well enough to fill out an application.

“Every time I tried for a job, I couldn’t fill out the darned application,” Cook said. “And I had to work twice as hard to keep a job as a normal person.”

Working a series of odd jobs, Cook spent leisure hours in bars and restaurants watching people’s lips to try to make out what they were saying.

In 1978, he was hired by a car dealer to do detail work - washing, buffing and steam cleaning cars to make them ready for the lot.

“I was real good at it. Tops in the field,” Cook recalled.

He kept that job for three years before he was fired. He moved on to a car dealership in Kansas City, but soon lost that job because of his drinking problem.

“I could have had a future with that company, but after that, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I kept polish in my suitcase and cleaned cars now and then for drinking money.”

In 1987, Cook managed to secure disability benefits for his health problems. He briefly rented an apartment, but soon gave it up, finding that alcoholism required most of his paycheck.

“My life centered on drinking. All I wanted to do was live under bridges and drink,” he said.

Cook did precisely that for about three years. Then, one day, he found himself on a bridge near Coeur d’Alene, not seeking shelter, but contemplating suicide.

“I told myself, it’s over. But I couldn’t even do that right,” he said.

Instead of jumping, Cook found a phone booth and called Kootenai Medical Center, which placed him at the North Idaho Addiction Recovery Center in Kellogg.

He’s stopped drinking. He has his own apartment. But Cook seems less proud of kicking a lifelong addiction than of his accomplishments at the Learning Center.

“Look,” he said, taking down a reading book designed to introduce the letter “A.” He turned midway through it, then read aloud: “An astronaut came by. I will help you, said the astronaut.”

Cook rubbed the page and said: “Astronaut. When I read that word, I started crying. I’ve been different all my life, separated from this world because I couldn’t read. Now I’m down here every day. It’s all I want anymore.”

The Learning Center is located at the Steelworker’s Hall in Kellogg. Call Debbie Johannson at 783-5205 for more information.

, DataTimes MEMO: Bekka Rauve is a freelance writer who lives in the Silver Valley. Panhandle Pieces appears every Saturday. The column is shared among several North Idaho writers.