On Shakespeare and Wishbone (and Autodidacticism)

In the mid 90s, there was a TV show on PBS featuring a tiny Jack Russell Terrier named Wishbone who was a lover of literature. (Googling it now, it says there were only two seasons, and that can’t possibly be right, right?) Each week, Wishbone would assume the role of the protagonist from a great work of fiction or myth, Quasimodo and Hercules and Oliver Twist. Dogs and books? I was a fan.

The most literary dog to have ever lived

In the spring of the third grade, my mother showed me Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. To say this film left an indelible mark on my young spirit would be an understatement. I sauntered around the house in long dresses, affecting a broken Shakespearean accent, which I am confident was not annoying in the slightest. I would later memorize Juliet’s “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” soliloquy to audition for my fourth grade Christmas play. I had never before seen language and celluloid married in such a manner.

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet

Being the little whippersnapper I was, I decided to take it upon myself to read the play. I loved my third-grade teacher, a no-nonsense young blonde named Mrs. Ardito. She was the first adult I heard make regular use of the word “damn” in the presence of children. Mrs. Ardito told me yes, I could use Romeo and Juliet for required reading with a “good luck, kid” look that let me know while she knew I was precocious, she wasn’t about to hold my hand through the Bard’s iambic pentameter and twenty-dollar words.

What was a budding literarian to do? I was about two onionskin-thin pages into bible-tiny typeset of Capulets and Montagues biting their thumbs at each other before an idea occurred.

Wishbone released a series of children’s books to coincide with the episodes of the show, child friendly versions in fat, 16-point type with occasional illustrations. (I say this as though the dog himself released the books. Who knows, that’s a damn clever breed of dog.)

I asked for a copy of Wishbone’s version of Romeo and Juliet. I read the two tomes in conjunction. A slow crawl through dialogue with my nine-year-old mind recognizing about every eighth word, then a breezy recap of the equivalent points covered in Wishbone.

The "Wishbone Classics" version of Romeo and Juliet

I pride myself in being an autodidact. I love learning, I love uncovering wormholes of information about some historic subset of knowledge. I love teaching myself how to do things. I am, however, not great in a classroom. I am always annoyingly ahead of my cohorts. I am Hermione Granger, raising her hand with an answer to every question. It occurred to me recently, that this was my first venture into autodidacticism. I wanted to read Shakespeare. I knew I wasn’t advanced enough to comprehend it. I came up with a solution to teach myself.

I have carried this trait well into adulthood. I am a college dropout. I am a firm believer that college ruins reading for pleasure for nearly everyone who attends, but that’s a blog post for another day…

I taught myself to write a book. To research and compose and edit. I’ve spent my free hours corralling enough information to cobble together a career as an author. (Insert shameless plug for Journey Man here, dropping from Extra Extra Publishing House in September.) Surely that deserves a retroactive pizza party?

All this to say, follow your bliss. The internet is a vast and endless free resource at your disposal. If you want to learn a new language, to pursue a new career, to learn underwater basketweaving, or play the mandolin, or code using Python, you do you. There are experts at your fingertips willing to help when you run into a snag in your collecting of knowledge. There’s YouTube and Udemy and Masterclass. You get to decide how you will spend your money to learn what you wish to learn. It is immensely freeing to know you are in control of your knowledge. And, because we’re all adults, we can order any damn pizza we want in celebration. Pineapple and black olives on mine, please. Don’t judge. Get your own autodidact pizza.