Nashville Man Learns To Read In His 50s

Some stories can change us.

"I don't think anybody knew that I had that problem, I kept it hid really really well," said 71-year-old Joe Buford.

The way Buford's story starts is with a secret.

"It affected everything I'd done," he said.

He was too embarrassed to tell anyone he made it through high school and more than 50 years of his life illiterate. Neither family nor friends knew and he worked very hard to keep it that way.

In fact he was married almost 10 years when  his wife asked him to read something.

"It sucked the life out of me," he said, "to the day it's still hard to talk about that. It felt like you had failed at something, it made me feel very bad."

But with her support he found the Nashville Adult Literacy Council 12 years ago.

That's where Buford found out he's not alone. One out of 8 adults in Nashville cannot read and the Literacy Council works with hundreds of adults every year. The non-profit functions on donations. Dollar General gives millions to the program which doesn't charge participants a cent.

"All we're doing here at the literacy foundation is open that door that leads people where they're destined to go," said Denine Torr with Dollar General.

After several months of working one-on-one with a tutor, Joe says his secret began to lift off of him.

He even reads in public at his church.

"One of the favorite things I read is the Bible. Cause we do it every week," he said.

And in situations where he used to hide in the background, worried someone would expose him, now he's front and center. Using the stories of others to finally live his own.

"It changed the way I feel about myself," he said.

The tissue company Kleenex honored Joe's accomplishments in the video below.