Imaginary Toads: it's all about me

“Kay” is a female name of Greek origin meaning “pure”. This is not an auspicious start to writing a poem in response to Laurie’s poetry challenge at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads but I promised myself I'd try.

A talented photographer whose work I admire, Dimple of Meditations of my Heart, has passed The Versatile Blogger award on to me (and to 14 other people, I must admit, lest “versatile” go to my head).

One of the “rules” for this award is to tell you seven things about me. The other rule is to pass the award on to 15 other people, but I always break half the rules I run across (one thing about me), so I won’t pass it on for fear of upsetting any of my blogging friends.

Now then, here is my submission to Laurie's

Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads name/meaning poetry challenge, and it is all true stuff (I don’t lie, another thing about me).

*

KAY AND SOME THINGS ABOUT HER YOUTH

My name, they say, came from the Greeks,

Marginally better than geeks,

If asked, there is one thing for sure,

I would not have said it meant “pure”!

A child, I was humble and sweet

But just couldn’t keep my room neat.

In school I was meant to do well,

And did — until they rang the bell.

(If girls are not to hit others —

Why do they have little brothers?)

I was no good in games or sports

But usually got good reports.

In French as well as in English,

My poems always were jinglish,

But science and dream-minded I

Never did quite see eye to eye.

So my marks were always quite swell

In writing and things I knew well,

But I graduated from maths

With 51, just for a pass.

My family told me, “Honey,

For UBC there's no money.”

They said, “Though you have potential,

Scholarships would be essential,

And because you didn’t get those,

(Due to mathematical woes

Rather than you being a jerk)

You might have to go out to work.” 

*

I’m writing this because I’ve been thinking about my husband, who graduated from McGill University in Montreal, and retired early from a successful teaching career (his former students friend him on Facebook, so I take that to mean success) and began, instead, selling Registered Education Savings Plans to parents in Alberta, to help make sure this doesn’t happen to children, with or without potential.

He made the move from teaching to RESPs long before he met me, but this is one of the reasons I love him. (Count that as a thing about me, or a thing about Dick, or both.)

I did manage to round myself up some years' worth of university-level credits before settling into a nicely-remunerated living as a newspaper compositor (another thing about me), so please don't think my life has been lived under a bridge. While the University of BC was the only choice for post-secondary education in British Columbia when I was in high school, as soon as I graduated we moved to the west coast where colleges and new universities were being opened, and I availed myself of them when I could.

I’ve also been thinking about my youth because Real Toads member Sherry and I recently discovered, as the old joke goes, we went to different schools together. Born the same year, we grew up in the same city in the interior of BC, for a while in the same part of town, but attended and graduated from different schools. We have never met, except via blogging and e-mail. So, these are things she might have known if...