Max,
You might have given an example of a desirable encouraging report. I remember at Tech school in my first year when writen reports were starting to grow in expected size, a hardy few tradies resisted this new educlaptrap and continued to trot out 'A good lad' on all reports even if the student had left or never turned up. Very Unwen, Wittington and Zigo or whatever that film was called.
I know you like aerating you poems but this one might benefit from some bunching up perhaps rather than so many short couplets? I do like the Catholic school stuff and the tentative love for and pride in the father.
Bill
> On 4 Jun 2014, at 9:07 pm, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Card Table, Breakfast Table
>
> When up, the folding card table
> with spindly legs - don’t sit on it,
>
> don’t even lean! - dominated
> the living room. Sometimes, Dad,
>
> rather than trek to the office,
> wrote reports on it. It was that
>
> or the kitchen table. He’d finished
> being head of primary schools
>
> from the north of the island
> to the south, and proudly joined
>
> the Primary Inspectorate.
> This meant a desk I never saw
>
> in Newmarket, a Government car
> sometimes, brought to the door
>
> late on Sunday, impressing the whole
> street, a dark suit and satchel,
>
> trips Monday to Friday off
> to the outer reaches
>
> of the Board, staying at pubs,
> or easier weeks round Auckland.
>
> Even Catholic schools the State
> inspected, always stimulating:
>
> ah, the nuns are so welcoming -
> they seldom see a man unless a priest.
>
> The lunch they put on for us!
> Just don’t go in Lent.
>
> As for the suspicious polish
> on the children’s work - those nuns!
>
> (Maori Schools had a separate -
> pakeha - Inspectorate,
>
> extra tasks, longer journeys,
> rougher pubs overnight.)
>
> I’d look over Dad’s shoulder
> as he drafted and wrote fair copies
>
> of the week’s reports.
> Never more than a page long.
>
> The handwriting was steady,
> regular, just like I’d seen
>
> chalked up on blackboards
> at Randwick and Epuni Schools.
>
> Fourth form, my ‘grammar school’ report
> said: English good. Dad would ask me:
>
> 'Is this sentence clear?' Simplicity
> we both admired, tact also.
>
> Some reports had warnings in them.
> Encouragement was better.
>
> Good advice he loved - when young
> he’d feared Inspectors too,
>
> and - they got on with him.
> They knew his father was
>
> in Parliament, front bench.
> It made for respect.
>
> Reports went to the office
> where typists admired his hand.
>
> Now fold away the card table,
> or was I up for more gin rummy?
>
> I pleaded homework - grammars
> he knew nothing of, Latin and French.
>
> I was moving beyond him,
> trying out words too long for him.
>
> Tact! - at breakfast I was denouncing
> politicians over the marmalade
>
> and The New Zealand Herald,
> in terms like ‘stupid idiots!’ -
>
> adolescent arrogance,
> infuriating Dad,
>
> upsetting peace-loving Mum.
> She made two breakfast times -
>
> an early start for the Inspector
> driving north to Omapere;
>
> a later for his son pedalling
> pushbike through hot sun
>
> and often pelting rain
> round Mount Albert’s steep roads,
>
> in his satchel a cut lunch
> and 'The Golden Treasury',
>
> to school - secondary,
> so one Dad never inspected;
>
> nor visited, despite respect
> for their reports (‘good progress’).
>
> Mum turned up to watch me run -
> third in the Open Mile -
>
> generous handicap - which Dad
> had never needed when he won
>
> the Teachers’ College
> long distance events.
>
> I cycled home while
> Mum went home by bus.
>
> Around the dinner table
> there’d be no politics.
>
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