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Hi Bill, I agree with Pat. You paint a lovely picture and suddenly I am reminded of my own schooldays. Not so very different in fact. I agree with your suggestion about a change of title and although the last line is a slight puzzle for us northern hemisphere dwellers I think it matters not, we will all make guesses that will probably be not too far wrong. John. >----Original Message---- >From: [log in to unmask] >Date: 30/10/2013 9:18 >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Subj: Re: Slipping in (title tentative) > >Thanks, Pat. Thinking of changing title to Slipping into Belonging. What think you? Final line might escape meaning in your hemisphere. I schooled in Balwyn on the other side of the river from Ivanhoe where I lived. > >Bill > >> On 30 Oct 2013, at 6:48 pm, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> Bill thanks lovely picture -memories P >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill Wootton >> Sent: 29 October 2013 20:21 >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Subject: Slipping in (title tentative) >> >> Slipping in >> >> Aware of being on the edge of change; >> The Moon landing being slipped into British >> History as an example of modern colonisation. >> >> Doing Geography projects in small groups, >> presenting finished product on coloured A3 paper; >> negotiating up from being responsible for The Heading. >> >> Ribbed long socks and pale yellow cotton girls' sports tunics; >> Annette's wiry red hair and freckled arms clashing with all that >> paleness. We boys trimming the bottom isosceles of our tan ties. >> >> Rock Lunch Club: voluntarily opting to sit at desks after The Bell, >> egg sangos and fruitcake splayed from brown bags; Cocker Happy >> jaunting on the school's stereo, wall-mounted Wharfedale speakers. >> >> Double desking with Felicity in Pure, >> while chalked formulae accumulated on the smooth blackboard. >> Waiting for her thigh to shift; the times she allowed nestle. >> >> Frosty mornings, slinging my Malvern Star up, front wheel >> latching between spokes on the high hook in the Bike Shelter. >> Mouse's inert red 500cc Suzuki gleaming below its pedal cousins. >> >> Room 32, the dour Test Room, in its own isolated block, sometimes >> doubling as a drama room; pretending to not care when my part >> in a play was rotated to Jovan, who later died in a car accident. >> >> Noticing my hand being the only one up, responding >> to a question about The Merchant of Venice, the penny >> dropping: the maths/science elites really didn�t know. >> >> Mrs Sikh who wrote maths solutions with both hands on the board >> at the same time, not to show off but because she found it efficient; >> Mr Bodley, insisting post-PE shower doors remain propped open. >> >> Muffled laughter in the Breezeway, from behind cupped hands: >> catching the word 'period', clearly not denoting subject session, >> knowing there was stuff I didn't know and couldn't ask about. >> >> Tough Macca dropping dead after an inter- school footy game. >> Guest speaker Danny Spooner singing 'The Famous Flower of Serving Men' >> a cappella; the hush in the hall at the tale of portents and transformations. >> >> Collecting signatures on a petition for which I wrote the preamble, >> proposing a Form Six student smoking room in the Physics lab; posting >> it in the mail in a stamped envelope to squeaky-voiced Principal Perry. >> >> Summoned to 'Head' office as number one signatory, >> being treated warily, respectfully, by someone in power >> for the first time. Permission denied; a watch put on me. >> >> Ned Wilson Beatling his straight hair vertically over his forehead, >> running the black comb teeth the full width of his head just above eye >> level, never taking eyes off his image in the long mirror in the boys' toilet. >> >> Hearing instructions in French over the PA for a senior class; >> ignoring other bulletins over the PA, not even knowing that >> The Pirates of Penzance was a musical, for the whole of 1968. >> >> Failing woodwork in form two and my father a carpenter; >> Pop Quizzes in Science trotted out by a rotund American; >> matching terms with precise definitions his brainwave. >> >> Reversed polarities in steeply tiered Room 15, desks perched >> on scaffolding-supported floorboards, designed for cooking >> demonstrations, enabling looking down on vulnerable teacher. >> >> The rumbling of pulled down continuous cloth �blackboards� >> to expose virgin dark green - or remnants of an unscrubbed lesson. >> Yardstick rulers resting on the wall, outsized wooden protractors. >> >> Feeling woozy in metalwork room; each boy at lesson's end, standing >> to attention by his vice, silent, stared down by grey dust-coated >> Mr Mir's chocolate eyes above wiry black-grey moustache. >> >> The wooden seat of my chair coming adrift, thwacking to the floor >> as we inverted them in unison at day's end in Art, laughter; >> accepted for the first time on the other side of the Yarra. >> >> bw >> 30.10.13= >> >