January 18, 2016

For my third January installment on Fleming Education, I must turn to my mother, who in 1960, after my father, my sisters and she moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, began pursuing her college degree, a journey that wouldn't truly end until 1984, when she earned her M.A. in Public History, graduating at the same time that I graduated with my own B.A.  Even beyond that, my mother remained the most intellectually curious person I have ever met.  The umblilical cord that connected the two of us may have been intellectual/academic as much as it ever was anatomical.

A Son-ography

From embryo to fetus to new-born

I accompanied you to revered rooms

Where pedant professors glared with scorn:

"Pregnant women shouldn't be in school," fumed.

Even though the nursing students giggled,

They protected their favorite prof's wife.

While in the womb as I must have wiggled,

Were their voices a preview of my life?

Did God encourage me to make an exit

During the fortuity of a Spring Break,

Loving hand still guiding from your bedsit,

Despite the times your faith in him quaked?

I cost you a test you couldn't make up,

Yet you quickly got back in a few days.

(I wonder, was Dad tempted to take up,

Pull his weight, to get the rare "C" erased?)

I'd like to say we showed that old jerk,

Five degrees, a certificate 'tween us,

But he'd never understand the hard work,

And twenty years on respond with mean cuss.

I envy your unquenched thirst to learn

Well beyond some teacher's assigned texts,

Even now that God has made you return,

I weigh which of your books I will read next.