Principal Gail Richardson-Basset, left, greets the Buford sisters, from left, Brynn, third grade, Genevieve, PreK-3, Lila, seventh grade and Fiona, fifth grade, during the first day of school at Good Shepherd Catholic School in Garland on Aug. 14. (RON HEFLIN/Special Contributor)
By Father Timothy Gollob
Special to The Texas Catholic
In this “Back To School” issue, there is much ado about our youngsters going back into the classroom, but what about we elders. When we retire, do we cease to learn?
My mother, Mary Lois Blair, got degrees at San Marcos Teachers College and the University of Texas in the early days of the 20th century.
She taught many years and she was content to rest and to travel with her husband, Joseph, for awhile, but then… she wondered what else she could do.
She saw an advertisement for a creative writing class at a local Tyler college. She announced to her family that she had always wanted to be a poet and a creative writer.
Running this notion by them, the response from her husband was to do it if that is what she really wanted to do. I said, “I’d like to see some of your works, Mama Hemingway.”
My brother, Michael, said that there was no way she could do it! That was a mistake. You did not challenge our mother. She was determined to sign up for that class and to finish the course. And she did.
My sister, Jeanette, has just mailed me some of the poems that she wrote. They are well done. They have inspired me to write this column. Maybe we can all go “Back To School” and pick up new skills and new visions.
To Anne (May 19, 1965)
Before you were born
I made a blue and white quilt
Appliqued with some animals of the Ark.
I hope I don’t get that lonely again, I said.
Now you are six and half months old
With two crooked teeth,
A wobbly one stroke crawl
And a braced arm sit up.
Now, I shall try to applique
A few stories of your ancestry —
Huguenots, Huns, Tenneseeians, Cherokeians.
I really must be lonely this time, I say.
Father Timothy Gollob is the pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Oak Cliff.
