As she does, my daughter Katy brought me a bunch of seven huge sunflowers. She knows I love their brightness. But more than that, they remind me of my early school days.
Barefoot, we would walk the five ks from the farm at Buccan to the one-roomed school at Logan Village. About once a year, or not even that, the entire school of some twenty students would have a drawing lesson. Out would come the box of chalk ends. And we cleaned our slates. Mr. Brown would draw a circle on the board, bidding us to do the same.
He coloured it in brown. So did we. Then he drew what looked like a petal on the top side of the circle, another on the lower and one more on either side of these, dividing the circle into four even spaces. Then a petal was added to the middle of each space, until all the spaces were filled. All the petals were coloured yellow if you were lucky enough to find some yellow chalk. Mr. Brown then added a green stalk with a couple of leaves. We did likewise. Our teacher did not ever graduate to other flowers; the rare drawing lessons were always the same.
I thought my effort was quite beautiful, and left it on my slate to show my parents. I suppose, with a bit of imagination, it did indeed resemble the magnificent sunflowers that presently grace my living room.