I Will Never Forget

 I wrote this in September 2016 in a fit of mania brought on by the realization that it was the first day of school, but not for me. Rather than waste time writing another article to mark the occasion I have retrieved this from the basket.

It has been years since I went back to school in September. It's fading out, but I will never forget Grade 12 Latin. In Latin class, when we were bored one day, we made up personal mottoes for the family coat of arms. Mine was "Proboscis magnam habeo." (Probably wrong after all this time. Not sure about the gender of "proboscis".) I hear you asking for a translation. It means "I have a large trunk" (like the trunk of an elephant, not a box with a hinged lid for storing summer clothing after Labour Day). "Trunk," I hear you say. "Do you use it to feed yourself or take a bath? Are you sensitive about the size of your nose? Aren't you exaggerating?" Answers: "Hmmmm, not usually. Yes, I guess. Maybe a bit." I think I just wanted to have some fun with words and impress my friends. The more interesting the sound and the more absurd the image evoked, the better I liked it.

Question: "But why choose the word 'trunk'? You could have picked 'nose'." (Get it? Sorry. Can't resist wordplay, even now.) 

Then there was English class. According to Shakespeare, "that which we call a nose by any other name would smell the same." You might recognise that as a parody of Juliet's speech in which she assures Romeo that his name doesn't matter to her, in spite of the family feud. She likes his floral after-shave anyway. Here's the quote. 

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
Romeo: I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Sigh. Where's the Kleenex when you need it? Haven't read enough of this stuff since graduation in 1960. School was good for something if only increasing the demand for Kleenex.

Let me have a go at this.

Juliet: What's in a nose?
Romeo: Gimme a Kleenex and I'll show you.
Juliet: I thought this was poetry, but I can see it's not.

(Snicker, get it?) That's the way we talked in grade 12 in the back row. Doesn't have quite the ring of the original, does it? Well, I never claimed to be a Shakespeare, but I do have fun with words.

Years passed, and I should have grown up, but instead I became a teacher of high school chemistry and returned to school every September for another 33 years. While piles of lab reports awaited marking, I would procrastinate by writing frothy pieces like this one, which were published in the teachers' newsletter. Back then I was struck by a triple absurdity. First, what I wrote was merely stream-of-consciousness nonsense, as meaningful as a T-shirt painted by an elephant; and I confess that I wouldn't have read it myself. Second, among people who did read what I wrote (probably postponing their own marking), there were some who managed to find meaning in it, which was surprising to me. Third, those who thought it meant something disagreed on what it meant, leading to the conclusion that the reader brings at least as much meaning to the words as the author does.

So, if you've finished with this, maybe you could tell me what it means.