Don’t Push Me.
[Based on words and music written by Paul Walker] [929 words]Massey University sits wrapped in the various greens of nature on the only hill in the city of Palmerston North, a hill? Maybe a hump is a more descriptive word. It is in this space…that thousands of students have walked… talked… sat and listened to lectures. Some protested while others simply passed through… A place of learning…possibly, but that of course depends on the ability or desire of those called students…
Is it possible to force people to learn?
Is learning education?
Or is it simply something that must be done to ensure ones future.
The dilemma that is often exists amongst students who attend this or any other institution of learning is expectation… People of the older generation have a desire in the main to see their children make good. This desire for success can some times lead to pressures that strain the very core of family relationships.
The two students approached the elm tree from different directions, one with a arm full of books… she had just visited the library while the other had a couple of cans of coke. Under the tree was a wooden ring table and bench seating. Both in their early twenties they looked like an ideal couple meeting for an intellectual discussion on the world around them.
Positioning themselves on opposite sides of the table with the ease and grace of youth they slipped into conversation mode without formality. It was obvious that they had known each for sometime.
‘Hi Angel’, said Mike as he handed her a coke.
‘Thanks Mike’, she answered not in words but with a raising of her eye brows.
She went on “What did your Father say when you phoned him?
‘Nothing really, just the usual crap, education is the thing and yours’.
‘Mine too gave me a no-no.
My student loan debt was too high to give up now according to him’.
‘Dad says that just the thought of you and I stepping out into the night club scene with its drugs and bullshit makes him see red’.
‘Christ it’s not as if we are still teenagers, but times are different now…
My Dads’ no model of God like behaviour.
Trouble is Mom agrees with him, normally I can sweet-talk her into seeing things my way.
But she is on his side over this matter.
Law degree is the least they have grown to expect. It’s the in thing according to them, Maori lawyers. Christ I want to be a singer not a bloody lawyer’.
‘You could just fail all your exams; you cant be a lawyer if you don’t pass your papers’.
‘Yea’, that’s true, but I just can’t not try it wouldn’t seem right’, uttered Mark
‘Your so proud in some ways, you know that don’t you? She tapped him lightly on his shoulder.
‘Not really, I don’t like losing a game of rugby but then again I don’t cry if I do.
Anyway you’re the same you sure get fired up in your netball team.
Remember that last game against Girls High… you were a real tough cookie’.
‘I do when you’re watching’, she said with a grin that revealed strong white teeth.
Mike and Angel were not afraid of silence, they sat and sipped their cokes, now warm and sweet.
‘You remember when you learnt to ride your bike? Asked Angel.
‘Sure do, good God that must have been twelve or fourteen years ago’.
‘Well that’s the kind of pride I mean’
‘Say, again’ asked Mark.
‘Pride, don’t you remember telling your Father not to push you’
‘Push, yea but he was in fact holding me upright’.
Still I rode that bloody bike in the end.
Did you know that bike is still in the shed at home… Must be covered in rust by now.’
‘What I meant was that you would beg him not to push… while I was around.
It was OK if you needed a hand or if safety was involved… but not when I was around. I’ve never told you this before… well never needed to really.
But I actually didn’t think any less of you… if your Father pushed you or otherwise.
At the time all I wanted was for my Dad to buy me a bike’.
‘So I wasn’t your hero, that’s a bit of a let down’.
‘Not really at the time the bike was the real attraction’, Angel said while grinning’.
What time is your next class?’
‘Two twenty’, Mark replied.
‘Got to go, but maybe we should talk again to our parents.
Maybe we could do both… you know perform while we learn.
Have a think about it’ and… don’t forget your books’.
He stood and moved around behind her, leant over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
Angel watched him stride toward a tall gray stone and concrete building. She loved him deeply…
A few years later at the Otahuhu local pub… two proud dads sat watching the huge TV screen.
The room was packed for the second test against the Lions.
The New Zealand National Anthem had just been performed, sung by ‘Angel and Co’ a popular Christchurch duo.
The All Blacks were about to go into haka mode.
‘You wouldn’t think they were lawyers would you’ said one proud father…
‘No not really, but if they practice law as well as they sing they’ve got a great future’ said the other equally proud father…
The All Blacks won 26 to 14.
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