Keely Pt. 2

When Keely was just a little kid, her favorite movie was Frankenstein, the Boris Karloff version. Her dad had a collection on VHS – no Instascreen in those primitive days – of all the old black and white Universal Studio horror movies and Keely just loved Karloff’s flat headed monster. She had his lock kneed walk down pat and would try to frighten the grown-ups with snarls in her little girl voice. They would feign fear and cry “scary scary” while running away. But it wasn’t just the monster that captivated her. She would light up and pay rapt attention during the scenes in Doctor Frankenstein’s laboratory when wheels spun, sparks flew and test tubes foamed up and spilled over. To her it was all magic and I guess it is not surprising that by adolescence she was drawn to science, chemistry and labs of her own. As I watched her recite some impossible formula while mixing ingredients in her high school chem lab, it was hard to believe that this kid, this pretty little teenager would grow up to change the world. But, of course, I knew it was so and I shouldn’t have been so surprised to see that under her white lab coat she was wearing her gymnastic uniform. Practise was coming up right after Lab and this was a kid who knew how to manage her “time."