Just a gal from Glidden: She don’t like Pablo though
By Kate Winquist
Something grabbed my attention this week as I was typing up upcoming community events.
The Student Art Show 2026, featuring Grade 5 and 6 students from Kerrobert Composite School, is currently on display at the Kerrobert Courtroom Gallery. The show celebrates the creativity, imagination and hard work of young artists and wraps up June 14 with a reception where visitors can meet the students and view their work.
I am not entirely sure why typing that triggered a memory from my youth, but suddenly I found myself thinking about all the creative things that filled my childhood.
The ZZ Top Eliminator album cover that once covered a bedroom wall in Glidden. Dad eventually had to paint over all that black.
Pablo, the Backyardigans character who inspired the name of a certain Winquist family dog. Not Picasso. Not Pavlov. A cartoon penguin.
Drawing, colouring and reading were some of my favourites. Who remembers those monthly book order forms that came home from school? Apparently I could read before I was five, which is part of the reason I never attended Kindergarten.
The Kindersley Library used to sponsor colouring contests. I won twice and, oddly enough, I still remember the names of the books I received as prizes: Pickle Chiffon Pie and Princess Penelope and the Popcorn Factory. I enjoyed Pickle Chiffon Pie so much that I read it to my son Kalen's Pre-K class in Shaunavon in 2008.
Funny the things that stay with us.
In my early rebellious teenage years, I apparently decided that painting a giant replica of ZZ Top's Eliminator album cover on my bedroom wall was an excellent idea. It probably seemed brilliant at the time. It must have been considerably less brilliant for Dad, who eventually had to paint over all that black.
Eliminator came out in the spring of 1983. At 14, I assumed ZZ Top was a brand-new band. It wasn't until much later that I realized they had actually formed in 1969, the same year I was born.
Back then, Friday nights meant staying up late for Good Rockin' Tonight with Terry David Mulligan. I would tape the videos on the VCR. ZZ Top, with their long beards, hot rods and music videos that were impossible to ignore, became a fixture of those late nights.
One song, Got Me Under Pressure, inspired an art project in Grade 8 or 9. I remember cutting pieces of crepe paper and gluing them into a collage based on images from the lyrics.
What makes me laugh now is that for more than 40 years, I misunderstood one of those lines.
The lyric is: "She likes the art museum, she don't like Pavlov's dog."
For decades I thought the line was "she don't like Pablo though."
As in Pablo Picasso.
Good grief.
Forty-plus years of confidently singing the wrong words.
The funny thing is, I probably had little understanding of what the song was actually about. I was a teenager. It was rock and roll. I liked the music. The lyrics sparked my imagination and ended up influencing an art project.
Maybe that's why the student art show made me stop and think this week.
We never really know what will inspire a child. A library colouring contest. A favourite book. A lyric that gets completely misunderstood.
The things that capture our attention when we're young have a way of staying with us. They become part of the people we eventually grow into.
And apparently, after all these years, I still have a soft spot for old cars, facial hair and ZZ Top.
Ironically, Pablo is also the name of our dog. Not named for Picasso. Named for a character on The Backyardigans.