Appleby College - Argus Yearbook (Oakville, Ontario Canada)

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0 Sccnc(A Cf ttcC m6 cm cdmcC TVoMieef. He met her on a steel gray Sunday when nothing moves and it is not hard to see oneself as the only living boy in the city: the only one with any hint of colour. She was standing on the rock beach that had been thrown around the sea like a mantle. She was not pretty, too thin, with hair that seemed to have a mind of its own. There were others in the park and on the rocks too; but she alone had any colour. She looked sad and her eyes seemed to reflect a dark emptiness. Paul was not quite sure why he stopped there and sat down on one of the numerous benches, why he stared hardly blinking, why something dragged his mind away from the last night ' s adventures and flooded it with the hues that were her. Really, she was just a rough sketch of a girl, such as an artist might create with a few wide strokes of his pen after dinner while he waited for his coffee. It is strange how, now and then, nature produces such creatures. Her gait had a fascinatingly unexaggerated quality to it which was feminine without being overly sexy. Still, she could not have been more than five feet tall; every now and then she would pick up a handful of pebbles and they would run through her Qngers like so much water. If only she would look over here, Paul wished. I could take her by the hand and we could walk along the beach and hear the lake running up over the rocks and back. We could go home and sit on the floor, on the rug in front of the fire. She would sip wine slowly from a glass with a tall stem. We would talk, just talk, and never would we raise our voices over a whisper. Then, as the night came and the fire died, we would hold each other so close and promise never to let go. A police car raced by, its siren blaring, shattering the dream. Paul stood up, smoothed the wrinkles out of his clothes, and started back towards the road, and home. After a few seconds he stopped and looked back at the girl on the beach, glowing as if vdth the subtle hue of life itself, against the gray dullness of the day. A dog started to bark at a squirrel, a child yelled at his mother, two girls giggled at a private joke and she turned and smiled at him. She smiled at him and walked off in the other direction, a big, wide smile, a smile! He had smiled back and the trees became green and the sky turned blue. And, in the distance, the dog gave up its futile chase and trotted quietly off after some invisible trail, its tail wagging happily.

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tf The administration was more interested in pleasing the crowd than in letting him run his team. It has proved fortunate that they finally fired him. They did so after his team lost 6-0 to Bologna, a visiting Italian side. That night, before the game, I had been taken to the hospital with acute ap- pendicitis. He left the game at half-time, when the score was 1-0, and he put his assistant in charge. He came to the hospital. They never thought about that. It was easier to use him as a scapegoat. They appointed his assistant head coach. They were bloody Americans who couldn ' t even tell what shape a football is. They had no idea about who he was. He was just a name to them; a tidbit of news they could feed to the press. Now he works for a brewery as Director of Public Relations. He is still the best at what he does, but he is falling apart. He has to wear a back brace and, occasionally, one of those horrible sausage things around his neck. He cannot play too much golf or tennis because his elbow joints hurt. His knees hurt. He doesn ' t tell us and he tries not to show it but I ' ve seen him wdnce when he plays. Despite the fact that his injuries are catching up on him, he ' s the best athlete I have ever seen. In England, most of the players played because they ' couldn ' t do anything else. My dad played, initially, because it paid for his education. But not once when he was on the field did he think about the crowd or the money bonuses for scoring, or the pain. But it is impossible for the average person to see that. He sees the glamour and the money and the noise and the devoted public and the press clippings. He doesn ' t see what it ' s like on the field or in the dressing room. It is easy to say that it is a crowd-pleasing business. It is easy because, until you have been there and played with and against real players and experienced intensely the full range of emotions that sports supply; until you have been through the pain and despair and everything connected with athletes - you just cannot understand.

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AN OLD WARRIORS LAMENT My aged hand betrays my weariness, And foes cannot be slain with pen nor sword. My heart rejects the call for further battle, I curse this tragedy we march toward... The gallant actions of my reckless youth Hold nothing now but pleasant memories. This quiet cradles me in perfect bliss, No longer plagued like restless Ulysses... why can we not stop this crazy course. Which leads us on the road to dusty death? For Peace supplies the only life worth living. The life which calms the heart with every breath. Chris Thompson HAVE I BEEN DITCHED? At the dinner party laced with wine, I saw you dressed in Inde print most fine. You looked demure, unknown, quite out of place; I broke the silence, started up the chase. We danced that night, your welcome seemed not cool: But I should have known, not played the bloody fool; seen that our fling had reached its natural end - but I went on, though I ' d blown it there and then. For six days after Cupid ' s one-night arrow, I chased you till my heart met up with sorrow. Before a blazing fire on Dineen, You showed me for a fool (and far too keen). But yet the times were happy and well-spent. Although my view turned out to be quite bent, I thank you for revealing my delusion. As friends with pens let ' s sort out this confusion. ELIXIR OF LIFE In Xanadu, the River Alph falls to a sunless sea; and laudanum, my green delight, was what inspired me. Five drops of bliss, of deep repose, were your fine gift to me; gave me the strength to scale the heights, and brought me here to thee, to feast my eyes, with great delight upon shining caves of ice; to view the unknovra splendours of this hidden paradise, to know your ever-present love, to hear your dulcimer; Heaven! glorious Xanadu, where I stay evermore. Yes, I have immortality as Kubla Khan decreed. Yes, I have dined on honey dew, on Youth ' s immortal seed. A thousand years have come and gone but time has passed me by. The pleasure dome, that latent curse has stopped the starlit sky. Though life is lifeless, black despair, your love still comforts me. A flash of hope, love dulls the pain of cold eternity. Chris Thompson Chris Thompson