Athens State College - Columns Yearbook (Athens, AL)

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Here are a great many more items of a general nature that might be read about this most honorable class, but for fear that I shall tire you, I will leave these unread. Besides, there are a great many things connected with a class of this kind that are not to be read in the hearing of the uninitiated. These pages that I am passing over contain the chronicles of the sorrows and heartaches, joys and fears, pleasures and happiness of each and every member. They tell of many descents into the vales of doubt and discouragement, and of many ascents of the mounts of hope and courage, even almost to theheights of Parnassus itself. Passing over this general information concerning the class, collectively, I will now give you a little insight into the real individuality of each girl. But in order to do this I must unlock a chest of mysteries, and how fortunate it is that I have a Key ready at hand with which to unlock it! Now there are various kinds of keys — door keys, watch keys, safe keys, pantry keys, office keys, darkeys, and turkeys — but our Key is not any of these. The key which our Key most resem- bles is a »!o;i-key. I find next the name of Dinsmore. Hum ! It seems to me if that name were reversed it would be more ap- propriate, for is not Anna capable of making just a little more din than anybody we know? But we will look over this fault of her ' s for she is somewhat talented in the musical line, and if her arm will permit, we may yet have cause to be proud that she is one of our number. Just here I find a few pages containing a little of my own personal history, but as I never like to read my praise in other people ' s ears, modesty forces me to pass them by. Speaking of singers, there are soprano singers, tenor singers, contralto singers, sweet singers, musical sing- ers and all sorts of singers, but not one of any of these singers have we. The singer who belongs to us is one who can bombard the forts of ignorance with dramatic oratory, and that singer is a Per-smgtr. The next item that I would like to read to you relates to the aristocracy and to the high social position of our class. Now to prove to you that this statement is true, I will cite a few examples. One of our members is a great-grand-niece of Jimmy James, who was a son of John James, who was the twenty-first cousin of the once notorious Jesse. Another aristocratic member of our class is Miss Annie Buchanan. She is a daughter of Wm. Buchanan, who is the son of Ralph Buchanan, who wasthe grand-nephew of John Buchanan, who was the grand- son of James Buchanan, one of the early presidents of our country. Annie, however, is little interested in the af- fairs of the nation, and only asks for a little more time in which to paint china. To prove that we are eminent socially we bring Sadie before you. She sometimes wonders if she may not be a distant relative of peg-legged Peter Stuyvesant, the one-time governor of the colony of New York, and S-t-u-r-d-i-v-a-n-t isn ' t just an im- provement in the way of spelling Stuyvesant. She attributes to that gentleman her inherited desire to become a society butterfly. We do not admit that anyone of us is lacking in intellectuality, nevertheless, we are ready to concede that Kathouise leads in that line. She is not so much interested, just at present, however, in making good grades as she is in getting a giant Oracle off to press. And just here I find some statements of her progress in this en- deavor. The Oracle of this year is to contain 1,000 pages of literary matter alone. And JMiss Walston has, since her appointment as Editor-in-Chief some six months ago, ground out of her fertile brain one-half page of this val uable material. This consists of two jokes and one news item. I will read them in order that you may know exactly the extent of her intellectual powers. (33)

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Statistics STATISTICS! Now you needn ' t look bored: I know the mere word strikes horror to many timid souls, but since it is my business to gather the statistics of this most notable class, and since you are forced to listen or to jump up and run away, I shall proceed to give you in a numerical ratio, the geometrical proportions of this hard-worked, well-informed, never-to-be-forgotten, woe - begone, happy-go-lucky- class. As the statistician of the greatest class that has ever gone out from these college halls, the read- er who is known for her conservative statements will endeavor to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To begin in a logical order, the first item is our number. There are nine of us ; taken altogether we are called the Nine Muses; ' separately we are known as Annie Buck, Mary P., Mary Key, P. IMarlowe, Cowpeas, Anna Virginia, Maggy, Miss Zaide, and IMe. The next thing to be taken into consideration is our youth. We are 175 years of age. Now you may think that rather ancient, but since }0U know that with age comes wisdom, experience and a great many lovely traits of character, you can very readily understand why we are so full of wisdom, so rich in experience and are so lovable. Some have had the audacity to insinuate that the head of this class has become rather inflated, and you may think so, too, when I tell you that the distance around it is IT ' z feet. But when you learn that the weight of this class is 1,145 1-99 pounds, you will very readily see that even though it should become as inflated as Count Zeppelin ' s newest dirigible, there will be little danger of our getting awa}- from the earth earthy. When I tell you that as Freshmen this head measured only 10j4 feet around, and that we have not greatly increased in physical growth during this time, I believe that you will agree with me that this increase of 7% feet is, unquestionably, due to brain expansion. For have we not taken in. digested and assimilated all the knowledge found in a stack of books 56 feet 5J 2 inches high, containing 25,999,861 J pages, and 1,076,383,580 words ? I failed to state above that the head measurement just mentioned was taken without rats. When rats are included it is increased to 2354 feet. It will probably be well to say just here that this most worthy class is not seriously addicted to the use of rats, ribbons being preferred, because they save time, and we need all of our spare time for rewriting Enghsh themes. Miss Maggie Griffith, who possesses the most mathematical turn of mind of any in the class, has found by a very complicated system of calculations that we each occupy an average of 41 cubic feet of space ; and taken all together we occupy 369 cubic feet. As to whether there will be a quiet calm or an aching void, which the world can never fill, when we leave these halls, it will be left for others to decide. If an aching void, it will be a deep one, if measured from tlie top downward, for we tower to the sublime height of 110 feet, 2 1-16 inches. This one characteristic renders us expert observers for all kinds of astronomical observations anywhere within the ethereal sphere. Another very remarkable feature of our class is that we are all more or less accomplished. It adds materially to the lustre of our crown to have four musicians, two artists, one would-be-artist, one elocutionist and one fluent linguist among our number. (32)

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JOKE No. 1 Miss Mann (speaking to Miss Davenport at breakfast) said: At home, we have quail on toast every morn- ing for breakfast. Miss Davenport : Come off, Agnes, that ' s notliing ! At my home we have jaybird on toast every morning. JOKE No. 2 Miss Harding : Oh ! Carrie is all dressed up today ! Lillian: Why, Miss Harding, she only has on her old last year ' s uniform. Miss Harding: Well, I don ' t care, she has on a red tie. NEWS ITEM. Commencement comes in the latter part of May this year. From this, you see, we judge that she has a notion of one day becoming famous as a literary character. Then we shall be prouder of her than ever. Another member of our class, although she is quite demure concerning the subject, has, I ' m sure, aspirations toward matrimony. She is known among us for her great capacity as a letter writer. Not long since she was heard to remark: My! I ' m so tired! I ' ve been writing a letter all the afternoon. I ' ve written five sheets of Athens College stationery, and I ' m not through yet. When questioned as to whom in the world she could be writing such a letter as that to, she turned all sorts of colors and finally stammered out that it was to her moth- er. Now we all love our mothers, but we will never believe that P. Marlowe ' s mother ever received that letter. I find here a very interesting item concerning still another of our members. She is called the queen rose in our rosebud garden of girls, and she is just the dearest, sweetest all-a round girl we know. She has one fault, however, and only one. This is her great love for riches, which has become such a part of her that she often quotes some lines from Tennyson, which run thus : When I canters my ' earse along the ramper, I ' ears proputty, proputty, proputty. The last item that I have to read in your hearing may, and doubtless will, be a very interesting one to you. It is this : It has been intimated that for every day we stay in school we earn ten dollars I According to this we have earned $64,800 during our four years of college ;$800 of this amount has been spent. We entertained the Senior class last year at a cost of $500, this year we gave the Junior class a little reception which cost us $100. The other two hundred has been spent for the improvement of our physical appearances. Now the problem which confronts us is, what shall we do with this vast surplus of $68,000. We have been undecided as to whether to endow our dear Alma Mater, or to build the new Administration Hall, which is so much needed. Both of these plans, however, have been recently discarded, and we have finally decided, upon the suggestion of Miss Moore, and with the sincere approbation of Miss Pittman, to supply individual tutors for the class of 1913. Statistician ' 12. (34)