Lancaster High School - Mirage Yearbook (Lancaster, OH)

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MIRAGE 15 commercial side of life and what a pity to have our landscape so marred. On the Sugar Grove road, which is a favorite drive for us all, stands a particularly stately rock, which was once covered with little ferns and mosses, but the last time we saw our old friend these sturdy little plants had given place to an unsightly sign. We see our fine and productive farms with their palatial homes, fine buildings and beautiful fields marred by a great sign taking up the most prominent side of the barn and detracting so much from its beauty. We wonder that one who takes such pride and spends so much time in beautifying his home, would see it marred by such ugly blots. Let us determine a way to rid ourselves of these nuisances. First we might erect a town bulletin board upon which proper signs and notices could be posted. In beginning an effort for bill board removal it is best first to make a courteous request to the owner of the prop- erty upon which the sign exists. Tell him of the general growing feeling that they are offensive to good taste, poor advertising and the purpose. This method has been used in many cities and has been a great success. If bill hoards were licensed, it would bring greater revenue to the city and probably reduce the number of those wh'ch disfigure some of the most attractive parts. Get an attorney to prepare an ordinance or town law taxing bill boards and placing them under city control. These ideas can be carried out in our city as successfully as in any other. The bill board is being attacked on every side, by the police officials, sanitarian, business man and lover of civic beauty, but one must not think that objectionable bill boards and offensive bill postings will quietly retire from the field, for their owners are leaving no stone unturned to protect and advance their interests. The fight when undertaken, will be a bitter one. Do you not think it is our duty as progressive citizens, to do as other cities are doing and abolish these destroyers of beauty? Our citizens should join this crusade and have civic pride enough to improve our town and make it really “Beautiful Lancaster.” p.o Lancaster,

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14 MIRAGE but it seems necessary just to make men realize that attractive country and town beauty are true economy. Which community attracts a population of a permanent and desirable character? Isn’t it the one with the tree lined streets, offering an inducement for wholesome, out door life, rather than the factory town, whose ugliness drives its citizens into the saloons? What is there in our town to impress a stranger? Do loo3e papers litter our streets and parks? Have the signmen been per- mitted to tack upon our fences, trees and houses their ugly an- nouncements? Look at the entrances to our city by railroad and drive. Are they pleasing, or do they show to the stranger the worst of our community? There wras once a time, when in the radius of ten or fifteen miles of Lancaster one could drive and see an unmarred picture of nature, which was a delight to the eye and a rest for the mind. We can’t say this today. Everywhere our eyes meet offensive signs, offensive especially because they obscure nature. The Earl of Balcarries says: ‘‘What we claim is that the land- scape does not belong to the man who chooses to pay a few shillings for it per annual, but it is an asset of the people at large. The same principal applies to open space and places.” After such a statement, do we not feel that we owe it to the sense of our city pride to blot out the extravagant and offensive pos- ters spread over our fences and walls? As wre walk through our wide streets and admire the beautiful homes with their surrounding lawns, w'e feel indeed that we have something to be proud of until wre come to an unsightly signboard inserted between two of these well kept homes. This is probably erected before a vacant lot and usually to obscure that which .s behind it. Why not clean up and beautify these vacant lots and not merely conceal what we are ashamed of by no less objectionable bill boards? Besides these wre have other obnoxious signs. Until recently, even Mount Pleasant, the standing stone of the Red Men, has failed to escape, and its noble front has been marred by a blot of black and w'hite paint. Then our beautiful drives, for which the county is noted. We start out forgetting the sordid side of life and are admiring the beauties of nature. Here is a green meadow, dotted over with stately trees, through it flows a brook, and beyond are grazing cattle, and still in a most prominent place, a wooden man carrying a suit case, hurrying to some store for bargains. How our thoughts drop to the

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16 MIRAGE | HUMOR FOR EVERY DAY | | By J. F. HAWK. I „ , 5 “There are dimples enough in the cheeks of laughter to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.” s y EVERAL humorous instances in chapel during the past t B) year have suggested that I could, with profit, use the subject of Humor and show its great value in our every day activities. Therefore I will take as the text the only two passages in the Bible that can by any strength of the immagination be con- sidered humorous: II Chronicles, 16th chapter and 12th verse, and this passage from Job: “And Job cursed—the day he was born.” We are familiar with the Harvard boy, 11 years of age, who is delivering lectures on abstract subjects to his professors, but outside of the incident cited we have never heard of profane language being used on one’s first birthday. Those are both examples of unconscious humor. You remember when our worthy principal announced the examinations—the time, place, etc., then said: “We’ll sing page 229.” With heavy hearts we turned to the number and were surprised to find these words: “Abide with me...........when other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, Lord abide with me.” That bit of unconscious humor helped to take the raw edge off the impending crisis and sent us all to work with joyful hearts. The following exposition brings out most clearly the point I wish to make: Humanity looping the loop as it slips on the banana peel of chance is the cause of that inextinguishable laughter that rever- berates from Mt. Olympus to Broadway and from the White House to the humblest home. Humor is the sauce that gives life its flavor. It is mirth that keeps us sane. The tragic is ridiculious because it has no sense of proportion. The tragic view measures man against man; the comic measures man against the universe. The one records the collisions of personality: the other records the impact of the mischievious molecule against the irrevocable. The tragic view is defective because it takes itself too seriously and bombards time and eternity with its whimperings.