Mansfield High School - Hornet / Green Years Yearbook (Mansfield, MA)

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hhanotinia Dish tAran Viansfield Public Library r ‘ re i oe Aihlacne nN Manstieid. Widss. 07048 looking for a photographer, Paul directed me to Charlotte Patriquin’s studio, which he said was near Dick Horton’s Art Shop. I decided to visit Pat’s place and have some publicity pictures made of my band. But alas and alack! When I got there the next morning, Doris Fowler, Charlotte’s secretary, informed us that Charlotte was competing in a contract bridge tournament. However, we did visit Horton’s Art Shop. At first I thought the place was on fire, but the smoke actually came from Dick's pipe. Coughing and choking, Chappie and I followed Dick inside. He carefully put the finishing touches on an advertisement for Jantzen bathing suits, and then sitting back and dragging cheerfully on his pipe, he began to tell us what he had been doing the last ten years and how some of the other members of our class were employed. Dick told us that Bill Beatty was in the trucking business and was now known as an accomplished rug-cutter at Lakeview Ballroom. Another classmate, Ralph Cutillo, had taken up chemical engineering in a big way. “As you probably know,” Dick remarked, “it was Ralph who developed the synthetic tires used on your bus.” All this was very interesting, but my orchestra was due in Pawtucket in four hours, so Chappie and I had to leave. For dinner at the hotel we had some delicious American dishes prepared by Mary Munro, Dot Barrows, and Helen McKay, three famous women chefs, who had received their training in our own high school cafeteria. When it came time for the bus to leave, I couldn’t find Eddie. It soon developed that he had really been offended the night before and had taken the bus to Mansfield to see if he could find anyone to console him. ‘The only thing my orchestra could do was to follow him there by train. ‘That we did. Arriving at Mansfield, we were greeted by a crowd of enthusiastic high school students, who presented a petition for my orchestra to stay in town and play for them that evening. No man with his heart in the right place could ever refuse the pleas of the Mansfield High youngsters, so I consented. From Donald Morse’s telegraph office I sent Russ McCann a wire informing him of the situation. Then I went out to see the town. In place of Musto and De Lutis’ stood a new beauty parlor called Mary and Ruth’s Salon, run by Mary Creeden and Ruth Bolton. Going farther down the street, | ran into Stan Allen, who by this time was a dead ringer for Doctor Kildare. He was accompanied by his nurse, Dorothy Dill. The First National Super Market was no longer standing. In its place was the First International Super Duper Market, managed by Robert McKillop and Bob Maurer. Bob proudly displayed his exotic fruits imported from the tropics and, incidentally, told me that Clarence Leonard was head boiler man on a South American freighter. “Too bad,” I remarked, “that Walter Klenk hasn’t been heard from since he left in his rocket ship for a trip to the moon.” “He'll be all right,” Bob said confidently, “with Freddie Flint as pilot.’ Bob then excused himself to keep his appointment with the dentist, Tony Flammia. Hurrying out of the store, | bumped into Mary Horton and Mary D’Afile, who were on a private secretary's holiday. After I had apologized and given them two free tickets to the dance that night, they let me rise and charitably brushed me off.

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ry t =e ' : wie inva fiansiield Puolic Library NONAQ 1) t tie figure talking to my bass fiddle player. It turned out to be Wilbur Chapman. Overjoyed at seeing each other, we had a long session talking over old times. In the course of the conversation, Will said that he was out of work. Immediately I asked him to be manager of my band, remembering, of course, the swell job he did with the M. H.S. Basketball Team of 1942. Wilbur gratefully accepted the job, borrowed five dollars, and agreed to meet me Monday at ten. At the appointed time a bus came rolling around with the name Moron’s Master- ful Music printed on it in large red letters. Of course, this was obviously a misprint, or had Mac heard my orchestra before? As we sped along at fifteen miles an hour, the driver of the bus kept mumbling over and over to himself, ““Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” Finally, in desperation, I reminded him that we wanted to reach Boston today and not tomorrow or the day after. He turned and gazed at me reproachfully and to my surprise I recognized Eddie Pazsit. Sadly Eddie explained that he was still trying to memorize Macbeth’s speech for Miss Hannon, his high school English teacher, who had told him to go away and not to come back until he had learned it word for word. “That,” said Eddie mournfully, “was ten years ago.” Suddenly Bessie Goodwin, the torch singer with my band, exclaimed, ‘This isn’t the way to Boston. We must be lost.” True enough, we were. Under the influence of Shakespeare, Eddie had taken us to Worcester. I was pretty indignant with him, but philosophically decided that as long as it was time for lunch, we would stop and eat. In the restaurant I met Jimmie Ienello, who had just returned from an expedition to deepest Africa, where he had been studying the monkeys. Cushie, it seems, had become a trapeze artist of no little fame. In fact, the monkeys were his only rivals. “T could beat them, too,” said our modest Cush, “if I only had a tail.” Sympa- thetically I agreed that it was too bad that evolution had progressed so far. Returning to the bus, I opened a paper I had bought. ‘To my great interest I ran across the name of Alfred Chandler. Apparently Alfred had been appointed lighthouse keeper at the Bay of Wales (164° W, 78° 48’ S, Antarctica.) ‘‘You’ve got to admit,” I remarked, passing the paper over to Chapman, “‘that Al has carried his ‘I want to be alone’ policy too far this time.” We arrived at the Raymor Ballroom, only just in time for the dance because Eddie got lost again. “This time I did not try to keep my temper but really laid him out, for in the music business you have to be on time, or else—. Eddie became quite sulky and murmured something about ‘“‘a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then.is heard no more.’ Naturally I didn’t like that, so we parted in anger. Soon my orchestra was going full swing and I dashed down into the crowd to greet my old classmate Ralph Dustin. Dustin was sitting on top of the world. He had managed to get a B-3 card for his auto, an X card for his truck, and Alice Card for a date. Alice, he informed us, was the world’s champion bowler, and we could all easily see that she had bowled Ralph over already. After the dance we all went over to the Copley Plaza for the night. I was pleased to find that Paul and David Lane were owners of the hotel. Since I was

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Somewhat chastened, I continued down Main Street. On one side, I found Peter Di Giampietro’s Record Store and on the othex, Mary DeClemente’s Dress Shoppe. I went into the latter and found a fashion show in progress. Cathleene Cullen came out modeling sports clothes. Lena Blandori showed the stylish stouts, and Priscilla Shepard looked stunning in one of Mary’s newest evening gowns. Next, I visited Peter and had the opportunity to shake hands with Irene Macomber and Dorothy McKee, who were in the shop autographing records by the dozen. Irene and Dorothy had become famous through their grown-up version of the Moylan Sisters. When Peter saw me, he asked me to sign a few of my records. Dorothy, Irene, and I drew quite a crowd of fans, so many that the chief of police, Donald Vickery, came along with a couple of his henchmen and broke it up. Peter, sorry for our embarrassment, gave us each a copy of The Mansfield Daily News, edited by Miriam Miulson. On the theatre page I discovered that Norma Gleason had the leading role in a Broadway play, Why Little Girls Leave Home (in three parts) by Dorothy Dustin. I also read that Vivian Chafhn had written the musical comedy starring Jimmie Fowler and Louis Nelson, Mwtt and Jeff in Jerksville. The sports page revealed that Everett Crook had been named the champion professional basketball player with John Reid as a close runner-up, while Etta Wellman had received fourth place in the women’s tournament. Priscilla Briggs and Eleanor Murphy copped top honors in the roller skating doubles. ‘Those hours they use to spend at The Rollerway were never wasted. Of special interest was the debate that had taken place in a committee of Congress the day before. Senator Barbara Dean had opposed a tax on cosmetics, proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Chase. “The debate was sharp,” said the article, “but when Secretary Chase referred to their earlier days at the Mansfield High, they fell into each other’s arms. All was forgiven and the tax was forgotten. At the dance Gena DiMonte and Priscilla Phillips arrived in uniform. ‘They were the first two women to enlist in the feminine branch of the U. S. Navy. Some years before, Representative Paul Scialoia had succeeded in passing a bill to create a Women’s Auxiliary Fleet in case the mermaids ever tried to lure our sailors from their duties. Dorothy Plausse also attended the dance. She wore a riding habit, for she had just taken part in the rodeo at the Boston Garden. There must have been at least two thousand people at the dance in the new high school auditorium. Quite different from the old days when my orchestra was lucky to draw two people! About ten o'clock, Joe Teixeira, a Western Union messenger boy, handed me a telegram from Russell McCann. “YOUR CONTRACT PAWTUCKET— SLO P=REBUSE SEUR LHEReRESPONSIBIEDVY—s DORAL OV HER: ENGAGEMENTS CANCELLED—STOP.” Regretfully I informed the boys in my orchestra that we were right back where we had started three days ago. “Well, fellows,” I said, “I don’t know about you, but for me this has been a profitable trip. I’ve seen so many of my former classmates. And let me tell you,” I added, “‘it’s no small feat to attract two thousand of Mansfield’s leading citizens to a high school dance. No other orchestra has ever done it before.”