Phillips High School - Phillipian Yearbook (Phillips, ME)

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THE PHILLIPIAN 23 a uliiii! 4 DR. KARL BERLEUTNANT SCHROEDER sat very still in the plane staring straight in front of him like his other comrades. He didn't look at the huge mountains of clouds rolling below him, gleaming gray and white in the moonlight. Young German soldiers were not supposed to waste time contemplat- ing nature. He was repeating to himself the orders given to him that morning. . . . You will be Hown over enemy ter- ritory. Under your flying overalls you will be attired in civilian dress. In a secluded section of farmland you will be dropped, armed against possible capture. From there you will proceed to the dam near the city, where you will locate from the map given you the hidden switch that will destroy the dam. Due to our sudden evacuation of this section we were unable to set it off before. This time there must be no mistakes. . .U The drone of the plane made Oberleutnant Schroeder vaguely drowsy. He was not par- ticularly excited at the prospect of his immi- nent adventure. Most emotions had been carefully trained out of him. He had graduated with honors from the University of Berlin six years before obtain- ing then his M.D. degree. He had always wanted to be a doctor and through the efforts of his zealous mother he became one. A general practice was what he had wanted, he felt as if he could do more good in that line. He had married pretty Fraulein Schneider, a school teacher, and had a most successful practice when he was called into Hitler's army. He had been promoted quickly. Now he was as close to being a machine as military discipline could bring him. There was no emergency for which he was not prepared. He had long ago learned to speak the lan- guage of the enemy. -Achtung, Leutnant! They were ap- proaching the spot where he was to para- chute down. Feeling quickly to make sure his pistol was ready in case a farmer saw him, he crouched in the narrow doorway. The rising moon slid from a bank of clouds illuminating clearly the landscape be- low him. A deep blue lake caught the sil- very rays and ripled them OH into the shadows. The dark green plumes of a for- est spread out on one side, on the other, bleak fields extended as far as he could see. No human being was in evidence he noticed with satisfaction. That made things simpler, he refiected as he swung to and fro, a deadly doll suspended from the white mushroom of the parachute. The earth rushed up to meet him, and the wind dragged him several hundred feet through the dusty weeds before he could de- flate the chute. Extricating himself he stood up and looked around. A cloud of smoke rising some distance away told him that people were living in this section. Fingering his revolver he started for the trees in order to strip off his overalls and cache them with his

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22 THE PHILLIPIAN 15-9 in our favor. At the half we had doubled the score 22-ll. The rest of the game was close with the whole team playing a good game. lay High second team came up the next Friday night and although they had some very large men it was a close game all the way. Campbell and Dodge were the high scorers for us. Our two games with Rangeley Grammar School were very close, the first, a low scor- ing game 8-12 and the second 21-24. In the first game up there, Bill Davenport was high with four points while Lym Toothaker scored almost half the points in the second game. Farmington Training School came to Phillips and played us the next Monday night. They had a good defense the first half, in fact, Bob Beal was the only one who could score for us. The next half was differ- ent, however, but we lost to a very good team. Our last game was with Farmington in their hall, and we had one of our OE nights. We had a new coach for that game, and nothing seemed to go right. We scored only four points but had a lot of fun playing them. The Franklin County Grammar School Basketball Tournament was held at Wilton on Saturday, March 13. The teams compet- ing were Farmington, Wilton, Chisholm, Rangeley, and Phillips. We started the day off by playing Farmington. All of the boys were going fine and we kept several points ahead of them until the last few seconds of the game. Then they crept up on us and dropped a couple in the basket. That put them ahead of us. They froze the ball and won 16-17. lt was disappointing but we came the closest to beating Farmington. In the afternoon we drew Chisholm, the team that took the tournament last year. We led them the First three quarters but we couldn't hold them and they won 13-14. Davenport, Campbell, Beal, Dodge, Tooth- aker and Richards played in the tournament. Earl Eustis, our coach, was unable to go with us so Monty Toothaker took his place. After we played, Rangeley beat Chisholm by five points. Later they played again and tied twice. Finally Chisholm won. Farm- ington playcd Wilton and doubled the score on them. In the evening the first game was between Rangeley and Wilton. In this game Range- ley doubled the score. The second game was between Farmington and Chisholm, playing for First place. Farmington won it. Chisholm placed second. Rangeley won third place. That ended the season for the PHILLIPS GRAMMAR SCHOOL BAS- KETBALL TEAM. Our team during this year follows: FIRST TEAM SECOND TEAM Toothaker -- L.F. Dodge - R.F. Davenport - C. Beal - L.B. Campbell - R.B. Harnden - L.F. Gil: - R.F. B. Rollins - C. Guerney - L.B. McLain - R.B. All of the boys mentioned above played very well, and even though we didn't win all the games we played, all of us boys had a lot of fun. We wish to thank Earl Eustis and Cole- man Mitchell for their fine coaching during the year. Next year we start with only two of our first team but watch us go.

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24 THE PHILLIPIAN parachute. In a few minutes he would emerge, ostensibly a citizen of this country. As he approached the edge of the forest a burst of laughter warned him that people were near. He dropped the parachute and stood still, releasing the catch of the pistol with automatic precision. This time there must be no mistakes. As he stood poised there three people emerged from the wood, their arms full of underbrush, an old woman and a young couple, evidently on their way home with firewood for cooking their meal. The laugh- ter lingered on their faces a moment when they saw him. Then the lengthening light of the moon glinted on the revolver, and they saw the parachute. They stood wavering, uncertain, confused, as he raised the pistol. It would be easy he refiected. Thank God for the moon. No, not God- The people remained frozen into rigidity. Their arms did not even relax to drop the faggots to the ground. With the slow inevitability of a slow mo- tion picture he squinted through the sights of the pistol. The man first, he decided. Then the women. Nothing could stop him -nothing. Then, as his finger tightened on the trigger he sneezed. He aimed again, but another sneeze shook him. Swearing under his breath he prepared to take aim again. The three people had dropped their loads of wood, and the man suddenly began to run toward him. Oberleutnant Schroeder squinted into the sight but his eyes were blurred, and he sneezed again, this time more violently than before. The human military machine had been trained never to be aware of nature except as a battleground, therefore he did not know at first what was disorganizing the perfect balance of his plan. But, being a doctor, he suddenly realized that his trouble was due to the fact that he was standing in a field thickly covered with rag-weed. The military organization had overlooked this completely. As the big German stood there, cursing and sneezing, his eyes streaming, the three people found it easy to seize his pistol and start him stumbling before them to their nearby home. Their home was a large one with many rooms and Schroeder, whom we will now call by his given name, Karl, soon discovered that it was used as a sort of hospital. It was crowded with patients suffering from an epi- demic of typhoid fever, due to the contami- nated water supply of the community. The three people whom Karl had tried to kill owned the place and had been after dry fire- wood for the numerous fireplaces in the hos- pital. Since Karl could not be sent to the authori- ties immediately he was set to work scrub- bing fioors. Soon the people at the hospital learned his story. They learned, too, that he had made a special study of typhoid. He was asked to contribute his knowledge. This he did, and soon the patients were well. His fame spread, and soon, instead of entering cities to blow up dams, he did so to save the people. Everyone knew the name of Karl Shroeder. He became known more familiarly as Dr. Karl. So far as I know he is still practicing medicine in that country. He plans, after the war, to get his wife. The three people whom he thought would be his victims often say to each other, Our capture of Dr. Karl was a lucky day for us, wasn't it? N. T. '43. THE DATE I DIDN'T WANT T was April Fool's Day but I wasn't aware of it. My girl friend told me that her boy friend had brought a pal along, at her request, so he would be over to see me. Picturing him to myself, I imagined him tall, dark and intelligent. I thought about the good time we would have, we could have a lunch, play the radio, play cards, look at snapshots taken on our trip South-oh, I was so anxious to see him! That evening I put on my best dress, my pumps, my ear-rings and fixed all up even