Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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32 THE GOLDEN-ROD anxious, for haven’t the hands reached the hour? Mr. Muir is on the stage. He talks of Rear Admiral Byrd; he speaks well, interestingly. Where is Byrd? Some say that per- haps he is late. No! We hear our superintendent say “It is a great privilege to introduce Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd.” And from behind the curtain steps the man who lias gone up Broadway more times than any other man, when New York has paid its tribute to men who have suc- ceeded in great deeds. lie stands there, neat and erect, with navy training written all over him. He wears the evening suit of a naval officer. Across the left breast of his coat are many medals. On his sleeves are about five inches of gold braid, showing his twenty years of service. He stands about five feet, nine inches, with fine straight shoulders. On these is set an intelli- gent looking head, with short hair and handsome, clear cut features. Byrd gives a few notes on what is to proceed; then it’s dark and on the screen he shows movies of rough seas, icebergs, ice fields, seals, pen- guins, huskies and Little America. From here went dog teams, air- planes, mapping and exploring, dis- covering new mountains, new lands, exploring more in one day than other expeditions before them did in years. On February 18, 1929, Byrd discov- ered and claimed 40,000 square miles of land for the United States, which is known as Marie Byrd Land. People are held spellbound with the work done there, or laugh heartily at comedy that was forever turning up in trying times. It is over! We hurry back stage with the nerve of a reporter. We get his autograph. Now, as it was Scout Week and it had been the general topic of English, we asked about Paul Siple, the Eagle Scout, who went with him to Little America. We wanted to know about his work, and if he thought scouting prepared him for his work on the expedition. Byrd smilingily said, “Why, yes, indeed. lie worked among men as a m n. A fine worker!” Then he went on: “The Scout movement is a great movement.” He saw the scout pins we wore and said, “But I think almost every scout could do it, also.” THAR SHE BLOWS A Tale of the Salty Sea Told to Steve O’Brien by a Tamo us Sea Captain of Quincy GOME along, matey, for you won’t be a-hearin’ a yarn o’ the sea a-standin’ there a- lookin’ out over that salt- water marsh. Come along, for we’ve got a yarn to hear of the Charles W. Morgan and the Alice Knowles. Come along, for Captain James E. Earle’s a-waitin’ to spin a yarn for you. You don’t know Captain Earle? Well, he was born in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, on the fourteenth of February in ’fifty-four. He lived among seafarin’ folk ’till he was twelve, and then he went to sea to learn the trade of whaler. He be- came captain of several whaling ships, among them the Alice Knowles, of 287 tons, built in Quincy, and the most famous vessel of the whaling fleet, the Charles W. Mor- gan, of 290 tons. The latter was a lucky ship—he was out three years and three months, and came back with 1700 barrels of sperm oil, 350 of whale oil, and 5000 pounds of bone. All this was valued at $69,591. She brought $2,000,000 to her owners in her time. Capt. Earle received his master’s papers when he was twenty-six. and in a British port; and I’m tellin’ you that you have to know boats and the sea to get British master’s papers! It was in Auckland, New Zealand, that he met a schoolmarm who became his wife and went to sea with him. The captain is seventy-eight now, stands about five feet, ten inches,and is a little rounded over. His hair is

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AT THE END OF THE WORLD By Barbara Curry. Jack Sharp. Steve O’Brien ----A ............ --------- ON the afternoon of August 25, the smartest, ablest, trimmest old square rigger that my weathered eyes have seen sailed out of New York to Dunedin to pick up a cargo of dogs, food supplies, sleds, airplanes and scientific equipment for the “End of the World,’’ 10,000 miles away. It was the “City of New York,” an auxiliary bark that every eye watched as she slipped down among the tugs, yachts and ocean grey-hounds. Whistles screamed or boomed out in all pitches; sailors cheered their fare- well; tugs hurried about puffing, screeching for right of way like a lot of old ladies doing their shopping. Officers aboard the ocean grey- hounds cheered, but their fine lines seemed to snub this little ship on water. She may be old fashioned, but from all over the world where ships find their harbor, the “City of New York” was chosen to transport the most modern and scientific expedi- tion that man has ever planned. Aboard this trusted craft were Byrd and thirty other co-adventurers. We all know of her trip to Dun- edin. On December 2, 1928, she sailed from New Zealand, and the world waited to hear of her successful ar- rival. On Christmas, the news flashed from the Bay of Whales, 10,000 miles away, to let the outside world know of their safety! Tonight we sit in the assembly hall. The house is packed. People watch the clock. They are tense,

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THE GOLDEN-ROD 33 white and gettin’ rather thin on top. His brilliant eyes twinkle like run- nin’ lights under his white eyebrows. His cheekbones are high, and he wears a white, droopin’ mustache. He doesn’t show his age until he walks, and then you notice that he’s gettin’ old; no longer has he the roll of the seaman. As we come to the house and push the bell, we hear the captain say, “I guess the boys have come, mother.” Soon we’re sittin’ in the captain’s livin’ room and Mr. Earle tries to get him goin’. Then he speaks up: “No, mother, you haven’t got it right,” and finally he goes off for his harpoon to spin a yarn of his seven- thousand-dollar whale. » »3 S “We’d left New Bedford in Novem- ber, 1908, and it was off Crozet’s, a small, rocky island in the South Indi- an Ocean. The wind was just barely blowin’ and the ‘Alice Knowles’ was just walkin’ along. The only sound was the ripple of the water breakin’ at the bow. The men were lyin’ around the deck, but up in the crow’s nest was one man, scannin’ the ocean. “He sees somethin’ breakin’ the sea. He leans over the hoops, puts his hand to his mouth and bellows out, ‘Thar she blo-o-o-o-ows!’ The men jump to their whalin’ boats while T bellows back, ‘Where away?’ and the answer comes back, ‘Two p’ints off the starb’d bow!’ The men lower their boats and set their sails. They come within a few hundred yards of the whale and down comes the sail and they begin rowin’. The third mate’s boat gets there first and as they approach the whale the steerer goes forward. The mate takes the steerin’ oar. “The harpoon is poised in the air. It’s thrown, and down through the blubber into the flesh goes a yard of iron. The whale starts off at a mad- denin’ speed and the line runs out at an awful rate. Then the men get their old Nantucket sleigh-ride. All of a sudden he shows his flukes and they know he’s goin’ to sound. Out goes more line. Well, in the boats they have two tubs of line; one 300 fathoms and the other 100 fathoms. This whale dies under water and now lie’s sinkin’ fast. So the third mate signals to the fourth mate to come to him. He hitches up his line and then comes back to tell me what’s up. So I tell the fourth mate to have the third mate, Sylvia, wait ’till I run the ship alongside and cast a line down for him to make his line fast. Sylvia was afraid the whale would take his boat down and him with it, so he was pretty relieved when the ‘Alice Knowles’ was along- side. The second tub was almost run out. “The main shroud was over the side to Sylvia and no longer was there the strain of an eighty-ton whale on the small boat. The shroud was brought down through to the donkey-engine. I stood there work- in’ it, because if any of the men should have let it run too fast, the iron might pull out and—well, I’d tell him a thing or two. So while 1 worked the engine the men were waitin’ for the first opportunity to put more irons in him so as to get a good hold. Well, the whale came in sight, the irons were placed, and we were ready to cut in. “And that whale brought us seven thousand dollars, but look how it stretched my good Swedish iron!” Til K WALK-A WAY 1 was swimming one day in the fair Quincy Bay, When the tide and the wind both swept me away. Though I swam all day in the same spot I'd stay Till the tide dropped out and I walked away. Mabel Posdick. There was an old lady from Gout. Who was exceedingly stout. She jumped in a pool To keep herself cool And all of the water jumped out. Carleton Power MacArthur went down to the zoo He hadn’t a thing to do He went to the cage Of a lion in rage— The services will be at two. Harry Johnson