Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

Page 21 text:

their one-fourth-of-a-dollar. Also the upper classmen instituted a new department entitled As We Used To Be. This was a collection of photographs from pre- historic times, when the institutors were in the hey-day of their infancy. After looking long and hard at them most everyone mentally changed the title to Photos We Shouldn’t Have Posed For.” If the seniors had the idea of putting them in for a laugh they certainly succeeded. Well, so much for that. For a few years each graduation issue had a class will. Up to 1932 they were in a serious vein, but in that issue they blossomed out with a new sort of subtle humor, replete with hints to the faculty. In 1933 the seniors monopolized the magazine and so I will just “skip it . The Golden Rod of June, 1934, introduced (I think) The Expecter, the imagin- ary newspaper which humorously showed what outstanding members of the gradu- ating class were expected to do in the future. I must, in all fairness, say that the senior who suggested and the ones who wrote it did a pretty good job. Meanwhile, all through the years the literature had been getting better and better. “A Day at Merrymount Park” had graduated to “Omer Morin’s Trip to Mars”. The same with the jokes. “Vacation again, (ha! ha!)” was now changed to sarcasm, the pre- dominant form of humor. In 1935 the magazine grew more prosperous and much, much funnier. The Expecter was changed to The Outlook. Brockton, in the words of the magazine, slaughtered Quincy Interviews were a part of the Golden Rod, which helped a lot. The 1936 June edition was the crowning achievement of forty-five years. It was superb, but Brockton won its annual football game against a crippled but game Quincy eleven, the score, 20-6. The Golden Rod, ns long as I have seen it, has really meant a laugh a minute to me. It s a fine magazine all through and deserves every prize it won. However, next year, I shall look down on the juniors (I hope) and the sophs, too. That edition. I fervently pray, will have those angelic headlines: Quincy Slaughters the Shoe-City ”, but I guess that is hoping for too much. In fifty-five more years my grandchildren will write another essay on the hun- dredth anniversary of the Golden Rod. Till then, the magazine will win fifty-five more prizes and everyone will be truly able to say: “Here’s to the Golden Rod, the best there is.” Nineteen

Page 20 text:

pened twenty years ago. How times have changed! ! (I think I haven’t said this before.) The 1917 edition was singular in many ways. For one, the World War was not even mentioned once. However, that is the only singular thing I can remember right now. Came the edition of June. 1928. Sad to relate, bustles had gone, but short skirts were the thing. Dat ol’ debbil,” slang, had a strong foothold on the unfor- tunate inmates. Girls were all trying to imitate Clara Bow. the It” girl. As from the beginning, the little sophomores were the butt of the juniors, the juniors were the butt of the seniors, and the sophomores were also the victim of their conceit. Time marches on! June, 1929. As the lunches were pretty crowded with vermin and as waste papers were being strewn around, the result of the seniors playing basketball with it, a third lunch was instituted. As a result, more vermin crowded the corridors and the seniors played the same sort of basketball more than ever. Cafeteria lectures were ardently given by cafeteria-cleaner-uppers” and look at the results today. The speeches must have had a double meaning. The joke department, thanks to the advancing generation, was considerably improved, though the seniors’ wit, if such it could be called, was absolutely withering in some remarks. For instance, one “bright young thing suggested that all the discussion about sophomores and seniors be ended, because the young Frankenstein would give to the world a mixture of both, a junior! ! That is what I call an insult, but worry not, the day will come. Again time skips gaily along and 1930 brought the next June issue. The only thing to recommend it was the beautiful if satiric display of cartoons. The cartoons depicting the sophomores and seniors were marvellously true to life, but of course those of the juniors were only miserable caricatures. All this may seem to you only a review of all the past, but not passed-up. Golden Rods. However, this is only helping me to recall enough courage to express my worthy opinions of the magazine as a whole. So, here I go again. The Golden Rod of June, 1931 was fortunately blessed with a beautiful cover. That means, of course, a girl graced it. This issue was also unfortunately unblessed with the homely but kindly (I still know that It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie”) visages of the seniors. They had conceitedly voted to have in the graduation issue their pic- tures and their addresses. (No, no phone numbers of the opposite sex!) This made the magazine larger and the purchasers thought that they were getting more for Eighteen

Page 22 text:

(ReaJtam. and MORNING Looking at the sky, Standing on a high hill Watching dainty cloud-ships Go sailing by. Listening to a meadowlark Heralding the morn. Perched on a sturdy stalk Of mellow autumn corn. Lying in a stuffy room. Gazing at the ceiling— Cracked, and greyed, with many pictures And the plaster peeling. Listening to the “el” trains Already tearing past. Or the screech of timely brakes. Or a factory whistle s blast. Lora von Bergen (Pkanta ty RECIPE FOR TWINKLING EYES Oh, I took a piece of sun, and I took a piece of moon. And I mixed them in a cloud with a diamond-studded spoon. Then I sprinkled in some star-dust of silver sparkling hue From a moonbeam shaker taken from a shelf of noon-sky blue. Then I made a crust of sunset the prettiest of shades And I set it in an oven which gleamed with golden braids. When I thought the pie was finished, I found to my surprise. That this strangest of concoctions was just your twinkling eyes. Vernon A. Weeden Twenty