Stadium High School - Tahoma Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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TI-IE. TAI-IOMA I9 rocking hammock to be suspended be- tween decks. Aside from the passengers, there was an unusually fine lot of old fash- ioned jokes on board that night, some of which, having first seen the light of day on the ark, were still leading a seafaring existence. There was the joke about the fat man and the needle, which had no point, and the story of the old man and his seven daughters, which was the identical joke which caused Nero to break a blood vessel, and many more too tiresome to relate. When the well meaning humorists had depleted their stock of shelf-worn goods, and had gone below to assuage their deep-seated grief at the ship's bar, the talk shifted to politics and religion, which always seemed to me a poor combination, then to tales of sea life, and finally to icebergs. The captain, a cheery and optimistic soul, told many tales of the chance meetings of ships and be1'gs at sea, and some more of the comparative safety of ocean travel as compared to playing with dynamite, and at the end of the evening had the whole company quite worked up at the prospect of meeting one of the gigantic frosts of which he spoke. However, curiosity far outweighed fear in my mind, for as I had never seen any ice not under the control of the Ice Trust, I was more anxious to do so than apprehensive of the possible consequences. i - '--' LE: if-3 rx 7'Y '?255i 4 ip--L 142' Q 'Z 4 IN mf t ll tt- T '?i? - .- . E ' , sz iw ly f uf , 1:9199 P 1 gf - W rl 1, ge E -r Jgvvitv hi -11 A-..-5 yy g a :M , p ' I llnm1m.l f ' fs: 'i'- '11 1 ' f - I iii: ,llf 5M Zag I -- QM-7 V ',. R T .ftp rl W f u WW' 'WW' Illlulfl 7' ' AZMQ-QZ3,,f4::' After the crowd in the saloon had gone to their respective bunks, and I had gone to mine, I lay awake imagining how beautiful an ice- berg would look to my sun-scorched eyesg miles upon miles of perfectly good ice, with here and there a soda fountain or a soft drink counter, each sheltered under the crystal dome of an ice-block palace. Scattered around would be fifty-pound pieces of ice, each with a. pair of ice-tongs and an invitation to h-elp yourself. But to come back to bed, or rather the bunk, let me say that there are many words not in good standing but commonly used which have taken their names from articles most familiar to the sailor. For instance, the word bunk, as used on ship board, is th-e same word that is used on land meaning a disappointment or failure. The bunk in which I lay was reached by shin- ning up the bedpost to a height of about ten feet, and when reached proved to have ample room only if you let your head and feet hang out. ::a5il3'?JilL1--A-'11 I.rum.taa1z-5 naar .::. W ss-'iz H-'rf' fliiiizilllfuqgpn, Q 5 25 Q. fzlmiufsfrig f-::x1:nunllll',.... ., Y 4 Z -3- , ..fiii5!isE:5ifQ ' Y 'THIHY' 1 ., -L ,-- 1 . ,'ji?.,'I?i:ff'5f. v-as . -1. 'fliffk-.-2? -g-ggi? J! - I 0 fc., I ,au - I f - I, Ja., l reams -Tllii liiin iii? ,Q gi., -. N gixgfflji ,. J LH an W ,aw 1 ,ta tl' we IHII it ,.lxil.:i1i:.urnX --H.-is -'N ,fpff .fl 5,11 i H ,db-M MJ .., .11 u -l-lr. . , ,g..m..... .. ::,' ' .1 'Tiff -1,.,,r,.,,w. if 1- , -- , 'Q Q W ww' ' , . 5' f V1 -Q H mfg., xllffgrfl 1 4 di' 1 i.. J rl H . A ,r V .J x .IJ 1-1 flaw. L,'a..,.::rLA-,if ag. Jim --, A' 1 A n 4 1 1 Everything was quiet on ship- board, except for the customary noises of ship lifeg the beating of the propel- ler as it beat the Water to a creamy foam, the beating of the bells at half-hourly intervals, and the beating of the cook as he beat the eggs for the morning's meal. Shortly after three bells, which in the parlance of the un-seafaring man

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I8 TI-IE TAI-IOMA y First Iceberg BY HEATH TWICHELL L iceberg that I ever saw and . Q, although the feeling of frigid ity which it imparted to me has long since passed away, the pecu- liar circumstances of its appearance, and the awe with which it inspired me are still photographed on my mem- ory. WELL 'remember the first iiel I . .. ge . 1 It was during the summer of l832, which is still remembered by the in- habitants of the eastern portion of the United States on accountof the un- usual ferocity of the mosquitos, and the extreme period of drought during the Brewery Helpers' strike in its last months, that I determined to make a protracted visit to foreign climes, leaving my family and other worries behind, and accordingly purchased a ticket on the good old Imaginary Line, running from New York to London, Europe, on an irregular schedoodle. I found out on inquiring at the tick- et oflice of the Line that the next sail- ing was on the first Wednesday in the week, and on the clay appointed was at the dock early, before the bill collect- ors could get notice of my change of address. There was the usual crowd of weepers at the dock to see the boat off, and as the Osopic on which I sail- ed drew away from the pier, it was entirely surrounded by the briny emul- sions of the girls I left behind me. When the boat had at last wash-ed the dust of America from its feet, I took time to look about me and to take note of the ship on which I was, and of its passengers. The Osopic was an old boat, a survivor of the era before the present craze for comfort, speed and safety in ocean liners. It was just large enough to be uncomfortable in a rough sea, and possessed all the quali- ties of a family horse we once had: slow, unhandsome, and willing to buck and roll under the slightest provocation. However, it was just the right size for sociability, and, as often happens in small places on shore, everyone knew everyone else's affairs in a very short time. At the dinner table in the saloon fdon't get alarmedl on the Hrst night from terra cotta, I had an excellent op- portunity of sizing up my fellow pas- sengers, who numbered about three hundred, and of being in turn sized up by them. I noticed in particular a stout couple of the recently rich type, whom for lack of a better title I dubbed lVlr. and Mrs. Sippi, on account of their delicat-e accents while imbibing soup. Then there was the man from Peoria, who had never been to sea be- fore, as was the case with most of us, and who had in his trunk every known cure for sea-sickness, including a non-

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20 TI-IE T means half past one, I awoke with a sensation of intense cold, and with feelings of mingled anticipation for the iceberg 1 felt sure I was about to see, and of condemnation for the steam- ship company for putting legs on their state room tables, I put on the few necessary clothes and stumbled out on deck. iWhen l got on deck I saw several other passengers gazing out into space, but a closer examination of their pre- occupatoin, and of the peculiar tenacity with which they clung to the rail, con- vinced me that they were not looking for icebergs. When I had entirely sat- isfied myself that no iceberg would be roaming about on so cold a night as that one was, I Went back to my state- room, and concluded that the feeling of chilliness which I had not- iced upon waking was probably due to the fact that the covers had come off in the night and were lying on the floor. The next moring dawned line and clear, with the horizon entirely inno- cent of icebergs. The day continued fine, and I spent the morning playing a game they called deck quoits with some of the lady passengers. 'The game is something like horse-shoes, be- ing played with round rings about the shape of doughnuts, but with this dif- ference, they are much more digestible. I thus passed the morning pleasantly enough, and in the afternoon, some of the more sociologically inclined 'of us got up a slumming expedition to visit the stoke-room of the ship. We ex- pected, of course, to find the stereo- typed array of begrimed stokers, swel- tering at their brutal toil, such as one always reads of in sea booksg but when we had descended into that little I-lell's Kitchen we found the cooks all gone, and in their place was one spot- less individual, who with one hand regulated the oil valve of the work- AI-IOMA less boiler, while with the other he held a week-old New York news- paper, which he read when not giving his attention to feeding the Hres. We were all very much disappoint- ed at the lack of stokers, and in view of the fact that it was stifling hot, as- cended the iron ladders to the upper deck, hoping that an iceberg might be in sight, to cool us after our, as yet, untimely trip into the lower regions. Upon arriving on deck, we immed- iately went to the captain and re- quested him, if it were at all possible, to produce an iceberg, even if in do- ing so he had drawn heavily on the winter's supply around the pole. The Captain, in order to get rid of us troublesome land-grubbers, promised that if parlor magic had any efficacy, he would have an iceberg for us before sundown. Later in the afternoon, the weather clouded up somewhat, and the water, the captain told us, became several de- grees colder, indicating that an ice- berg must be near. After having once bathed in the waters of the Atlantic, I did not think this possible, but it was vouched for by the ship's ther- mometer, and by later developments. Expectation ran high among the passengers, and there were wagers be- tween some as to who would sightpthe first berg. I was engaged in con- versation with one of the passengers with whom l had played quoits in the morning,--a middle-aged, sprightly young lady,-and in the course of it, inadvertently asked her how old she would be on her next birthday. She was the hrst and only iceberg that I ever saw, and, as I said before, although the feeling of frigidity which she imparted to me has long since passed away, the peculiar circumstances of this perfectly natural phenomenon are still photographed on my memory.