Stadium High School - Tahoma Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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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.

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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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Days of Real Sport at Stadium High