Wayne High School - Sentry Yearbook (Fort Wayne, IN)

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What do you learn here written by a student on at Wayne? Do you learn vacation in the outside anything? If you do, what world looking in. The se- does it mean? cond tale is told by a Where do you learn it teacher looking through from? What do you get for and beyond this same learning it? What do you world. The third, by a get from learning it? student looking us in the Those questions were eye. asked of two students and one teacher here at Look them over. Wayne. The first story is Live them over. When I was asked to write an opening for the yearbook, I accepted cas- ually. After all, how hard could it be? And so I be- gan. And began again. And again. And yet again. After surveying the debris, and musing on the unpleas- ant (yet somehow not un- appealing) speculation that I might be a func- tional illiterate, I tos- sed all care to the winds. Spring vacation was coming and I was going to have fun or die trying. After returning from my trip (a tour of Mexico City which is another es- say entirely) I decided two things: first, that Amer- ican teenagers are incred- ibly boring; and second, that American teenagers are some of the funniest people to be around. I came to the first con- clusion as we sat talking to a Mexican student. Here was this marvelous oppor-

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r - ' ' Hi . . , I just wanted to drop you this note to tell you how much I enjoyed seeing you today. I nnean it ' s really great to have a friend like you— someone to talk to, complain about, to laugh and cry with. I take you for granted, that ' s for sure. A lot of people think you ' re kind of strange. But I guess that ' s what makes life inter- esting. It ' s just neat being around you. You always have something funny to say and I love it when you break into that devilish grin of yours. You are you, and I like you just as you are — patched-up jeans and that old dusty plaid shirt. Our friendship is warm and kind, most of the time. It ' s simply mellow. See ya . . .

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STORIES tunity to further world understanding and promote brotherhood, etc., etc., right? And what did we talk about? WHAT WE DISLIKED ABOUT OUR HAIRSTYLES. what are you going to wear tonight? It appears that Amer- icans are overly concerned with their appearance. With new experiences their adamant refusal to see the world as a rigid textbook, they are the most alive of any people Who ' d of thought of the Gong Show as entertainment? bursting all around them, they are content to fret because they didn ' t bring a curling iron, or wonder if they need to shave their legs before going out. They are stolid middle- American Babbits, who tra- vel through another world by hauling THEIR entire world with them. And yet, these boring, exasperating, annoying, irritating, make-me-want-to- scream people are the most They are stolid middle American Babbits, who travel through another world by hauling THEIR entire world with them. So it went, the entire week. At the pyramids: sunburn and the trauma of pale legs in the first shorts of the season. Museum of Anthropology: too dark for Instamatics. Basillica de Guadalupe: blisters and joyous I ' ve ever seen. Be- cause of their ability to live in their own private circle of sensations, and in the world, or of any in America. We sat on a hot patio outside the Museum of Anthropology one day, two thousand miles from Holly- wood, and entertained our- selves with our impressions of the Gong Show. The Mexican viewers had no idea of what we were doing, but laughed at the crazy American touristas anyway. And we laughed back, because we had triumphed over hot weather and warm Cokes and sore feet and WE WERE HAVING FUN. All by taking ourselves out of our immediate surroundings and making up our own. Who ' d of thought of the Gong Show as entertainment? —peri gruber, April 30th