Abington High School - Oracle Yearbook (Abington, PA)

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fi Q11 qw . '91 1 ?4 I ' , .ppy , an - 1 , s if it 1 ' 2 i r W .. 4 ' s LOR RAIN E BATES, '51 .Z. . Kraal Roy Brill, a sophomore at Abington this year, is the son of a missionary and has lived in Africa most of his life. When he was very young, his parents were sent to a mission station in the Belgian Congo, where for many years they worked among the natives. Roy spoke the native trade language before he learned to speak Eng- lish. He later attended a mission school which had only fowr rooms and sixty pupils and was run in three-month periods. Roy, who says that he has enjoyed his African enzperiences, hopes some day to be or missionary himself. Trudging along a narrow, winding path with tall telephant grass reaching high overhead, and entangling vines reaching out to trip the less prudent, I suddenly leave the maze of grass and vines and burst upon a small village. Natives come running out of their huts with cries of Sene! Sene! Azi malamu mingi kutala yo! fHello! Hello! It is good to see you lj Each native from the oldest to the youngest has to shake hands with me except a few shy ones who hang back. I see natives with peculiar tribal markings on their bodies, earrings in their ears, bracelets and anklets, and many diiierent kinds of hairdos. The men are wearing short pants bought at trading posts. One or two old men have the skins of animals carelessly thrown around their bodies. The boys wear a small cloth made from the bark of a certain tree. The women and girls wear leaves or what little cloth- ing their husbands buy them. I am asked why I have come to stay in their village. I tell them I want to see what a native village is like. The capita Chead- inanl sends some of the men to fix one of the huts for me to live in. My boys that brought my food and camp cot are also given a hut. On looking around me at the village, I see ten huts clustered close together with a lane running down the center. Beside the larger huts are small huts to store grain in. In front of each hut burns a fire with native mea.l cooking in it. Chickens and goats are running around and getting into

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question to everyone he met: Have you seen my medal, you know, my little silver medal? but the answer was always a sympathetic negative. When the time came to leave for the Dis- tricts, the medal still hadn't turned up. Feeling beaten before the gun, Rex climb- ed aboard the bus and sank into a rear seat. As the bus rolled along, Rex became aware of the low, nervous, but confident- chatter of his teammates. He looked around him. They were a melting pot of different faiths, some of his own religion, a Jewish boy, a Baptist, but all working together for one cause, which they all agreed was a worthy one. Without medals, without even the same faith he held so dear, they had followed him through a season of vic- tories long to be remembered in the annals of Crown Point cross-country. They all had faith in the Lord, but they also had another faith he now noticed-a faith in themselves, something he lacked. The medal was made by the hand of man, but he him- self, his legs, his physical strength, they were all direct works of God, and he had to believe in them. As he started to leave the bus for the Districts course, with a feeling of self-con- fidence growing inside him, the coach stopped him and, with the words, I thought you might want this, handed Rex the lost medal. The boy gazed at it in his hand, then, after a moment's hesita- tion, he handed it back to the coach, say- ing, This time I'll do it by myself' ' Today Rex Adams wears two silver medals. There 's an inscription on one that reads: H1950 District V Champion. ROBERT NAYLOR, '52 The Richest Moment of My Life Did you ever see a million dollars all at once? Packs of one, five, ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, five hundred, and thousand dollar bills piled high on a table before your very eyes? This really happened to me. There I was inside a large bank vault with the bank president and an armed guard presiding over the money and television cameramen, newspaper reporters, photographers, bank officials, and students representing other schools surrounding me. This was Bank Day in Philadelphia, and a group of students were touring the Phila- delphia Corn Exchange Bank. I guess we were dreaming at that time what we could do with all that money when a newspaper photographer grabbed my arm and led me to that piled up table. ' Then the bank official informed me that I, with the help of another girl, was to pose for a publicity stunt celebrating Bank Day. Amazingly enough, I was to handle all this money, placing a half a million dollars in the arms of the other girl. l The stage was set, and all eyes were upon us as the picture was snapped. I never expect to have so much money pass through my hands again. JILL BRENNER, '51

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everything. Lean dogs are slinking here and there around the village. The men return to tell me my hut in readiness for me to move into. This hut is made with poles, sticks, boka ia type of bambooj, mud, and grass. I inquire how it was made. They tell me that poles were put upright in the ground in a circle, then long sticks were tied on either side of the poles all the way around. Boca is placed upright on the outside of the sticks and tied. Mud is then placed all over this. The roof is thatched. The inside has a mud floor and mud walls. After I inspect my dwell- ing, I set up my camp cot and go out to join the natives. Do you Want to see our villagef' they ask. 'tBoyo CyesD, I say. The first thing I see is the inside of one of the huts. On four poles is a rude platform with a mat on which two or three people could sleep. There are two of these platforms. Earthen pots, spears, mats, bows and arrows are strewn around the room. It is apparent that the goats and chickens sleep in the hut with the natives at night. I am directed down a well-cleared path lflil I. . '.l,f - M 2 ' Q 'Viv' I I I ..-, A . ELLI RICKERT, '51 toward a stream. Here I see the women carrying pots of water ou their heads while others are filling theirs. The water is crystal clear and very cool. Wearily walk- ing back toward the village after seeing many interesting things, I notice the gar- dens where men are working in the cool of evening. At night I stand around the fire with the natives and have my meal While they eat theirs. After the meal we sit and talk about hunting experiences we have had. l go to sleep with joy in my heart that I have been able to visit this village and see the many different native customs and the people's way of living. ROY BRILL, '53 My Aquatic Refuge With a final adjustment of the air valves, I began my descent into the tepid crystal-blue Waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This was my first dive into the realm of Neptune. As the water flushed against my face mask, a tremendous sensation of excite- ment sped through my body only to be overshadowed by awe and amazement when I was completely submerged. There, spread before me, was a world of peace and tranquility never equalled in our world of air-breathers. I had never seen such an exquisite shade of aquamarine. The sunlight, reflected from the surface, sent lazy beams of prismatic colors .danc- ing along the ocean floor. Instead of a horizon there was a miraculous blending of the massy bottom with the enchanting water. This combination of color and at- mosphere reminded me of an oriental garden with soft lilting music filtering along the tide. Life in this newly found haven seemed to move at a pleasantly slow and easy pace, set to the rhythm of the ebbing of the tide. The long, deep-green seaweed, which covered virtually everything, swayed to and fro in the lazy, systematic motion of a pendulum doling out the seconds. Even