Balmoral Hall School - Optima Anni Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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13 whose name was on the Valentine , was bound to be her sweetheart until next February. And, if she had not talked him into marrying her by then, she could have another beau for the next year. I am thinking of instituting this novel system in Winnipeg. It does have its drawbacks, but we would all be assured of escorts for the Graduation Dance! The British conception of St. Valentines Day emigrated to Canada with some of our early set- tlers, but what has happened to St. Valentine's Day in our fair land, I cannot discern or explain. All I know is that every year since I was six I have been sending and receiving penny Valentines, with no signatures on them. Such a waste of money! I am not too enthusiastic about returning to a day of mourning, but I am all for returning to a Roman spring festival. If we followed my sug- gestion, we would have a week-long holiday and gambol about in City Park, with hot-house roses adorning our long tresses. Also, to protect our tender little feet, we would wear fur sandals. Ah well, I must rush out and buy this year's supply of penny Valentines. If I don't send any, I might not receive any, and that would be tragic! joan Davidson, Grade XI. Hands An arm is resting on a table- a thick, muscu- lar arm-strong from heavy work, and constant labour-and at the end of it-a hand. With one glance at this hand, one can tell that the own- er is a poor labourer. The knuckles are large and protruding, the nails at the end of stubby fingers are clipped short, and are black. The skin is rough and red, cut and scarred from constant exposure to wind and sun, flying coal chunks and biting wire. The tendons are large and rippling, surging with strength. A child reaches with delight for a balloon. The chubby fingers fumble with it, drop it, and grab it up again, pressing softly into the soft rubber. These are small, fat hands, with dimples where there should be knuckles, and lines like thin brace- lets around the wrists. They are grubby, but clean in their innocence and inexperience. Smoke curls from the end of a cigarette in an ivory holder held casually but expertly between long slender fingers. The nails are tapered, mani- cured with care, and brightly polished. The skin on this hand is smooth and white, smelling slightly of flowers and telling the world of the work it has escaped. There is something odd, yet marvellous in these hands. Although they are the most outer part of the body, thought reaches them almost before it shows on the face. Fingers tremble over ivory keys, then slowly gain confidence as they move deftly over them-rapidly, then slowly, produc- ing notes that are painfully sweet, then startlingly harsh. A tense hand grips a smooth white throat. It trembles also, but trembles because it is so tense. The fingers tighten slowly and the strength pours from them until they relax, hot and wet. A friendly hand grips another, and love, sympathy, and sin- cerity are recognized by both persons, though not a word is said. Swift but sure and clear lines are stroked on a canvas, the expert fingers guiding their tool, until all the artist's thoughts and feel- ings are transmitted to the canvas. Surely hands are one of the most strange and wonderful works of the Creator. The poor work- man's strong hands, the childs chubby hand slip- ping trustfully into yours, the social butterfly's manicured hands, the artists, the musicians, the murderers-all tell of the work they do or do not do- the things they create or destroy. Nora Anne Richards, Grade XI. Through the Nylons on the Bathrod Parting fawn-coloured gossamer From the everyday world I go. fFirst testing my way cautiously With the tip of my big toe.j Seeking cover in denser foliage, I slip through like a woodland deer. .QBut in 15 denier and 51 gauge There is no dense, just sheer. j Into snowy whiteness I step, Whiteness as smooth as marble. fMaking sure I don't slip On a product of Procter and Gamblej Ambitiously I scourge myself Until my senses glow and tingle. QThen suddenly panic grips As too much hot with cold doth minglej Stillness-when I stop the deluge. The warm waters I again embrace. fBut silence has betrayed the gurgle From leaking plug I must replacej All is calm and peaceful, The moments swiftly fly. fUntil I'm gripped in agony Of soap-got-in-the-eye.j Mary-Kaye Simpkinson, Grade X.

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I2 Witness in the Window This is a short tale about a very small animal with a long one. His name was Sim and he was a fieldmouse who lived long ago in a small but comfortable nest in the corner of a stable. He spent most of his life hunting about for food to help feed the family, and watching out for the cats who came from the nearby inn to prowl through the dark stable at night in search of dinner. When he wasn't busy with these affairs, he often climbed up the wall to the small, high window at the end of the stable and sat on the ledge looking down onto the road outside. Sim liked barley, warm straw, sleeping and long grass, but most of all he liked looking out the window, for from this exalted position he could see the heads and bodies of passers-by with their camels and mules, instead of just their feet, and he could see the tops of houses and the sky. All his life Sim wished that he could look at the sky without craning his neck. One particular day, Sim woke up feeling better than he ever had before. He leaped from his nest, turned a few somersaults and jumped about, then fairly streaked up the wall to the window sill. There he stopped for a moment gazing out onto the fresh morning world and gulping early morning air till he nearly choked, then he scrambled down the other side of the wall and set out to visit the meadows. He followed along a steep embankment beside the road, swinging along at a jaunty pace, humming little tunes to himself and watching the travellers who were already streaming by in the opposite direction towards the town. just as he was turning off into the meadow, Sim saw near the edge of the road a travel-worn man and woman with a donkey who seemed indisposed to budge. The woman on the donkey was very beautiful. Sim watched them from behind a clump of grass until the donkey finally gave in, then scampered off into the field, his heart pattering triple time with un- accountable excitement. Long after the sun had sunk out of sight and night had spread a dark blanket over the sleeping world, Sim, weary from a long day in the meadow, was moving homeward under cover of the long grasses that hid him from the hunters in the sky. His tiny feet dragged over the pebbles and his tail trailed and bumped over the ground behind him. As he neared the window of the stable he could think of nothing but his warm nest in the dark- and sleep. Up, up the long wall he climbed, till just as he was nearly at the top, he noticed that a strange bright light was shining from within. He scrambled up the rest of the way and stood on the sill, blinking. And when he looked in, a sudden huge happiness took hold of him and wound round and round inside him till he could no longer con- tain himself, and he burst into a frenzied jig on the window sill, squeaking joyously at the top of his lungs. At last he got so dizzy that he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels into the manger full of hay below him. When he picked himself up, whom should he see looking down at him but the man and the beautiful woman with the donkey, and right beside him in the manger, so close that he felt a warm breath all down his back, lay- The mouse, overcome with shyness and awe, hid his head in the hay. Ann Jennings, Grade XII. St. Valentine's Day According to history there were in early Rome, two very holy Christian martyrs, both named Val- entine. Both died a very ugly death on February 14, the date of pagan Rome's Spring Festival. Lest anyone should want to make a pilgrimage to their graves, they were buried at widely separated spots on the Appian Way with neither a shrine nor a tombstone to mark their resting places. These two Christian martyrs were quite unknown to most of the pagan Romans, who, as was their custom on February 14, wrapped their togas about them and went off singing in celebration of their nameless annual Spring Festival. The mourning Christians, however, called February 14 St. Valentines Day, and each year thereafter, while the Christians mourned, the Romans celebrated and made gay flower wreaths. In time, since the Romans accepted the name of St. Valentines Day for their festival, and the Christians continued to remember their two martyrs, the two became synonymous. When the Romans reached Britain, they brought their customs with them. On February 14, the Britons saw the Romans having a splendid party. Clt may be noted here that, as the English Febru- aries are quite different from Italian Februaries, the gala occasion may have been a rather drizzly onelj They naturally inquired as to the reason for the gaiety, and when told, they immediately adopted the idea and, as the English are wont to do, they set about quickly establishing traditions to go with St. Valentines Day, for as everyone knows, nothing in Britain is good until it is at least four hundred years old, and steeped in tradition. Young British maidens were only waiting for a chance to snatch a husband, and so they took full advantage of this light-hearted festival. QAI Capp had not yet invented Sadie Hawkins' Daylj All the lads and lasses of the village would gather on the green, and the men would place hearts, with mottoes on them, in a hat. The girls would step blushingly forward and draw one, and the man

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I4 Where I'd Like to Live Hare been tm1z5fer1'ed to Bella Bella 110117 flfleet we here the fezztla flop Park only fzerefritiey flop Bring children J'f0,U, So there it was. No more warning than that. In two days we left our secure and peaceful home, our friends and our pussy cat to meet my father and to go on to Bella Bella. Five hundred miles up the coast from Vancou- ver Island lies a small, sleepy, Indian fishing vil- lage, Bella Bella meaning beautiful, beautiful. Of all the places in the world it is here that I would most like to live. Here, a new world was opened to me and I have never forgotten it - the world of the violet sea anemone, a world of bound- less fertility and unsurpassed natural beauty. At the beginning of the war Bella Bella was turned into an air force base. A station and land- ing strip were blasted out of solid rock three miles from the town site. In peace time the white population consists of five people. During the war it rose to about two hundred, all service men and their wives and families. We arrived at the most beautiful time of the year, the late spring. The country was a mass of green. You could not take a step without crush- ing some delicate and fragile fern or mountain flower. Our cottage was right on the ocean. Except for a boat which came up from Vancouver every two weeks, we were completely cut off from civiliza- tion. These boats were the life blood of the tiny settlement. Without them we had nothing- no food, no fresh fruit or vegetables, no milk - nothing. I can remember walking three miles along a board walk, muskeg on either side of me, the pungent moist odour of the jungle-like growth filling my nostrils, the hot noonday sun beating down on my bare head, to meet the boat, to pick up mail, news from home and to buy fresh milk. I can remember, after the long trudge home again, crying because the heat of the sun and the three- day boat trip had soured the milk and I had to wait another two weeks for more. How I de- tested that powdered milk! I learned many things way up there. We had to depend upon ourselves for amusement. There were no shows to wander into when nothing else could be found to do, no tennis courts on which to run off excess energy. There was only the moun- tain, the streams and the ocean. Our rubber boots were our best friends. I distinctly remember how thrilled I was with the first pair and how, the first time I wore them, I walked out in the ocean at high tide and felt the cool, salt water ooze over ,al V' , 4 4 l7 l V I 5 K - I l E' 'f l ' I 3 .,l. ,lp- the tops and down in between my toes. They took three days to dry out and I was furious. I remember the sail boat we had and the little red row-boats and how terrified my mother used to be when she'd look out of the window toward the bay and see my four year old brother and his friends paddling out to the sand bar. The ocean fascinated me, It still does. I used to go down to the beach when the tide was out and wander around on the wet sand watching the small, soft-shelled crab scuttle to safety, pick up the abalone shell I'd find strewn in the sand and gather the tiny porcupine-like sea anemone on the end of a pencil. I was happy here, cut off from everything, revel- ling in natures beauty, running like some kind of shy, young animal. I no longer had to wear black patent leather shoes and stiffly-starched cotton dresses. Overalls and my beloved rubber boots were my everyday clothes. The grown ups were too busy with the business of war to bother with us much. Bella Bella was a number one alarm station. Submarines had been sighted just off the coast. Daddy and the rest of the men were always armed. japanese attack was expected at any mo- ment, but Eric and I and the rest of the children were too young to realize the gravity of the situa- tion. This was our childhood. We had no worries, no cares, no fears. Our days were untroubled from beginning to end. Some day I'll go back to Bella Bella. I'm al- most afraid to, however. Maybe it won't be as perfect as I remember it, now that childhood has passed. Sonja Nelson, Grade XI. iid f rim l - M Inf gmmw