Banning High School - San Gorgonian Yearbook (Banning, CA)

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As I gaze on rough old Grayback, When the sun’s low o'er the sea. When the sun is low at setting, And the sky seems dripping fire! Tis then the bards would sing it With sweet voice and golden lyre. They would sing of all the beauty And the legends long untold. When the canyons of old Grayback Are crimsoned with sunset gold. —tTracy Pierce, °22. Those Poor Teachers I am a poor unbeguiling bachelor of sixty years and have a scientific turn of mind. My chief joy is Physics, which | teach in a small California town’s Union High School. I have always had a great love for the young life of our nation and I still do to some extent, although my admiration for their animal spirits has diminished in some respects, enough one might say, to have made me constantly fear their outbreak- ings. I have a deep instinct which | must tell you about. [ call it an instinct yet it cannot be classed as such entirely. One might call it a belief, a realization. It is that feminine minds are too frivolously inclined to understand and appreciate so deep a cubject as Physics. Physics is made for the masculine mind and only the masculine mind. It should not be mixed with femininity! My opinion is solidly set since last year. I have set myself the task of writing th’s story to warn other Physics teachers, especially the younger ones, against this prevailing evil. It happened this way. We have twins in our school. Yes, they are twins and live up to the traditions concerning twins. They look, talk and act exactly alike. My class meets just before luncheon every dey. This is most trying for my young students. Their appetites grow with the minutes. These twins seem to have a double portion of appetite. Their usually sunny countenances always held a hunted look after about the first half period. Indeed, | was so touched by theiy pathetic looks that at times | refrained from calling on them to recite, at least during the last half of the period. And as their last name began with W (Walters) I could not be ex- pected to call on them early in the period. But I am wandering from my tale. One gloomy day, Page Twenty-five

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might find them. Then he started to think where they might be. He had looked everywhere he could think when sud- denly he had a happy thought, which was, “go look in youy fishing tackle.’ So he dumped his hooks, lines, reels, and grappling hooks upon the grcund, and lo! in the very bottom of the suit case were his glasses! “‘And all that,” said Steve “comes from praying.” While I was packing the tents on the last morning of our stay, Steve told me why he had come to California. He said, “IT broke away from society back east to come ou t West where a man’s a man for what he is.’’ Steve looking sadly around went on, “The West's getting almost as bad as the East now, though. If I only was younger I would hit for Mexico right now.’ Then he told me how much money he had made and spent. He said, “‘] made sixty thousand dollars in six weeks once, and I'd spent it all before two weeks were gone. I've got oil land near the Ridge Route that the Standard Oil wants mighty bad, but I don’t care anything about money, so | guess Yl] just sit around a while longer and see what happens.” We finally got packed with Steve's able help, entertained all the while by his stories of high finance, and left camp with those two old people who spent their summers camping along the open road, making friends with everyone, wishing us good luck on our journey. Steve, all smiles, was waving us a friendly hand and Mary was leaning on her broom; the cats were tied to their trees, and the Ford was standing in its ac- customed place. Frederic S. Wing, '23. PRIZE POEM The Magician As I gaze enrapt with wonder At old Grayback tinged with gold, It seems that voices whisper Of stories long untold. Of legends vague and mystic That happened long ago, Before the Aztecs bravely With their swords beat back the foe. Nay! E’en before the cliffman In his rock-walled canyon bower, Fared forth with club and hammer To capture and devour. Ah! No, I can’t express it, Just that thought which comes to me Page Twenty-four

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Elma and Delma came in as gloomy as a barometer. They took their seats and looked moodily around at the rest of the twenty-nine. Everyone seemed to be staring at them and every once in a while one of the boys would laugh and say “Good work, El or Del,” as the case might be. I could not see why their work was good, for that morning | felt it my duty to call upon them, having neglected to do so for some time. They knew nothing whatever about the lesson, which happened to be on electrolytes, electrodes and the rest of the Chapter twenty-eight in Practical Physics, Carhart and Chute. After I had called on several pupils of the same sex with no better results | decided to have an impromptu laboratory after school. Elma and Delma began to brighten and they whispered excitedly. I thought that they were glad to find such an opportunity to clear the muddle of electricity in their minds. They seemed so elated that I decided to have laboratory right away and not wait until after school, thereby keeping them from their innocent play (as | suppose they must play even at the sedate age of eighteen). I soon had jars, batteries, coils and all necessary appara- tus out and everything was going smoothly, with Elma and Delma at different tables. Then suddenly there came to my nostrils the smell of burning rubber. | immediately admon- ished them to be careful not to burn any more and Elma, or the twin of Elma, piped up in her innocent young voice that it was only John’s neck and that she had extinguished it. | thought nothing of it except to note that she was feeling a little more like her usual self and | had not the heart to forbid her little pleasures. Things kept happening to disturb the class, such as doors slamming, bells ringing and footsteps echoing in the hall. It seemed to amuse the class greatly. I was in the midst of one of my best loved electrical experiments when | received a shock, presumably from my machine, and yet it seemed to start in my ankles and send disturbing thrills through my whole body. I still felt this sensation after | had dropped the wire, but per- haps it was my imagination. However, I received another shock a few minutes later when I was touching nothing. It too came from my pedal extremities. | investigated and found a battery near my feet with wires attached. | suspected that someone had done it to injure me, but | never thought of the twins. I had not the faintest idea that they of all people would be able to connect up a Leclanche cell and work it! I looked about the classroom to ascertain if all were in their places. Elma was in her proper place, but when I looked toward Delma I distinctly saw Elma slip into her place. Delma was gone! I asked where she had gone and was told that she must have felt ill for she had been gone several minutes. Page Twenty-six