Bellows Free Academy - Alpha Omega Yearbook (St Albans, VT)

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B. F. A. Mercury 9 fLynnJ Our pilot on the space ship was the United States Space Command,s leading flier, Wayne Sweeney. VVayne's co-pilot was Robert Phenix, The pretty airline hostess was Pat Ladd. Since this was a top priority in- vestigation, there also were a number of top rank'ng officials going to the Planet Fairfield with us. Among them was the Director of U.S. National Defense, General Richard Wilson, who was accompanied by his secretary, Alice Comstock. We had a short chat with General Wilson and learned that another member of our class was on his staff - Jeannette Thibault was the head of the Womcn's Division of the Space Cadets. Cjeanl We landed at the Fairfield Airport, and, as we were walking through the waiting room toward thc street, I thought I recognized a couple of familiar faces. Sure enough-it was Gail Bishop and Shirley Anstey, who told us that they were happily married and were waitfng for their husbands who were Fairfield Air Force officials and would he coming in on a ship due any minute. Lynn and I agreed that if we were going to get a story about the mysterious disappearance we would have to contact the head of the Fairfield Security Defense Department, Paul Waite. When we got to Paulfs office, we found Reg Godin there. Reg, it seems, was the head of the Space FBI, and he was getting all the facts that he could from Paul before proceeding with the investiga- tion. Regis secretary, who sat across the room taking notes on the conversation, turned out to be Marolyn Gillilan. iLynnl Reg finished his talk with Paul and asked us if we would like to go along with him to question some people that he had reason to believe knew something about the mystery. Naturally, we said yes. Our first stop was Curley Cantellls Gambling Casino and Night- club -an establishment run by Mike Cantell. Mike told Reg that he would like to be of some help, but he knew nothing about the mystery. While Reg was interrogating some of Mikeis employees, we heard the sound of a familiar melody coming from another room in the casino. fjeanl The tune was The Lullaby of Interplanetary Spacelandv and the smooth tones of a talented trombone could be heard above the sounds of the rest of the band. You've guessed it . . . It was Fred Norton and His Solar System Six , featuring piano soloist Jean Bugbee and vocalist Connie Boivin. Fred and his band were com- pleting a two weeks engagement at Cantell's Casino before returning to the Earth to appear on Ed Sullivan's Toast of Terra Firmai' television show. fLynnQ XVe left Fred and went back to find out what Reg was doing just in time to see him talking to a dark- haired, intriguing-looking woman dressed entirely in black. The woman was the hostess at the casino, the mysterious Woman in Blackn, Shirley Cota. Shirley. in keeping with her fame as a person of intrigue, refused to coloperate in the slighest with the investigating officers. So the procedure was halted while Reg sent back to headquarters for an expert to handle the situation. ijcanj XVliile we waited, I happeiied to notice a copy of the local newspaper, and since I had some time on my hands, I decided to look through it. My eyes landed on a headline which read, U.S. Agricuture Experts Arrivev. Reading down through the story I learned that the Planet Fairfield was having difficulty developing soil conditions favorable for productive growing. So the Fairfield govern- ment sent for the Earth's top experts. The group consisted of Bill Bronson, Raymond Deso, Rene Montcalm, and Ierry Yates. And right next to the agriculture story I found a series of pictures covering the Miss Universe and Mr. Universe contests that had concluded the night before. I was pleased, but not really too surprised, to see that Connie Kinney had been chosen Miss Universe. But the real surprise came when I looked at the Mr. Universe pictures. There was the winner-tall, muscular, and debonair-Charley Church. fLynnl When I spotted jean with the paper, I asked for the sports section. There at the top of the page was a big picture of the United States Open Champion golfer, Dwane Moore. The accompanying story said that Dwane had come to Fairfield on an exhibition tour. And at the bottom of the page I found another picture and story which interested me. It showed the first woman jockey ever to win the Kentucky Derby, Linora McEnany. Linnie won the derby on a horse called Baton',. I looked through the rest of the sports items and then started to return the paper to Iean when something on the back page caught my eye. It was a theatre ad. In the center of the ad was a picture of Nancy Bovat. Above the picture it said, In her biggest and best picture yet, we are proud to present Scarlet Bovatv . . . and below the picture the ad continued, in janet Garvinis prize-winning story- EAST OF GEORGIA? Qeanl By this time the expert from headquarters that Reg had called had arrive, and it turned out to be none other than Betty Casavant, who held down the job of head of the Women Space Detectives. Betty immedi- ately began the task of questioning Shirley Cota, but it wasn't much use. The Mystery Woman wasn't talking, and Reg and Betty finally gave up. So we went on down the street to see some more people that might be able to help us. fLynnl Our next stop was a bowling alley and pool hall, run by Alan Hodet and Dick Peters. It was reported to he the meeting place of some suspicious characters who might know something about the disappearance of Dr. Cummings. However, both Alan and Dick said that they knew nothing about the mystery. It was at this moment that a familiar figure walked into the room. It was the interplanetary playboy, the suave bachelor with a girl on ever planet, Larry Martinson. Larry gave us our first lead in the case when he suggested that Dr. Cummings might have been lured off the route home- ward. VVhen we asked Larry about his information, hc declined to explain except to say that his bodyguard could verify his story. Ueanl Before carrying our investigation back along the route to the earth, we decided to make a last minute check at two places, the hospital . . . in the event that Dr. Cunmiiiigs might have been injured and sent there

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8 B. F. A. Mercury also members of the group and had been given the official title Custodians of the Tea . We were told that many of the local citizens had been going north to get their tea at Lewis Meunieris Trading Post. Lewis, it seemed, had just happened to have a tea bag with him when he took his trip into the past and had found the people so anxious for tea that he decided to stay there and go into the business. fLynnJ We decided to make one more stop in history before returning to New York and 1976. This time we landed in a thickly wooded area, and soon heard the sound of people tramplng through the brush. We spotted a lead scout, who had been sent ahead of the rest, and he told us that this was the Lewis and Clark Expedition, so we waited anxiously to see the famous historical figures. Instead we were surprised to see Fred Lewis and Beverly Clark. They told us that they had arrived here by means of the time machine and were bringing medical supplies to Catherine Chagnon, who had given up a promising career as a surgical nurse to go back into the past to tend sick Indians. Ueanj It was now time to return to 1976. The first thing we saw when we stepped out of the machine was a little man with six eyes, staring at us. lWith six eyes, what else could hc do?D When the shock wore off, we learned that this was a product of experiments in muta- tions by the eminent atomic pathologist, Ellen Story. Ellen was the director of Dr. Hurley's biological labora- tory. fLynnJ It was at this point that Dr. Hurley explained about the mystery that we had originally been assigned to cov-er. It seemed that Dr. Thomas E. Cummings, the world famous astronomer, had made a trip by rocket ship to the Planet Fairfield. Cummings had gone there to complete his exhaustive study of the moon by observing its peculiarities from that angle. Cummings had com- pleted the assignment but had disappeared while on his way back to earth. Qeanl Dr. Hurley was arranging a trip to the Planet Fairfield for us, he said, so that we could get the story first hand. While we waited for our rocket ship to be prepared, we decided to go out for a bite to eat. As we walked down the street, Lynn called my attention to a little shop that advised Genuine Earth Relics of 1956.n The proprietors were Marjorie Thibault and Sandra Bick- nell. Coming out of the door were four women wearing the latest hairdos-chartreuse dye with a black streak. We recognized them as Genevieve Howard, Sally Abell, and Phyllis Glidden. Tagging along behind them were three men whom we took to be their husbands because all thr-ee of them wore dog collars. By the way, the hairdos were the creations of the famous beautician, Shirley Lee. fLynni Across the street we saw a sign. It read Live-Wire Larry's Long Cure for Short Circuitsi' and marked the entrance to Wayne Larryis electronics shop. Wayne's assistant in charge of the repair department was, appropriately enough, Earle Sweeny. Looking down the street a few doors, we saw the restaurant that we had been looking for, Dorothy Potteris Pizza Palace. The front of the restaurant was unique. It had a big picture window which looked into the kitchen and a sign above it which read, A Chuckie With Each Pizza. Business must have been good because an abundance of good natured laughter was coming out of the kitchen. A quick peek in the window verified the suspicion we had that the chuckles were familiar. The pizza chefs were Doris Bocash and Charlene Jones. In the dining room we found that Beverly Bruley was the chief pizza-passer. Ueani After we had eaten our lunch and paid the cashier, who turned out to be Wilma Holden, I asked for a package of cigarettes. Neither Lynn nor I smoked, but we had a member of the class of 1956 who manu- factured cigarettes, and we had to get him into this prophecy somehow. Anyway, we bought a pack of Nicotine Speeialsi' and Wilma told us that the president of the company that manufactured them was Ray Creenia. Ray at that time was touring Europe in his 1976 jet-Propelled Rolls Royce. fLynnJ When we finally got back into the street, time was running short, and we knew that our rocket ship must be nearly ready to take off. So we started down the street on the run, but before we had gone very far-WHAM-we ran smack into a solid blue wall and crashed to the sidewalk. I looked up to discover that our solid blue wallv was a policeman-a former class- mate, Phil Pope! Phil warned us to slow down and look where we were going or heid have to take us in on a 502. We asked him what a 502u was, and he said that he didn't know, but that was what they always said on DragnetU. Cjeanl We continued on our way to the airport and passed a movie theatre in which 5-D movies were being shown. The picture currently playing was calling Sing- ing On A Cactus , starring the ever-popular, silver- throated cowboy, Ronald Bishop, and his easy-going side- kick, Alan Slim', jones. At the same theatre a coming attraction was a picture called Air Raidv which starred Marion Rich. fLynnl When we got to the airport, the rocket was just being prepared for fiight by the airline's chief mechanic, Gilbert Paquette. In a very short time we were in the ship and on our way to the Planet Fairfield. We were somewhat surprised to discover that even though this was a private flight, we had some other passengers on board, people who had emergency reasons for making the trip. One was a Certified Public Accountant named Francis Andrews. Another passenger was Jean Buker, who now was the head of a big publishing house and author of the best-selling book Gossips I Have Known. fjeanl She was accompanied by her publishing houseis leading author, janet Garvin, who recently had been the first person ever to be awarded two Nobel Prizes for literature, one in poetry and the other for her novel A Twist of the Wrist. Also on board the rocket ship was Beverly King, the inventor of the new dance craze The Twirling Tango which had spread like wildfire to every planet in the solar system. It was particularly popular on the Planet Pafoofnick, where the inhabitants had two arms and two legs - on each side.

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10 B. F. A. Mercury since we had left headquarters . . . and the University where Dr. Cummings had many friends and might be expected to tum up if he returned to the Planet Fairfield. Neither the hospital nor the university had turned up anything, but Lynn and I did get a lead on more members of our graduating class. The superintendent of the hos- pital was Eunice Story, and her assistants were Marion Preston and Jean Willett. Laurel Phelps was the hospitalls x-ray technician. fLynnJ The University of Outer Space Was directed by its president, Dr. Wayne A. Jarvis, who had achieved fame by publishing his revolutionary system of mathe- Iarvis System, two plus two could mathematician wished it to equal. matics. Under the equal anything the The immediate result was to make mathematics a much more popular subject in schools throughout the universe. Also at the university as the head of the Education De- partment was Prof. Loretta Leduc. The professor of Air Science at the school was that genuis of Hight, Dr. Richard Renfrew. And the university had a guidance director, too . . . Robert Hojaboom. Cjeanl Well, that about ends the story because just before we were to take off and return to earth we got the news that Dr. Cummings had arrived back on the Planet Fairfield, safe and sound. Ho had indeed been lured off his route back to the earth by a space siren named Irene Fontaine, just as Larry Martinson had hinted. However, two things prevented' the incident from becoming serious. First, Dr. Cummings was far too devoted to his Fairfield research to be detracted from it for long. And secondly, it seemed that Martinson himself had taken a personal interest in the space siren, and she had subsequently lost interest in the good doctor. fLynnJ And so our spaceship headed out into the night and back toward earth. We had gotten about halfway home when we spotted a bright light ahead. At first we thought it was just an ordinary star, but as we approached we realized it was a spaceship restaurant. So we stopped for one last cup of coffee. The place was called The Space Dairy Barn and, sure enough, its owner was Bar- bara Fairbanks. Barb laughed as only Barb can when we told her about the investigation. lBothl But, honestly, we donft understand why she laughed. And we donft understand why you have been laughing. It's all been true . . . every word we've been saying. You do believe us, donlt you. You must believe us . . . nobody here will . . . you've just got to . . . Oh, say, we hax'en't told you about ourselves yet . . Well there really isnlt very much to tell . . . Wc,re very happy here . . . they take good care of us . . . What is it they call this place? Oh. yes, I think itfs the Shadyhaven Rest Home For The Mentally Incurable . . . - The End - Senior Thespians Won Willson Cup W 1 T H THE POT BOIlER THE CAST First row, l. to l',1Hkll'l'lCt Garceau, Gael Boardman, Catherine Chagnon and Jeannette Thibault. Second row, l. to r.-Janet Garvin, Nancy Bovat, Buzzy Sylvester, -lean VVillett, Buzzy Monaghan. Vhird I'0XN-'-CCl10Yll'Vt' Iloward, jean Bushey, Torn Cummings, Gail Bishop. Laurel Phelps, Pat Ladd, Lynn XVood, Beverly Clark.