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

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B.F.A.Meroury 7 PRGP HECY By jean Bushey, Lynn Wood and janet Garvin fLyrmJ It was the month of June in the year 1976. My fellow reporter, Jean Bushey, and I were just leaving the office of our boss, Ioan Buker, the editor and publish- er of New Yorkis largest newspaper, Buker,s Broadway Bugleu. Ioan had started as a secretary in the newspaper office when it was originally called The New York Timesv, but it didn't take Ioan long to discover that there wasn,t much enthusiasm among the members of the staff. So she set out to improve conditions, and before she got done shc owned the paper. Anyway, Jean and I were leaving on this particular day to cover the story of the disappearance of a famous space scientist, and, like the well-trained reporters we were, we headed for the nearby coffee shop. Ueanl It was crowded when we arrived, and the only empty booth was right next to the juke box. Lynn, playing the part of the gentleman, asked if I would like to hear some music. When I said yes, he borrowed a dime from me and went to play a record. His selection was Arthur Crooner,' Monaghan's famous rendition of Heartburn Hotelf, An attractive and efficient-looking waitress came over to take our order. We quickly recognized her as our old schoolmate, Faith Dukett. I also learned that Madeline Gregoire and Harriet Garceau were working at the coffee shop. Madeline was the number one cook, whose specialty was French pastries, while Harriet was the dinnertime pianist. Harriet was especially proud of her brand new Cadillac, which she had purchased with the royalties from the new hit parade song she had written called Everybody's Got A Mink But Me. And to top it all off, the owner of the restaurant was Stuart Coon. We were told that Stuart had made a lot of money in the restaurant business because he supplied the meat and fish himself as a result of his skill as a hunter and fisherman. fLynnl VVhcn we had finished our coffee, we left for Professor J. R. Hur1ey's house. It was there that we were to get the story of the mysterious disappearance. After a long ride in a taxi driven by an extremely talka- tive cabbic . . . none other than Eddie Deslauriers . . . we reached our destination. However, we couldn't get in. A big guy stood by the front door and glowered menacingly at us. I figured that this was a good place for the womanis touch, so I let Iean go ahead of me up to the front door. She was therefore the first to discover that the guard was Silent Ken Labounty, and somehow or other she persuaded Silent Ken to let us enter thc house. fjeanl Along the long hallway which separated Dr. Hurley's laboratory facilities from his living quarters we noticed several paintings hanging on the walls. VVhen I looked at them closer I found that they were the work of artists Ronald Lemnah and Roger Webster, whose signa- tures appeared on the paintings. At this point, Professor Hurley himself came out to greet us and escort us into his lab, where his assistants were hard at work. The assistants turned out to be Gael Boardman and Arlan Elwood. Gael and Arlan, we learned, had recently com- pleted the successful invention of a time machine, so that high school history students could go back into the past and actually see the great historical events. They explain- ed that this would settle all arguments without an exces- sive amount of brain fatigue on the part of the student. It would also save him from getting writeris cramp taking down history notes. But strangely enough, they related, as people were transported into the past during the early trials of the machine, some of them found that they liked the past so much, for one reason or another, that they decided to stay there and live. We were told that a few of these were members of our class at BFA. They added that there was only one drawback to their machine. It couldrft be counted on always to hit the exact date specified. fLynnl The more that jean and I thought about it, the more We becam-e intrigued with the idea of going hack into the past. Finally we made up our minds, set the dials for The Early American West, and away we went . . . VVhcn we landed, we were unsure of the exact year or location, but in the distance we could see terrain that was distinctly western. There were clouds of dust rsing all around, blotting out our view, and the sound of rifle shots. As the dust cleared, we saw dead Indians strewn all around a covered wagon barricade, and one soldier was firing six rifies simultaneously in six directions . . . What a coincidence . . . this was one of our classmates, Robert jones . . . This was Iones, Last Standu. Ueani Since General Jones had the situation well in hand, we decided to go to a more quiet place in history . . . VVe turned the dial to New England, and in a flash we found ourselves in Boston-at Boston I-Iarber, to be more exact. It was The Boston Tea Partyn, and again we saw some familiar faces. We talked to a bystandcr, who filled us in on the details. It seems that a relatively new citizen in Boston named Alan Sylvester had become president of the Boston Tea Tasters Union and had organized a revolt. Sylvester and his vice president, Armand L,Esperance, had convinced the Boston people that they should refuse to drink English tea because of the lea tax. Robert llarris and Cllillord Putnain were

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6 B. F. A. Mercury YEARBOOK EDITORS, MANAGERS X Lufi to rigimtglicg Godin LCo-Busiucss NIQIIIZIQCTD. R0na1ldLvlnna1l1 Kfo-Business NIQIIAIQCTD, Ellen Story CCO-Editorb. Imam Bnkvr LCo-Eclitorj, and Loruttu Lccluc qAd Mzmzlgvrj. BOYS' AND GIRLS' STATERS U. to I'.?1BQ'YCl'1Y Clark. Pall Ladd. -Ioan Bukcr, Ilwum Moon-, Tom c:l1l1llIIillg5, lhfg Godin. Xl'Ss'nQ l':'o::1 I'c'l:x'r- U. Lf llll XYoocl.

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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.