Belmont Hill School - Belmont Hill School Yearbook (Belmont, MA)

Page 28 text:

Infinity. Mr. Gurney snapped his belt and made sure we had gotten that. It was a good year, though, and out of it we got Brooksie, Casselman, Barnard, Worthen, Dick Reed, Henry Meyer, Joe Greenleaf, Stan Colla, Sognnaes, and V. J . Petrie, and Bruce Stone, theoretically. These were growing years, and the following year we took in John Perry, Al Johnson, John Parker, Will Morton, Pete Shapiro, Jon Smith, and, for a while, Lonny Marquand. Lonny meant well, but he was misunderstood. Mr. Dun- can couldnit understand why Lonny didn't like to do his work, and Mr. Maxwell didn't realize how much Lonny enjoyed smoking in his room. Unfortunately, these mis- understandings accumulated, and Lonny left the school in a cloud of smoke with the flag at half-mast. Petrie was falling apart at the seams, and this was more than Ivy Joe could take. As V. J. sauntered into class one day looking his usual impeccable best, Mr. Gurney got stuffy, and sent him back to the dorm, just because Jon had no socks, buttons, or bows. Time passed, and few noticed any marked change. Jon Smith came, and astonished us all with his superior intellectual capacity. He was obviously a highbrow. After a couple days in French II, Jon thought he'd best go back and set the pace at the premier level, feeling that course to be a particularly searching experience. Student Government had become the real thing, and we ran our own study halls. Everybody hummed, and Mort, with his golden tones, failed to evade the Druker dragnet. Sgt. Druker let us know, however, that it was Willwerth and White who were the bad apples in that study hall. Worthen filled Markis bed, and Henry's shoes with shaving cream. He filled Petrie's shoes too, but Jon remarked that it felt rather pleasant, and sloshed off to class. That was the year when they made apple-jack in the dorms, until Dan Hennessey discovered it and raided the rooms. Strangely, no one complained to Mr. Mattlage or Mr. Funk. Don Rutley not only got his hair cut in the wrestling room, but got his face cut in a locker room brawl with MacDonald. Then he got cut again, caught sneaking a weed on the J.V. bus to play the Governors in baseball. The next cut occurred shortly after graduation. Doug decided to play games with V.J., and happened to catch him out of a gaming mood. The game ended with Petrie striking out, and the Christian Crusader leaving study hall with his nose streaming with his red badge of courage. Star Promotions worked for a rematch, but Hall denied any anti-semitism whatsoever, and the issue was dropped. John Perry forgot about his hair that year, and after a while, we forgot about John, not being able to see him. Stanley started a doozer of an eraser fight which Dick joined because he hadn't gotten responsible. It ended when some hammerheaded youngster got it in his lap. Aldie was continually marked absent from study hall because he sat behind Bartol and no one could see him. Time marched on, except in History IV-D, where time was subjected to somnambulism, and slowed to a sleepy dawdle. This early exposure to Mr. Fisher was ignored by V.J., who preferred to withdraw into his overcoat to ponder an Israeli newspaper. He still pulled the highest mark in the class. That's V.J. for you. The Fifth Form year came and so did Foster Furcolo, George Keyes, Bill Lynch, and Rheinie. Hall started Eng- lish with the crew coach, but feared that he might jeop- ardize his chances for the first boat, and switched to Mr. Willey's class. Arguments raged as to which man was harder. Lockshin settled it when he was temporarily forced to stop drawing rocket ships in Mr. Willeyis class while Egan and Casselman continued to write ridiculous notes in Mr. Duncan's A-section. There is still considerable speculation, however. Pistol Pete Worthen came back from Nevada to excite Doug with tale of love and lust in the Wild West. Eric kept quiet. Our days began with football history class, featuring Mr. Fisher. Many of us were stimulated, mostly by broken chairs and massacred table tops. fRemember Ronnie's girl'?J Half of this stimulus was gone by March, however, when the Decency Committee removed the tables. There was al- ways the challenge of historical interpretation. for there was a whole new language to be learned. Mainly the lang- uage of the instructor. In Fifth Form History we were Bahtol, Meyah, Darukah etc., and we learned about squat- tah's rights. Jack Tylah, the Kansas Nebrasker Act, and Nick Biddle of the Bank of tha You Nited States. We really began to get a kick out of being frustrated, confused and llunked by Mr. Fisher's multiple choice tests, which Smith said were objectionable, but which most of us said were ambiguous. All we could hope for was that the test would be subjective, and that his wife would correct them. Mr. Shapiro came to the hill to sell Israeli bonds, to explain in detail how to shoot a lion without ruining its pelt, to tell some tragic tales of the war, and to tell us French vocabulary words that we should know. Henry Meyer gulped and sputtered in French III about getting to work and let's-stop-talking-about-tennis-and-Mr.-Humphreys'-dog until Mr. Humphreys told him to shut up. Fall sports were nothing to speak of and Ron didnit get a letter. Winter came and Barnard assumed the full title of Dan the Manfagerl. Rather than get his shoes all icy and cold, V.J. hopfooted it to the dining hall in his bare feet one wintry eve. Not too long afterward, he surprised and im- pressed Lanse and Ron and everyone else by wearing a new tie. Mr. Max had to send him back to the dorm, how- ever, to put a shirt on. Casselman challenged the Sixth Form to a snowball fight, which we won hands down, up- setting more than a few by disabling Capt. Andy Cornwall and Jungle Jim Hennings for the remainder of the season. The Basketball team lost on Black Wednesday and there was gloom. We really didn't know why because the wres- tling team had been losing for years. Captains were elected and Ron didn't get a letter. Spring came and our thoughts turned to love. Eric and Doug fell into the Palace of Love and were fascinated by Fabulous Fanny and Cupcakes Laroo. As far as Doug was concerned, though, there was Tina, and there was Panny, and there were probably two or three more that he planned to marry at one time or another. Pokross voiced his opinion on the humor of the whole thing and almost got made into soap. Aldie was trapped in a web of love with Marnie Weeks-was this Doug's influence? Dick was so mad after Aldie set him up with a pig that he broke his station wagon. Birnie possessed an extraordinary temper. Crew was being seasoned by Worthen who seemed to have just no energy on Mondays. There was some greatly excited speculation about this, but it soon Petered out. Some thought he was just worn out from talking. The Panel room became Cole's hole, and everyone could hear Perryis scarf. Jim was quiet and tried to be a medalist. Mr. Preston got stopped speeding to Quinsigamond in the great yellow monster, except for the second boat, this was the only speeding done by the Crew that day. Lanse was

Page 27 text:

again, breaking his beloved globe in the process. It all started when Nigro and Starr began to prove, quite con- vincingly, that the North Pole was not the top of the earth. Oh well! Music classes were fun too. Every Friday we'd crowd into the specially equipped music room Clines on the blackboardl, and while Mr. Cowperthwaite cleared the frogs out of his notebook, we had spitball fights. No- body ever won these battles, though, not even Mr. Cow- perthwaite. By now we had begun to relish institutional food, Mr. Croke, who made up the seating assignments, liked to sup- plant his fare with birthday cakes, amassing a grand total of eleven during one two-week stint. There were few com- plaints, though, and even fewer left the Sixth Grade hungry. It was a good year, if you like that sort of thing. Seventh Grade arrived, and the Sacred Steps were ours. Other new additions were Wink Willett, Doug Hall, Don Rutley, John Litvack, Aldie Harrington, and Dick Birnie. Also a new music teacher arrived-the third in three years-and after a while he too gave up and went to Cornell. Robinson returned as Class President, starting his immortal string, which was fine, except that it was broken at an unfortunate time. Football saw Dougie start early, playing the older role, also playing on a particularly huge Junior football team. On the soccer field, Wink showed us that maybe besides turning red in Mr. Smith's English class he might be of some use to the Varsity in a few years. Jaro, or Yogi, as was fashionable, started a debating club, but parliamentary procedure, something which would prove to be of great use, demoted and dejected Jaro to the rank of member. Charlie Starr was not a good citizen, so Mr. Gregg gave him two half hours, one for being last in the milk line four days in a row, and the other for being sad. These two, along with the other thirty-six left a record never to be broken. Ladd learned how to play sports, and win, even if it wasn't the nice way, but he won often enough to get Mr. Dis prize. Elvis Hall thought that this was most un- fair, and we experienced the first of much bull that un- fortunately was in store for us. Litvack won some art prizes, which, unfortunately, were the first of many for him. Druker won a scholastic prize, which, unfortunately, was the last for him. Sping turned out to be a big time for baseball. Ladd was of great assistance when he was able to swear to himself, and avoid being censured by Mr. Morton. Druker was pitching some then. Graduation came and we got our first look at Mr. Funk. Golly, he wore nice clothes. The Second Form came, and we found that we had gained Wallace, Weinbaum, Lockshin, Cole, Bartol, Web- ster for a while, Howlett, McCormack, Stewart, and Nichols. It was a long walk over the hill, but J.H.F. gave immeasur- able fatherly assistance to help us make the climb. He taught us about all sorts of things in Ethics class, includ- ing sex. Some of us escaped taking it until the following year, and that was when we had Worthen, Pete let us know that it would be a far better course if he taught it, and few doubted. We believed him then. Some started to learn that money and happiness are nearly interrelated and so began to sell book covers at a small 200fZ: profit. Most of these had some college on the front, and so we started to choose our colleges by the beauty of their book. Not many chose Harvard, though, because Doug let us know that only finks went there, and he played Senior Football. That was that, and so everyone chose between Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, and Stanford. They were awfully pretty. The Howe building finally came and with it came stu- dent government. We had our own Howe in fifth period study, but he wouldn't write us a constitution, so it was no good. What's a student council without a constitution so they can have something to do, like rewrite it. We didn't know, so Robinson didn't railroad anything really shaking at the Student Council meetings. We started to appreciate the new Chapel services, and particularly enjoyed an ex- hibition during which Bolan nearly blew apart the Chapel. That was fun. We were denied the benefits of Mr. Downes because they hoped to ease the transition from the Monkey House by letting us take only four courses. Even Nigro. Some of us had it even easier because we took Latin from the Jeep. Karp started to twitch a little more, but it didn't seem to hurt him much because he beat Nigro in Latin. We had a good Junior hockey team, but Ladd and Berman had considerable trouble deciding who would play first line. Mr. Sawyer settled it and neither did. During that term we had a perfect record for detentions, but three days before the term was over, four boys trespassed over the white line. Mr. Funk informed us that we were animals, but later revoked the detentions, and we finished the term like a bunch of nice guys. As Third Formers we nobly assumed responsibilities as heads of the Middle School. Some of us learned more about the man in the front office as we struggled through our first year of French with him. We would renew acquain- tances with him in the Sixth Form, but until that time, as he said, we would remain dead from the waist up. He de- cided that he would give us hours that year, and to make up for last year's escapade, five of us served them standing. Some of us fainted and others did at the Tabor basketball game afterwards. We had a dance, but all of us left at eleven to go to the Kos's for a little bit quieter atmos- phere. Mr. Funk disapproved, and we never saw the second dance which we had been promised. Politics came to the Hill in the form of posters that could stick on anything. This was ended when Charlie Starr put one on the clock in Eliot and a few periods ran longer than expected. Some of us tried to learn about ancient history, but most of us spent our time gazing at the Moon. Egan, Litvack, and Wallace played the lead in an operetta which went well except that Litvack's voice changed three days before show- time, and so the girl ended up singing considerably lower than the boy. The boy, incidentally, was Egan, whose voice didn't change until he started making Sextant announce- ments when he was a senior. Danny' Barnard arrived three weeks late, and we all thought that he was a little rich kid from Europe. It was disappointing to learn that he was only another little wasp from Winchester, who had gotten the measles. He was the first to go steady, however, CLindaJ and he even kissed her after some pretty basic coaching from Worthen. All of us found out about Belmont society from Mrs. Nott's dancesg that was our last year of assemblies. It was also the first year of Ivy Joe Gurney. We had a fine time in English III- A8cD while Mr. Gurney diagrammed masterpieces of Eng- lish literature so that the board looked more like it be- longed in Room 18. Even Cole got disturbed when the cockroach in the inkwell of The Secret Shafer turned out to be a symbolic synthesis of Man, Woman, Birth, Death-

Page 29 text:

number one on the Tennis Team and was elected president of the Glee Club, thus successfully completing his grand entrance to the Hill. Other elections suddenly transformed Dicki and Danni into President Birnie and Cap'n Barnard. Dougie would have to be content with being Bruno. The year ended and Ron wasn't given a letter. Ron also managed to flunk the History final along with two-thirds of the rest of the members of Mr. Fisher's General History bull sessions. Few were very upset at seeing the Fifth Form year come to a close. True, there was happy song of Claudia and Ginny, but Claudia moved to Washington and Ginny wouldn't be seen again until the following December. By the time we were seniors, we were down to forty-two. Forty-one actually, but rather than let us be an odd class, Ax Bohlke came over from Germany to swell our intel- lectual ranks. Not only was Ax like brilliant, but he was almost as tall as Mr. Calder, and could still walk like the rest of us. This was unquestionably a big boost to our morale-Mr. Calder later moved Ax to Mr. Ingham's sec- tion-but it was sort of disconcerting to have him finish sixth out of the whole class in the first term. Ax was a nice guy anyway. We were seniors, though, and this weld been waiting for. When you're a senior you get all sorts of honors and priv- ileges, like walking out of Chapel first, and we'd heard that there was really nothing quite like it. Some of us had waited eight years for this, and two had waited nine. The disillusionment started to set in early. Schedules had been changed, and we could only walk out of the Chapel first three times a week. As if that weren't enough, the seventh period had been made into classroom time, cutting out the after-dinner smoke. And then there was the Threat of completely cutting out the Common Room, that Cradle of Sixth Form Liberty. To top it all off, one villainous mem- ber of the faculty looked darkly at us and informed us that inactive seniors would attend study hall throughout the afternoon. Massive trauma. President Birnie explained that this was all a part of growing up, and that he too would have to miss his cigarette, that he too would have to suffer right along with the rest of us. There were those who doubted him. As it turned out, however, the Jeep ironed out all of our problems, and the senior year we had en- visioned began to take shape. This was the first of many times throughout the year when we discovered that in time of crisis, Mr. Hamilton was a senior's best friend. The year started off Well, however, Litvack broke up with Teddi, and along with about 2096 of the class, got into Columbia the next day. Lasell Junior College was subse- quently discovered, and Casselman went on a Fox hunt. This was shortlived, but there were notable recurrences during the year. Shapiro began early, setting a pace of 3.2 days of school attended per week. There was speculation that he would shatter the mark set by Bruce Stone from 1958-60, but Pete proved too consistent, and the only record shattered was the one sent to the colleges. Danny was going with J aneg there were those who disapproved. Athletics got under way, and the outlook for football was excellent. There were seven starters returning, with the addition of Bobby Walsh and a secret weapon which was hopefully called Peter Worthen. Worthen was about 6-3, 200 lbs., and by far the strongest player on the team. Coach Fisher realized that with some work he could bring out Worthenls tremendous potential as a football player, and so he let him kick off, sometimes. The team had good support, however, and in spite of an unfortunate opener, the school was behind them all the way, win or tie. Blest be the tie that binds. On the soccer field, the team spoiled an otherwise perfect record by winning its eighth game. They had spirit, desire, determination, sportsmanship, con- sistency, and injuries, few lettermen, and fewer goals. Birnie recognized the shortcomings of the team, and re- marked that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose but how you play the game. We sure hoped so. During the fall we became aware of the existence of an individual who called himself Bruno Hallinski. We knew that in reality he was actually Doug Hall, but Bruno was not very smart, and didnit realize this. These frequent lapses of identity-i.e. Doug one minute, Bruno one minute later-were misunderstood until we read Hamlet and found out that this was only his antic disposition. Tragic. We also found that the best way to tell Doug and Bruno apart was by what they said. Bruno would say that he was gonna rippumapart and Doug would mention that he was going to get married. Either way we had to humor him. The interim period between the end of the sports season and exams was, as always, a busy time. The Athletic Council found time to award letters to l4fZ: of the entire student body. This really put it on Lynchie, although he was pretty much recovered by Christmas. Mr. Walworth prepared for Hockey, putting marks on all the boards that had to come down. Bill Karp of the Work Squad helped out by taking down all the boards with no mark on them, and while explaining to Mr. Walworth in Cole's Hole, knocked down the fire extinguisher and sprayed the entire storage area. Everybody, even Mr. Aloian, hated him. The season's-end migration to the Common Room took place as expected and there were many surprises. Doug-it may have been Bruno-learned that George Keyes was a senior when the latter protested wildly at being thrownout of the Common Room. This was some- thing in itself, George not being a wild sort of guy. But as we assumed Georgie into our ranks, we lost Bobby Walsh. Walshie was revealed to be a Fifth Former by Mr. Jenney, who discovered this while writing out the first term comments. The Common Room took in a new faction of pipe smokers-e.g. Smith, Egan, Johnson, Parker, Brad- lee, etc. Hall told Smith that no, he didn't mind him smoking a pipe, only that he resented having Smith empty it into his motorcycle boots. Smith grunted his regrets and emptied it into Doug's pocket. Arture asked yase ou no, if this was not ver' fonny, and the Perfect Eric responded in an unintelligible Cuban accent. This was not unusual for Eric, who incidentally was taking out a girl whose name was the Perfect Berg. Honest Dave Wallace began to turn out the Great Yel- low Rag quite regularly, and it could not be denied that everyone in the school realized what was going on in the Student Council meetings. Probably as a result of his un- believable cleverness, Honest Dave was made Class Sec- retary. That should teach him. As we settled down for the winter, we settled down. The activities began again, and as before, Lyceum and Glee Club led the list. Lyceum attracted a great crowd, on paper anyway. Nigro harangued about how everybody should sacrifice his time and effort to debate, but it usually turned out that he and Garth talked themselves dry when- ever a date rolled around. In fact, the only time he ever got any real response was when it was surreptitiously re- CContinued on p. 1531