Bennett High School - Beacon Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

Page 14 text:

I 2 C-CQ: ,gens-:eff Beacon An Amazing Autobiography By Alice Eby S I look back over the myriads of years of past existence, many of the important events that I have witnessed flood my mind. The life on earth, the tumult of purgatory, and then crovming all, my rebirth in Mars. The year 1910 was, so far as I am aware, the beginning. I was fortunate in that my existence began in what was then considered modern times . During my earthly days I observed an eclipse of the sun and moon, the growth and development of air trafhc, and the last days of the automobile. In the year 1970 I was catapulted from the meteoric aeroplane into the stenching river Styx and was carried by its rushing, plunging current into the fiery, bot- tomless pit of everlasting tumult. For over a thousand years, I staggered through an existence in this foul hole of turbulence and torment. The eternal sweltering heat from the molten abyss kept me in continuous misery and horror. How welcome was the tormentor's command which forced me to walk into the private sanctuary of the mysterious ruler of the fiery pit. Until that moment I had never seen his form or felt his presence and even now he appeared like a mythical vision. His form was of living fire, which glowed and shimmered in the reddish hued gloom. As he spoke, flames shot from his mouth like jagged lightning, scorching the humid air, and forcing me to draw back from this monstrosity in awe. He told me in tones of thunder that my sins had been expiated and that my last stage of trials would be immediately imposed upon me. This infernal atrocity then waved his forked sceptre and I relapsed into oblivion. When I awoke I was dazed and in a stupor. I realized that I had not returned to earth, but knew equally well, that I had escaped from what I had learned to consider--eternal torment. As I looked about queer looking creatures seemed to be confusedly Hitting before me. A huge, multifcolored head, set upon a frame of sticks, was my first impression of these beings. This was a ghastly form, without life, substance, or weight. And yet I was conscious that it was a terrible reality. Upon viewing myself, I was horrified to find that I had also assumed the shape and body of these queer creatures. At the time I wished longingly for my old earthly form but I have since found out the many advantages of my strange form. My head was square shaped and tinted red, blue, purple and gold, and my vaporous hair stuck out in stiff red curls. From my eyebrows grew fCo'ntinued on page 13,

Page 13 text:

f' l 'Zz 5-'dll f ,fl -- N, .X N i f xx ,,,. i Nix r ,f fl , ,,-,f -sr f J if? i. X - T N A ' ' A l t ' V ' r X l l ' ' 7 x The Fruit of My Tree By Dorothy Phelps folmston A warm wind rustles the leaves Of my mulberry tree, And the soft berries Drop to the ground. These I can pick up Very easily. But if I climb the tree, And gather the berries carefully, They are not bruised and dirty. All About Dragons By Louise M. Zirms KNOW the capacity of a bird to fly, of a fish to swim, of a beast to get along, the last you can trap, the others take with a rod or an arf row,--but when it comes to dragons, I am ignorant of how they ride the winds and clouds to heaven. W-Confucius. The origin of the dragon in China is hidden behind a veil of obscurity which so far has baffled all attempts at its solution. The dragon enjoys an ominous eminence in the affections of the Chinese and is frequently repref sented as the greatest benefactor of mankind. In Chinese pictorial art, it seems an inseparable quantity,-fn the most important and venerated figure motif and one holding a remarkable position in the history and government of China. The people delight in praising its wonderful properties and powers. They have ascribed to it the power to make itself dark or luminous, subtle and thin or heavy and thick, and visible or invisible at pleasure. The real dragon should have, according to tradition, the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the ears of a cow or water buffalo, the neck of a snake, the belly of a frog, the scales of a carp, the claws of a hawk, the palms of a tiger, and on each side of the mouth, whiskers. The breath is changed sometimes to water and sometimes to fire, and its noise is like the jingling of copper pans. Thus it seems that the Chinese have combined the characteristics of popular animals and have created dragons. Perhaps because of this, it is rather for the exponent of black magic than for the authority to divulge the secret of thc origin of the dragon.

Page 15 text:

ffilfji x 'P ' K T--I lixtgx ,ff Q X N 1 X i -. I ' SZ XR V ., 5 5SXl Ti J 'X X, 5 l S AM e' 7 I X x A 1 I 's f X P I ' X N I Night in the City By Laura E. Salisbury Night falls softly, And wraps the city in a velvet mantle. Down the highways, signs blaze forth- Come here to eat, drink, dancefu Long dark cars glide to a stop, And beautiful ladies step out of them. Lights are twinkling everywhere. They make the stars seem cold, far away. And thus the city sparkles Till the dawn fContinued from page 121 long, slowly waving silver antennae which held a multitude of tiny minute eyes. My two principal eyes were of huge size, absolutely round and a deep orange in color, which contrasted vividly with my red hair. My body----oh horror or horrorsfcould hardly be called a body at all and was covered with a green, slimy, unearthly substance. My legs were each about an inch in circumference and my feet were flat, boardflike appendages. I soon learned that my cumbersome feet enabled me to walk on molten lava which issued from many fissures and volcanos of Mars. To earthly people we were inf visible, but on account of our keen vision we were visible to each other, If necessary we could easily walk off into space and if we wished could visit any of the nearby planets without being seen by their inhabitants. During the Hrst thousand years of this singular, though now ordinary life, I beheld the sun grow larger and larger and when at times it came in contact with the planets, they disappeared like magic. At last came the fatef ful day when with a loud crash the earth collided against the sun. A great hlaze filled the whole atmosphere and the earth like a glittering ball of hre whirled dizzily into the depths of black space to be beheld no more. Now, in my three thousandth year, there are no more living planets except that on which we live, and as it is now a ball of ice we have no fear of burning from contact with the sun. Life is eternal but I do not know how long I shall remain in the form of a Marsian. It is commonly believed that we will wear out and that our forms will turn to dust and furnish scin- tillating sparks, which in turn become shooting comets. I know not, nor is there any way to find out whether this be true, and I wait for f f f I know not what!