Boston Latin School - Liber Actorum Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Our trials became less and less frequent towards the end. Perhaps it is because it was our first year that we have so many memories of sixie life. There was the hard- ship of conditioning ourselves to the morning bump and grind at the Briggie. Once we got to school, new prob- lems arose. The eternal question. Should you carry your lunch or buy it? was argued many times. We felt that the risk involved in taking a fragile paper bag to school by M.T.A. was more than compensation for the folly of standing in the apparently endless lunchroom lines for the greater part of the period. We wasted a lot of time wander- ing in the corridors, trod upon by nearsighted seniors. These same seniors seemed to get much sport from s ending us sheep to a mythical Mr. Meanor in Room 313 or selling us tickets to a somewhat inaccessible swimming pool. Spring came and ambition went. How hard it is to study when the weather is warm and the end is nigh. After pass- ing the small hurdle of final exams, we charged down the stairs for the last time that year on June 27 — except for Bob Sabbag of course. In his customary mode of travel, he was hobbling painfully up the street from school on his usual crutches. CLASS V 1959-1960 Towards the end of summer once again we anticipated, this time with a bit more certainty, the start of school. With the knowledge that nothing could ever be as hard as class VI, we eagerly set out on the first day. We immediately encountered Mr. Sullivan and his 7 projects and Evangeline ( ' This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, and so forth). Soo n we found that writing up science experiments was not much fun at all. We got back at the nasty science masters by thoroughly showering them with paper airplanes. One occa- sion of extreme delight was the extra-curricular trip to the nurse ' s office ( Can you see the apple on the table 9 What table? ) In current affairs, we learned that our minds had been corrupted into believing phony quiz shows were real. The seeds of distrust were now firmly planted in the minds of the public. In professional sports, the Celtics once again won the World ' s Championship, and the Bruins tumbled to last place. The Red Sox were to be admired for their effort, but could only garner fifth place. In schoolboy sports, our genius of the football field, Pep McCarthy, guided a fantastically talented squad to an undefeated, untied season, a city championship, and a 22-6 victory over the Blue and Blue and Bluer oppon- ents. That 16 point margin, incidentally, was the closest any team came to parity with the Purple. Outstanding players were: Bilodeau, Frame, Mulcahy, the Costellos (E. and J.). Tank Andronica and junior Paul Barringer. After going through their first five games without a loss, the hustlers of the hockey team suffered so many injuries that any hope of first place was lost. The team did have a winning record of 6-5-3, and an excellent junior goalie, Smigliani. The basketball team was a pleasant surprise. The boys lost their first game and lost their last game, but took everything in between to win the City Championship for the first time in five years. In baseball, the batsmen had to settle for a tie for second place. Bob Butkus, only a sophomore, was a shin- ing light all season (so bright in fact that to this day his mother calls him sonny ). Our first Sports Night was held this year to raise scholar- ship money for the seniors. Another endeavor in that direction, the N.H.S. Revue, was a sellout. The play that year was a feather-light comedy. Archie Andrews. The school ' s 325th anniversary was observed on April 25th. It was a rather hectic day for the upperclassmen. with Prize Drill in the morning and Class Day in the after- noon. The alumni held a huge celebration at the Hotel Somerset. That day also marked the 100th anniversary of Prize Drill. Our own grand old man, Max Levine, announced his retirement after 45 years as a teacher. In his final year here. Mr. Levine established the Charles S. Fitzgerald Scholarship with $5000 dollars from his own savings. This award honors Mr. Fitz. who had himself retired the previous year after 38 years of teaching and coaching. On May 25th, Latin marchers took f irst place in the Schoolboy Parade in all three categories: marching, drum and bugle, and band. Dr. Spector Frank Gilbert Lawrence Jackson 23

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GLASS CHRONICLE CLASS VI 1958-1959 On September 5. 1958, over seven hundred wide-eyed, apprehensive members of our future Class of 1964 stepped through the doorways of Boston Latin School for the first full day as Latin men. Barraged from the very beginning with long and difficult assignments, we sixies suffered a considerable number of drop-outs the very first week. As the year wore on, however, the determined survivors, per- haps afraid of the now familiar sight of a boy turning in his books, began to develop the study habits, good or bad, that would become routine in the next six years. As busy as we were, we could not help noticing the hectic state of the world, the good news mingled with bad. Hawaii was admitted as the fiftieth state. John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower ' s right-hand man, only recently retired as Secretary of State, died after a long siege of cancer. South of the border, Fidel, the bearded one. began the program of purges and recrimination that was to lead to the establishment of the first Communist state in the Americas. The rest of the headlines was the usual hodge-podge with unreliable missiles, new crises, and dangerous hot- spots. The assembly hall, meanwhile, saw a lot of use. The Key Club, Social Science Club, and the Debating Society tried to outdo each other with forums on various topics. Walter Kelley received both the Grinnell Scholarship as the outstanding senior and the Thorn McAn gold shoe as the outstanding football player. Ernie Zissis presented Max Levine with an honorary football letter for his sup- port of school athletics. In professional sports, the omnipotent Yankees were taken to the seven game limit by the brave Braves in a thrilling World Series. The Celtics became the world champions by crushing the Minneapolis Lakers in four straight games. The Bruins fought their way into Stanley Cup contention, but were turned back by the Canadiens in the finals. On the home front in sports, the football team was the proverbial coach ' s dream with scores in our favor of 6-0 (E.B.). 34-0 (Trade). 18-8 (B.C. High), 58-2 (Dot). 25-19 (Tech), 47-14 (Trade), and 32-0 (B.C. High). The last two games were a little more difficult. Against Tech, the stalwarts trailed 18-6 at one point, but won the thriller 22-18 in the last moment. In the Thanksgiving Day clash with English, the determined Latinites roared back on the arm of Tommy Bilodeau from deficits of 18-0 and 24-6 to win 26-24 in the dying minutes, a fitting end to an unbeaten, untied season. The hockey team placed second in the City League. One consolation was a 4-2 win over Tech that snapped their twenty-one game winning streak. Except for a 3-2 upset by English in the last game, the hard fighting sextet would have captured a share of the championship. A fellow named Pete Treska who would have a lot to do with Latin School hockey in the future made his debut on the ice for the Purple. The basketball team started with a rush, but lost mo- mentum and a chance for the city title in the last game of the season. The team did, however, qualify for the Tech Tourney. The indoor track squad was exceptionally good by Latin School standards and took third place in the Reggies. The fresh-air squad seized third place in the city meet and a creditable berth in the Saint John ' s Relays. Another near and yet so far team was the baseball squad which finished second, a somewhat disappointing showing as the team had many veterans returning. Sports Night Guests: Egan and Marciano Arthur Klein Mr. Fitz 22

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CLASS CHRONICLE Prize Declamation — Registration Day — final exams — bingo! On June 23 we dashed out to die trolley for the last time that year. A few who took the trouble to glance back could see a lonely figure in an Arab headdress mak- ing his painful way on crutches across the back yard. We were freshmen now. CLASS IV 1960-1961 Joined by a fresh draft of replacements, the B di- vision, in Class IV we added civics to our curriculum and gained the dubious privilege of having phys-ed with the aromatic upperclassmen in the sacrosanct big gym. As usual, the Assembly Hall was busy during the entire academic year. The National Honor Society Revue was a hit in its customary style, while the school play, Time Limit, was truly outstanding — a pleasant change from the surfeit of comedies in other years. Gerry Hillman ' s re- markable performance in the main role of Major Harry Cargill was unforgettable. A shower of awards fell on the different school organi- zations that year. The Register and Liber Actorum won the Boston University Journalism Award, while the Register also won the Columbia Scholastic Press Associa- tion ' s Medalist Award. Our band, though, was the pride of the school and of all Boston when it marched up Penn- sylvania Avenue past President Kennedy ' s reviewing stand in the Inaugural Parade on January 20, 1961. In world politics, there was much talk but little action toward peace in our time. In fact, the hot-spots seemed to multiply as the year went on. In the Congo, the U.N. police forces were involved in an incomprehensible struggle to preserve the newly-created republic from sectionalism and Communism. Massachusetts ' favorite son, John F. Kennedy, defeated former Vice-President Richard Nixon in one of the closest elections in history. The newspapers were filled with Polaris Missile tests, a Communist inspired war in Laos, and a terrible airplane collision over Brooklyn, the worst disaster ever to happen to commercial airlines. January found our band in Washington for the Inaugu- ration, missiles shooting off from Cape Canaveral with astonishing regularity, and a dashing group of Portuguese pirates who, in an act of rebellion, stole the S.S. Santa Maria and sailed it undetected to Brazil. April was rather inauspicious for the United States, heralding the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion and Russian Yuri Gagarin ' s orbit of the earth. May fifth was a really memorable day. The members of Class IV were in the assembly hall, listening to a fine concert by a university choral group, when Colonel Kelley entered hurriedly and announced the successful sub-orbital flight of commander Alan B. Shepherd. We all went half- mad with delight, and with the choir on stage, we sang the national anthem. In June. President Kennedy and Premier Khruschev met in Vienna in a series of talks that were more like con- frontations than conferences as no fruitful result was accomplished. The Pirates ' Bill Mazeroski became a national hero when he smashed a last inning home run in the seventh game of the World Series to beat the Yankees. The Celtics tore through all opposition during the season and the play-offs to retain the world championship. It was an extremely successful year in school sports also. Mr. Lambert, in his first year as head coach of foot- ball, almost had his gladiators win the City Champion- ship. A few plays in the two B.C. High games relegated the Purple to second place, however. Against English, the gridiron warriors came from behind 8-0 to win 20-16. the Bookstore Opening