Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

Page 26 text:

24 The Branksome Slogan steaiixing coffee was pouring into my thick china cup. I found a chair and table in a corner where people wouldn ' t be apt to look at my shabby clothes and torn boots — silly for a man like me to have any pride isn ' t it? I felt the hot liquid seeping down my throat and it seemed to bring me new hope, new life with every sip. ' ' Take it slowly there— got to make it last! ' Oh those sandwiches look good, and look at that man at the next table shoveling in those baked beans — I could buy those ! But no, I can ' t, I mustn ' t, why I ' ve got tomorrow to think of — and the day after ! No, I must save my silver nickels. It gave me rather a sense of superiority to sit there, knowing I could buy food, but denying myself, not being weak and giving into my wants like those other people. All too soon my cup was dr} except for the moist sugar at the bottom, and my linger soon removed that ! The friendly warmth and light of this place made me realize how tired I was and how I longed for a home. Now take that man over there — I bet he ' s got a wife and kids, sure he has, look ! He ' s putting some of his sandwich in a napkin to take home to them. Well, I ' d better go, where? Oh, Central Park, I guess! VIRGINIA EDWARDS, Form V S DEEP SEA FISHING This summer I had an interesting experience which few of us from the inland provinces may enjoy. I went deep-sea fishing. We would rise about six o ' clock in the morning and provided that the seas were not too heavy, would set out in our boat for the open sea. It took about three or four hours to find a suitable fishing ground, usually about twenty-five miles from shore, out in the open sea. The bottom would be sounded by drag- ging a line along the floor between one hundred and fift} to three hun- dred feet down. When the spot was found, we would ])Ut on heavy rubber overalls, rubber coats, rubber hats, and coarse gloves, bait our huge hooks with whole herrings, and lower our thick co] ])er lines, dragged down by huge weights, to within six feet of the bottom. As soon as we felt a nibble, we would jerk our line and pull very hard. After the line is about twenty- five feet from the bottom, the fish can no longer be felt until it is almost at the surface of the water. There is no greater pleasure than to see a shining fish come up through the water after a long and tedious pull. The prize catch that we. had this summer was a fifteen pound halibut. This was not because of its size but because it is a fish that many fisher- men have never caught on a line in their lives. Besides this we caught haddock, cod, pollock, and many other varieties. With a catch of about twenty- five or thirty fish, all at least two and a half feet long, we w ould return home tired and hungry at about seven o ' clock. JOY FERGUSON (Form IVA).

Page 25 text:

The Branksome Slogan 23 It ' s Life I Guess The clock on Radio City was ringing out eleven-thirty as 1 trudged wearily up Sixth Avenue. Another day was coming to its close and still the employment agencies had no work for me — it had been two weeks now since I had been discharged from the Manhattan Transportation Company, and still no work — just why they happened to start tearing down the ' ' El ' s at this time, turning thousands onto the streets to starve to death, I couldn ' t figure out. I loved working on that El . My little dark room where I ' d controlled the train as it whizzed down the tracks taking people to their destinations, all this had been my sanctuary. I ' d felt 1 had a great responsibility with all those lives on my train — regardless of Joe supplying the power. But now all these memories only choked up my throat and made hot tears rush to my eyes. And so I passed it off as fate. ' ' There ain ' t an) justice, I mumbled as I pushed through the crowds of my equals — tramps they call us ! But what else can w e be — no jobs, no money, no food — why only yesterday Pete ' s daughter — she was a pretty young girl if 1 ever saw one, of course she didn ' t have swell clothes and all, but she was a handsome girl in a pure, clean way. And she had jumped off the ferry going over to Jersey City and drowned herself ' cause she didn ' t have the courage to go on existing in such a cruel world. Pete v as broken up about it, too — he was a good sort, haven ' t seen him around to-day — guess he feels it too much ! I couldn ' t stand the horrible gnawing in my stomach any longer — my back ached, my shoulders ached, every inch of my body seemed to be screaming in my ears. Give me something t o eat, a place to rest — some, if only a little, comfort ! And so 1 started begging — begging right there on the corner of 44th and 6th Avenue. Please buddy, give me a dime for a cup of coffee. But no ! Those hard set jaws and steel eyes just looked right through m e, completely ig-noring my cries — or some, a little more polite would shake their head saying, sorry, I haven ' t any chang ' e, and walk on. These men you easily see didn ' t have much trouble, good job, steady money, why should they stop to give me some of their money? And as I was falling back into the thought of injustice again, a young girl slopped and gave me a quarter! I had only a quick glimpse of her but I saw her blue pitying eyes — she didn ' t look as though she had much to spare, but she had given me real monev — monev that she had worked for! 1 rushed across the street where the big sign of the automat was, and entered. It was warm here — warm and light, quite a few people too ! T walked over to the desk and got my precious quarter changed into nickels — it looked like a lot of money when you had five silver pieces instead of one. But soon I had put one of the pieces in the slot and hot,

Page 27 text:

The Branksome Slogan 25 It is always amazing to me, to see how many sadists there are gathered right here in the fa- mihar precincts of good old B.H. Their ranks are swelled by nearly all of our illustrious V form on the occasion of their mascot ' s weekly repast. If, by any hapj)y chance, the curiosity of some of you be- loved readers has been aroused, I will take this apportunity to explain. Our mascot is one, Aggie, an alli- gator of no mean repute. Aggie is not beautiful, nor yet is she even attractive. I think I might even go so far as to say (with humblest apologies to Hoyle , her one true love) that Aggie is undeniably ugly, x t best then, our Aggie is not an animal capable of arousing a pas- sionate love in the hearts of an} of us, but, since she represents $2.50 in cold cash, we tolerate her. Not willingly mind you, but we do toler- ate her. Aggie, unfortunately seems to be allergic to raw mince meat (can you blame her?) which should con- stitute the diet of any normal alli- gator worthy of the name, and so about once a week some one must needs trip down-town and return with 10c worth of live minnows to tickle Aggie ' s palate. She is then turned loose in her tub and with a loud cry of Gather round folks the zoology class stands waiting with bated breath while the unsuspecting representa- tives of the fish family are thrown in to meet a somewhat gruesome end. Aggie then swims leisurely around sorting out those of the largest size. The person who originated the saying ' ' here today and gone to lunch probably had just such a sit- uation in mind. Nothing would more aptly describe the little fishes ' disappearance into Aggie ' s cavern- ous mouth. Though we of the Zoo. class do not actually enjoy watch- ing this, the power of this gripping drama seems to hypnotize us and we stand motionless while the min- nows disappear one by one. My only hope is, that the belief in reincarnation is false. (Signed) An unwilling eyewitness, JOYCE BERTRA vI, Form