Brooklyn Technical High School - Blueprint Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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Colonial warfare-rifies, cannons, uni- forms, and ammunition. He may also inspect the room in which Ethan Allen had his headquarters. It is impossible to look through the crude glass of the windows of this room without seeing images that are greatly distorted. As the visitor leaves the fort, he is chilled by the formidable aspect of the cannons protruding from the stone wall and is saddened by the old Indian pottery maker, one of the last of his kind. The lrefnendoni pre-war ifnznigration proclureil many economic problemr for the innnigranl. How he fought to exirl and lo belter hir existence is here relaled. Life was growing increasingly dif- ficult for the immigrant, who was try- ing to support his growing family in their shabby apartment in the East Side slums. He had a hard time providing the necessities of life on his eight dol- lars a week for fifteen hours a day in a sweatshop. Life was even more diHi- cult when there was no eight dollars at all. There was a union and later a strike. The grocer didn't sympathize, nor could the children go without food. But finally things changed, and there was a new job. Life was much pleasant- er with the consequent better pay, shorter hours, and Saturday and Sun- day off. The immigrant went to night school, became a citizen. He took his family to the museums, to the aquarium, and to Coney Island. So that his chil- dren would not grow up in the slums that produced criminals, he moved to Brooklyn. There I was born. IV ar fame, war the like of which had never been fought before, for the jiri! lWorlzl War introduced many inaehinei which made fighling a diffirult art. The airplane with iff armament way one of the mort intrirate of the new rnarhinef. Since my father was a machine gun 6 instructor at Kelly Field during the first World War, it was his duty to teach the pilots in training the tactical use of the Lewis machine gun. Part of this training entailed the assembling and dismounting of the gun. This op- eration had to be done blindfolded in three minutes. It all depended on the pilot's sense of touch and the ability of his body to distinguish between differ- ent parts of the gun. One pilot in the squadron could accomplish the entire operation in one minute. There were many Jacriffef on the field of baffle in the war. Many of ui have some relative who can dercribe lhe fight r.rt hand . A group of men including my father are sitting in their dugouts after trench duty. A messenger arrives with an order. It is for a mass attack in an hour. The men prepare. They wait. The signal is given. Waves of American, English, and French soldiers charge across the field. Airplanes drone over- head. The staccato of rifle fire fills the air. The Germans give. Their line crumbles. The Allied soldiers won the battle of St. Mihiel, but hundreds were left behind on the field. Some were dead, others wounded or gassed. To this day, my father suffers from the effects of the gas, and he still bears a long jag- ged scar on his arm. The war wa: not all battle and killing. A whimsically humorous account of thore bloody days i.r related thai. My uncle was nervously serving sentry duty on his first night at the front. As he paced up and down, he noticed the moon reflecting off a dis- tant object. 'Probably -a bayonet,' he thought. Twice he challenged, then, as it is a sentry's privilege to shoot if

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The Armahella II plowed under and slowly righted herself. Captain Snow, peering out of a window, saw a figure lying prone on the deck. Rushing out, he fought his way through the swirling waters of a receding wave un- til he reached the unfortunate and dragged him to the waiting hands of several persons who had witnessed this feat. When these people looked around, Captain Snow had disappeared over the side. The Irish hrought to us their great sense of humor. Perhaps their love of fuzz sometimes led them to tell tall stories. At any rate, you he the judge of this one. It was Sunday, and my grandfather, Mr. Simon O'Hollern, was thirsty. Now he could not buy any beer in New jer- sey because its sale was prohibited on Sunday. He knew where he could buy it, but he would have to cross the Hud- son River to get there, and the ferry boats were not running so early in the morning. Grandpa did the only thing left to do. He donned his bathing suit, which had skirts and prisoner's stripes on it, took his beer can, and swam across the river. His pint can had a tight cover and a handle. Grandpa pur- chased the beer, slid into the water, and started back. He looked very com- ical because he had to swim with his head two feet out of water and his body almost in a vertical position. He held the beer can with the handle be- tween his teeth. When he finally reached his barge, Grandmother and Mother congratulated him for his swim, be- cause there was no salt in the beer. But there was a one pound sea bass swimming around in the beer, quite drunk. To this day no one in the family has ever been able to explain how the bass got in. No doubt if we could have examined further into the ancestry of Tech boys, we might have found examples of the qualities of character that other na- tionalities have given us. But let these illustrations suliice, for America's more immediate past has also contributed. America is made of the fight, adven- turous spirit, and humor that have characterized the eventful existence of her people through the generations from the Revolution to the present. Evidenfes of the adventurous spirit that made America are all around us, espe- cially on Long Island. Here a bullet hole tells a dramatic story. During the summer, I received an invitation to visit Sagitos, a stately manor that stands on the north side of Montauk Highway in East Islip. I had been told that the house was built in 1699 by a New Amsterdam merchant, Stephanus Van Cortlandt, and I natural- ly was anxious to see it. On visiting the place, I was impressed by the care taken to preserve the colonial architec- ture, but when I was in one of the rooms, I was thrilled to find a bullet embedded in the wall. When I inquired of my host how this had occurred, he told me that when Long Island was held by the British troops, they made their headquarters there. A revolution- ary spy fired a bullet at Sir Henry Clin- ton, but missed, and the bullet embed- ded itself in the wall. I never found out what happened to the adventurous revolutionary. A visit to the Revolutionary War fort, Fort Ticorzderoga, will also recall adven- turous days of the past. Last summer I had the privilege of visiting Fort Ticonderoga. The fort is on the top of a slight slope right above the banks of Lake Champlain. Inside, one may see displays of articles of

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he gets no answer, he fired. Advancing cautiously and searching the ground, he found a tin can with a neat bullet hole. Although he was proud of his marks- manship, he said nothing to his bud- dies of how he challenged and 'killed' an old tin can. Many zfelemm were lor! in the poi! war fouflziiofz, but one ma11'.r delermimz- lion and n7dU?lIflll'0lIJ' .rpirif wired bi! 6'IIlP!0ylllEllf problem in lbir exciting but bazardolzr way. After the first World War, my father, just returned from the front, found it difiicult to obtain work, so he accepted a position as an overseer on a rubber plantation in Africa. In this capacity he had a number of interesting experiences, in one of which, display- ing exceptional daring, he quelled a group of troublesome native workers single-handed by standing in their way with a respect-commanding shotgun in his hands and fear in his heart as they tried to advance toward his bungalow. Both the natives and my father were scared, but it was the natives who re- treated while my father stood his ground. From the old generation to the new one, America has always been able to take it and take it with a smile. The heritage of grit, perseverance, and courage of our ancestors lives with us in the present. This is illustrated by the following experiences taken from the work and play of modern Americans. The titles are indicative of some of the qualities of American youth of today. FACING DIFFICULTIES Thick, dry, choking dust rose in clouds to cover the long thin line of young hikers that tramped wearily along a dry hot road- way. Here on this hot stretch of sand called the Zumie trail by the scouts of Camp Ranachqua marched a group of tired kids averaging about twelve years of age. We went on that hike just for the fun of it, and what fun we had! Tramp- ing for hours without water, chasing rat- tlesnakes away from our food supply one morning, and climbing a little hill called the Wildcat fone thousand feet almost straight upj in a sudden rainstorm, were just a few of our adventures. But we broke two records. First, we were the largest group ever to go around the trail, and second, we broke the time record for group trips. Not one of the fellows said he wouldn't go again if he got the chance. That was two years ago, and now we are planning to make the whole forty mile trip again this winter. That's Scouting for you, yet some call it a sissy's game. Last summer I held a job which is one of the comparatively little known occupa- tions of this vast city. I was employed by an automotive warehouse as a messenger, my duty being to deliver automobile parts to any section of the city. Without being too lacking in modesty, I may say that I found my job similar to that of the Pony Express. Although there were no Indians waiting in ambush, there were other haz- ards. I had to cross streets thick with au- tomobiles when I was carrying large, clumsy, and heavy packages. I recall one time when I had to cross Broadway at Forty-second Street while carrying such bulky articles that one of my eyes was temporarily out of use. Needless to say, the automobiles seemed to me then like Indians ready to attack me at the Hash of a signal fgreen lightj. The messenger of today must also possess the speed and alertness of the Pony Express rider, for time is valuable, not only to the customer, but to the boy himself, since he is paid according to the number of trips he makes in a day. So you see that except for the type of ob- 7