Camden High School - Megunticook Yearbook (Camden, ME)

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THE MEGUNT1COOK CAMDEN, MAINE 3 tremendous values. If it wasn’t for this citizenship we wouldn’t have any- thing to say about who our president, representatives, and senators would be or about any other political mat- ters. We wouldn’t be entitled to un- employment insurance, old-age pen- sions and countless other great bene- fits. When we stop and think of it, most of us are certainly lucky, aren’t we? Do we often think of the thousands of children all over the world who do not really belong to any country? Maybe it would be a good thing if the next time we went to the church of our own choosing, we said a little prayer to God, thanking Him for making us citizens of this great coun- try, protected by its laws and armed forces, and asking Him to help the people of lands less fortunate than ours. —Ellen Donovan, ’52 COMMUNISM That nine-lettered word—commun- ism—looks harmless enough, or wait, does it? Does it look harmless? Look closely—look into the scenes behind it—Korea, China, even the United States of America. Communism is as poisonous as arsenic. It is as widespread as the common cold. First of all, what is a very simple definition of communism? One that we can explain and keep in our mind always. Communism is, in a large sense, greed. It is a certain group of people who are not satisfied with run- ning themselves, and perhaps their home, but want to rule everybody, ev- erybody’s home, everybody’s country. They would like to be higher than anyone, even God Almighty. These are the kind of people we want to rid the world of. Take Russia, for exam- ple. The people of that country are puppets. The government controls everything. The people are told what church to attend, what they can study in school, how to vote. There is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech. Do we want this United States, under God, to keep its free- dom and government of the people, by the people, and for the people? If we do, we must stop communism. Communism means war; war means bloodshed and death. For the sake of simplicity let’s call communism a dis- ease—like mumps or chicken pox, only worse. This disease attacks dif- ferent people; they become interested in it. All kinds of promises are made to the victims. What is it? Ignorance? Yes, ignorance and selfishness are two important factors. As we graduate from high school, we go knowing that in this time of un- certainty, we may never see our friends and teachers again. We may be drafted, or we may enlist. We may die fighting for our country against this disease, in the slime, muck and dirt of foreign soil. All this is because of the greed of men to rule the uni- verse. It’s our job to do our share to stop this dreaded disease. We’ll do it! We’ll fight for our freedom and liber- ty as our forefathers fought for theirs! I agree with what Patrick Henry said, and I quote, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I know that hun- dreds, even thousands of Americans will do what they can to give their children, some day, freedom and peace. —Donald Laliberte, ’51

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2 THE MEGUNTICOOK CAMDEN, MAINE MEGUNTICOOK BOARD Seated: Christine Plaisted, James McGrath, Betsy Wooster, Milton Christie, Ellen Donovan, Donald Laliberte. Standing: Grace Galanti, Ronald Banks, Charles Masalin, Parker Laite, Albert Bennett, Doris Mae Hopkins. One must have great respect for democracy and not use the word too indifferently. Our future jobs, our progress in the world—all these are endangered by the threat of Communism. Lest we descend to the level of Communists, do not let us rate democracy as if it were merely grabbing power and shooting those who do not agree with us. This is the antithesis of DEMO- CRACY! —Milton Christie, ’51 OUR GREATEST INHERITANCE Every day we take for granted one of the greatest inheritances fortune can bestow on us. That inheritance of which I speak is citizenship. I say we take for granted; I can easily say too, that we take advantage of this inheritance. We don’t realize how im- portant it is to our daily lives, but just let anyone take it away from us and we’d soon know it. Many of us would appreciate our citizenship more fully if we knew what is meant by this word. How many of us completely understand the wide scope this word covers and the great benefits we are entitled to because of it? In other words, what is citizenship? Webster defines it as “the status of a citizen with his rights and duties.” Now we must find the definition of a citizen—“a member, native or naturalized, of a state or na- tion.” Thus we learn that a person, native or naturalized, of a state or nation is a citizen and because of this he is entitled to certain benefits; he, in return, is expected to perform cer- tain duties. These benefits and duties are his citizenship. We have very few duties to perform for our country compared to the great privileges we have because of this citizenship. We automatically become citizens of the state in which we reside once we be- come a citizen of the United States; we shall have to find out how to be- come a citizen of this great nation. Most of us are lucky enough to in- herit this gift of citizenship and be- cause of this we don’t appreciate the

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4 THE MEGUNTICOOK CAMDEN, MAINE Four very short years ago, in the fall of ’47 to be exact, a large noisy group of unruly-looking boys and girls were hustled into the classrooms of CHS. It is very much in doubt as to whether such a sight will ever be seen again or not. At that time it looked like a long hard climb to what we thought was the top of the ladder —to be seniors. In order to be officially taken into the brotherhood of CHS students, of course we had to endure Freshman Reception. The week had been cut down to three days but the seniors managed to cram the three days full of various tasks and antics for us to perform. It must be admitted now that we all had a grand time and all of us escaped without injury—even Parker who was nearly hanged! Bas- ketball season then got underway and we contributed several players to the cause. The Washington Trip seemed a long way in the future this year, so we did not accomplish much aiong the line of money-raising but it was a good year for all. Summer came and went and then we could sit in the main room as sophomores and gloat over the fresh- men. We really had some sports tal- ent in our class! Another summer passed quickly and we climbed another rung on the ladder—we were at last juniors in the back of the main room. This was the year of the Junior Prom. Everyone who went had a grand time; the dec- orations were beautiful and we even had printed programs! The choosing of the class rings seemed to make us a little more of a class. In June it was at last our privilege to precede the seniors down the aisle at the Opera House and take our seats in the front rows. We all saw many good friends leave us that year; all we had left of them were countless wonderful re- collections but at last we were sen- iors! Summer sped by and we were on the last rung of the ladder only to find that it was really just the begin- ning. The first thing to get off our shoulders was the initiation of the freshmen. We bore them no special grudge so we treated them very rea- sonably by our views. Our class rings and pictures arrived and everyone began to realize that you really paid to be a senior. The Senior Play was a grand success and everyone who was in it had a swell time. No one group of people ever had to sell so many tickets to various things as we did. Miss McCobb’s daily remark to nearly every person came to be, “You haven’t sold any tickets and you want to go to Washington!” Through the efforts of the Senior Mothers’ Club, a grand organization, we realized that the Washington Trip was really possible. With the year nearly gone we real- ize that it will not be long before we will be receiving our diplomas. The Washington Trip for which we had