Canaan High School - Lasso Yearbook (Canaan, CT)

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stabilizer and fuselage. Yes, the plane age is indeed here and affords profitable occupations for those who have the ability and who are interested in aviation. Robert Cook, '40. SPRING HOUSECLEANING Looking forward to Easter is a very pleasant sensation. There will be more birds about, that have recently migrated North after a pleasant win- ter in the South, the grass will be green and a few of the early flowers such as the tulips and the narcissus will begin to blossom forth with their sweet fragrance. Then there will be that very pleasant thought, that only comes once people like new spring hat and all course, the forward to bunny and will also be a year to some unlucky me, that there will be a suit and a nice new straw the other apparel. Of younger ones will look the visit of the Easter the Easter dinner. There the pleasant remembrance from the religious point of view, but along with all this will come the spring housecleaning! My vacation generally arrives a few weeks before Easter vacation and the spring housecleaning comes right along about this time. The first thing that must be done is to tear off the old paper. My brother, my sister and l gather up a few old knives, that have endured plenty of hard wear in their day, a bushel bas- ket and commence tearing off the paper. We all wish for the side of the room where the paper comes off with one pull. It is quite a delight to have it come off that way instead of a little at a time. It reminds me of the time when l didn't want to eat my dried beef on toast, and would have gladly given the dog a feast only he wasn't there, but l had to eat it. So l ate it ever so slowly, bit by bit. Then the opposite reminds me of the ice cream that l can gulp down in one bite. The next step is the painting of the wood work. l mix the paint and mix it again, but when applied to the wall it still streaks, until big brother gets generous and lends a helping hand, and it goes smoothly from then on and finally the paint job is finished- at least l think it is until l awake the next morning remembering that l for- got to paint the outside of the win- dow. This is the hardest job of all be- cause l am bound to get paint on the window pane and forget to wipe it off while it's wet and sister says that l must get the razor out and scrape it off before the clean curtains can be put up. l tell her it is all on the out- side and has been since the big broth- ers painted the house, but apparently she doesn't believe me as the razor makes its approach and l begin scrap- ing. Yes, scraping paint! Big brother has to be in school the next day so sister whitewashes the ceiling. What a job for a lady! l run to the store for the whitewash, sister mixes it, and we both watch and wait to see it boil. Well, it doesn't, but she puts it on the ceiling anyway. It runs down her arm and all over her head, and the Hoor receives a good whitewash bath, besides. Sister is a sight, for she has no belt on, a red bandana on her head, sheltering those pretty blonde locks, and runs miles long in her stockings, the oldest and most worn shoes that she has, and, of course, a dilapidated dress to

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no pleasure derived from it. There is a flavor at first, but that soon wears off. Looking at a person chewing gum, l am strongly reminded of a cow in the meadow chewing her cud. There is that same rhythmic moving of the jaws: the same look of emptiness on the face. lf anyone can look intelli- gent when he is chewing gum, that person should go down in history. There are several types of gum- chewers. There is the person who chews slowly and methodically, who seems bent on getting everything there is in every chew. There is the person who chews at great speed, as if he were afraid the gum would get away from him. There is the child who opens his mouth as wide as it will go, then clamps down on the gum like a cat on a mouse. lt is amusing to watch people chew gum, but it finally becomes boring. Why wouldn't it? lt's the same thing over and over again, chew after chew. is it any wonder that teachers require pupils to drop their gum in the waste- paper basket? Edith Picchioni, '40. ,iii-i-l--1 PLANES Planes! Planes! Planes! that's all we hear about now-a-days. The other day when l went to the movies l saw a news item of a new four-motored transport plane under construction. It is of the most radical design of any plane yet to be built. lt has a new- type landing gear which is three cor- nered with two wheels in the mid- fuselage and a wheel on the nose. Four different airlines pooled money to build this new Queen of the Skies . The plane has been under con- struction for almost a year and is just now nearing completion. lt was just the other morning when l was awakened by a deafening roar. What do you think? It was just an- other plane doing his setting-up ex- ercisesf' lt seems that every way you turn you see or hear something about planes. The planes of today are really mar- velous machines as they are safe and m6st assuredly practical. One can en- joy aviation very much these days if he has a mind to. The planes of to- day have the most clean lines of any machines in the world. They are beautifulg their sturdy little cantilever wings with a bright finish of paint are a wonderful sight. The most perfect part of an airplane is its cockpit: this is its nerve center just like the brain of a human. The maze of instruments and lights of a modern plane repre- sent many hard hours of studying their function and use to the plane. Most every one is mildly interested in aviation today because of the many ways one may become inter- ested. There are numerous branches of the industry which are just as in- teresting as the actual flying of the planes. Some people literally thrive on looking at pictures of the latest planes: others travel to airports rather than the one nearest them to look at different type planes and get ac- quainted with them. The closest thing to aviation itself is model aviation. This is an import- ant field because it trains one to the parts of a plane and how they are built. How many people know what these words mean who have not built a model, longerous, stringers,

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match. In the midst of all this the dog barks and downstairs Cwe are clean- ing upstairs, you know, someone calls, Oh, Mrs. Gray, anyone home? l think that it is one of our fre- quent callers and call to my sister to tell him to come on up if he can find his way through all the junk, but sis- ter doesn't think it is who I think it is and parades down the stairs in her bright regalia with the the white pol- ka dots fthe whitewash, to see who the visitor may be. ln the meanwhile I run, stumbling over the furniture piled in the way, and look out the window, see the minister's car parked out in front, and do I laugh! Then I hear the many apologies for the dreadful clothing and that we are housecleaning. l arise early the following morning and run in to peep at the ceiling. For looks white and it is streaky in a short distance it smooth and again places. It reminds me of some people's lives, smooth and clean in some places and then rough and streaky in other places. Well, sister got out the whitewash brush again and did the ceiling over. This time the whitewash boils and the ceiling comes out a very pure white with no streaks. I can't say whether it was be- cause the whitewash didn't boil the first time or because sister was an am- ateur at such things that made it streaky. Anyway, it's white now The papering is the next procedure, but l don't have much to do with that as sister has the pleasant job of plastering on the paste and sticking the paper on the wall. CI wonder how long it will stay on?Q Later I hear her complaining of pains in her knee. When sister finishes, I wash the floor and the furniture. On Thursday the mattress is put back on the bed and everything in the room straightened out and made liv- able again. You may be surprised, but it did look very nice. I suppose all this didn't sound so very delightful and believe me-it wasn'tl I can think of loads of more interesting ways to spend one's vaca- tion, but when a family doesn't feel that they can afford to have a dec- orator it's the best way out of the sit- uation, I think. I admit it is a lot of hard work, but now when I enter my room it looks so nice and clean, and they say cleanliness is next to godli- ness, that I can't help being glad I spent my vacation housecleaning. Catherine Southwell, '40, BGOK READAIJG After telling of our extremely in- teresting novel course that the Juniors are having in English, this remark was made: Why do you spend school time reading novels? You can read those any time. We are not merely reading noVeIs, but we are learning how and what to read, that is, we are reading our books in much greater detail. In this course we have a variety of all types of books, from which we study the type of plot, which is character, set- ting, or plot: the style of author, which is a very detailed subject, in which we must study the whole book thoroughly: the qualities of suspense or surprise: and the topic the author has chosen. Through a thorough con- sideration of these we are able to I3