Central Etobicoke High School - Etobian Yearbook (Etobicoke, Ontario Canada)

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RE I ERIE it is f so f V J f He returned from work along the narrow cement walk, the castanet l X , notes ofthe typewriters still ringing in his ears. The smells of the boarding f house-of fish, and cats, of rusty water-pipes and old carpet did not make any impression on him. His bed twanged like guitar as he fell exhausted upon it, not even seeing the wicker chair that sounded like A ' mice in the straw, or the brown paper with water stains running in vague i f I, patterns about it. Sleep overcame him, he began to dream . Suddenly he found himself in a distant springtime valley. Meadow opened into meadow, and the hills made tall horizons. lt was morning, hills were crimson where the sunlight touched them, but the lower valley X was still steeped in shadow, and the river smoked with a white vapour. 5 He saw and loved every change of light and temper in that changeful X, valley, and every wind that blew along its furrow. ln the distance the ' full shapes of the oak trees echoed those of the vast cumulus clouds above I whose shadows drifted across the meadows, blue, blue-grey, purple and green, like the shadows of whales on the sea floor. He could see the house he would call his own. It sat well back on a lawn seamed with mole tunnels, and was shaded by many torn shattered oaks whose trunks were splashed with foam-like circles of pale green lichen . The house was warped and sagging, constructed by no plan . Surrounding it was a garden of tall dahlias, great fleshy stars, and sea anemones of rose colour, blood red, sulphur and veiled pink. Suddenly he awoke. His heart and mind filled with a suffocating sense of menace and madness . His deep brown eyes misted with tears as he gazed down upon his great dark hands-darker still in the gloom of night, wondering now, as he had wondered so many times before why their darkness meant his being segregated even when in the army, offering his life for a peace and a liberty he did not really know. So often he had thought of what it would be like to live where he could forget his colour, and perhaps play a big part in his nation's life. ln the back of his mind was a wild and intense longing to belong, to be identified, to feel alive, to have equal opportunities, to forget the coloured shadow that was always with him, oppressing him, to forget he was a Negro. Day and night he dreamt of what his life would be if he were free of the chains of blackness. He wondered, and in the depths of his soul stirred the slow, sad music of his race. Perhaps some day it would become a triumphant hymn, a sturdy song of all his peaceful and hopeful people. His people, the race with a tragic past, a tragic present, and a future. . ............. Qoikn Gophers This is the tale of the Gophers of Gold, They were stout, stalwart, and noticeably bold . Cully and Turner and Cromwell were backs, While linemen like Rollo were sharp as brass tacks. Crozier and May were sneaks of renown, As their miraculous handoffs never failed a first down. The centre of the line always closed like a trap, 'Cause Colman and Knight were there to help Tapp. Now as for the quarters, there were Chapman and Conn, When one was off, the other was on. And then for the passes, stood Seeback and Young, To receive all the flings, that their way were flung. Best yetl ..... Coach MacMartin, the cause of it all, Just mention the gridiron - and you're on the ball. That is the story of the Gophers of Gold, Many times over l'm sure t'will be told! 67

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by BARBARA MARTIN, Oratorical Contest Winner, 1954. Cancer is the disease dreaded by so many. Marie Curie is the scientist who discovered the only hope of cancer control. lt is of this woman, her life, her work, her character I wish to speak. Marie Curie, burning with an unappeasable ambition, worked a lifetime among notebooks, test-tubes and bare laboratory walls to produce radium, the cure for cancer. With her frail, slender hands Madame Curie changed the course of the world's thinking just as another great woman, Joan of Arcfchanged its history. Marie was a Polish girl, she was poor, she was beautiful, she was the daughter of an impoverished school teacher in a Poland still under the iron clutch of Russia. In school Marie proved her brilliance. She was always the teacher's choice to answer questions when the Russian inspector arrived . Name the Tzars who have ruled over our Holy Russia since Catherine the Great, he would ask. Five year old Marie, in fluent Russian would list ten or twelve names in order. Fine, the inspector would say. This child has a remarkable memory. Who is our most gracious overlord? he would continue . To hide the fire in their eyes the superintendant and teacher of the school would stare hard at the register. When the answer did not come quickly enough the inspector, angered, would boom, Who rules over us? His Majesty Alexander ll, Tzar of all the Russias. Marie would say, pale and trembling. The session over the inspector gone, she would burst into a flood of tears at her own cowardice and the oppression of her people. When her schooling was completed Marie supported herself by tutoring children in wealthy homes. Life in these sophisticated surroundings was unbearable for her. So with only a dream in her heart she escaped to Paris. On the verge of collapse and starvation, yet with access to text books and scientific study, she was happy there . Then a bright star appeared on her horizon . In Paris she met and married Pierre Curie, whose scientific genius was akin to her own . Together they carried out scientific experiments. Lured on by the discovery of polonium and well on the way to discovering radium Pierre and Marie scorned fatigue and other diffuculties. Four years they laboured in a shed, the best laboratory they could afford. In the winter when it froze, they froze. During the rainy season they had to mark places on the work-table where rain fell from the leaky roof to avoid putting apparatus there. To obtain quantities of radium, polonium and radium must be separated from pitch-blende. ln her notebook Marie wrote, lt was killing to stir the boiling matter for hours at a stretch i' When the time came for the purifi- cation stage spotlessly clean apparatus and workrooms were needed . This shed was open to every wind, enabling iron and coal dust to mix with the products purified with such great care . Long after her husband had abandoned the experiments Marie worked on in the shed . One significant night she entered the old shed, feeling that her experiments were nearing completion . She stoppedl There on the work-table lay the luminous product of her discovery . Suddenly the four long years of labour, privation and isolation from the world became fruitful and worth-while. She had produced radium from an experimental ton of pitch-blende given to her and her husband by the Academy of Science in Vienna and labelled to the two French lunatics who think they need this. Unfortunately Marie had not escaped tragedy. One evening, returning home from a day's work she was confronted at the door by two French police officers. They hadn't the courage to tell her their news. After studying their faces for a moment Marie quietly yet forcibly said, My husband is dead . ln a tragic accident, Pierre Curie who almost lost his identity also lost his life. Marie was without her companion and the world was without this great man, - a world which was beginning to appreciate the genius of these two. ln spite of sorrow and physical illness, Marie continued alone in the work, brilliantly developing the science they had created together. Devotion, health, wisdom, everything was given to its furtherance and the betterment of mankind . The glory and power came at last, she was twice winner of the Nobel prize but these honours she did not seek. lt was science and mankind she cared for, not fame. When her mission in life was accomplished, she died exhausted having refused wealth and having accepted her honours with indifference. What is even more rare than her work is her quality of soul in which neither fame, power nor wealth could change its exceptional purity. Her daughter said, lt is the celebrated scientist who is the stranger to me. Of her Einstein said, Marie Curie is of all celebrated beings the only one whom fame has not corrupted . In a country graveyard among summer flowers, she had the quietest and simplest of burials as if the life just ended had been like that ofa thousand others. Madame Curie was very nearly unaware of her astonoshing destiny. 66

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