Central High School - Cog N Pen Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

Page 11 text:

WALKS THROUGH CENTRAL Have any of you ever walked through Central and felt its pulse and temperature? Have any of you ever frequented the school during vacations or at night? The feeling is one of acute loneliness. One is fearful of the intense silence and quiet that seems to reign everlastingly, and one wonders how the se empty corridors and vacant rooms could ever have been frequented by a jolly mob of howling, singing Centralites. I have walked through Central's halls and corri- dors, up its stairways and in its rooms. And I have done this at various times and periods, hearing Cen- tral's very heart-beats. I have walked through the school between periods, when the corridors are jammed with milling groups and rooms are either being very quickly emptied or very slowly filled. I have walked through Central during periods when its halls are empty but for either a few hurrying figures or a few sauntering Centralites. I have walked through Central during vacation when the forridors are jammed with milling groups halls are empty, and when my footsteps seem to echo and re-echo in the ghost-haunted corridors. | have walked through the school at night, when a few electric lamps, feeble candles! are burning, and illumine the lockers— 'bare, ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. For at night-time, and vaca- tion-time, and Saturdays, and Sundays, and holidays, Central is a morgue where the spirits of Central com- mune, where ghostly, mysterious conclaves are held, and when students are stopped for a moment on their upward jour ney toward knowledge, education, and success! Thus have I walked through Central, feeling its heart-beat, its pulse, its very life at various times. And I have learned to know her hallowed halls, to remember her sacred portals whence 1 went through to get a higher education, and to appreciate the spirit, the grit, and the courage of Central, for, as has been said before and will be said again: Central Leads And Others Follow!” —M. F. “OUR ORGAN” Our Organ! How well it sounds! The very words suggest pride, joy, the happiness of a deed well done, and the flush of victory when a battle is won. Our Organ! It seems to stand alone. Repeti- tion only makes it sound more sweet, and helps us find more meaning in it. Our Organ! No outside contribution, no beg- ging, no “pan handling won this organ, but our own, unaided contributions and efforts. We feel, and rıghtly, that the organ is ours, that every pupil of Central owns or shares it with all the rest of the multitude that have given for a seemingly vain cause and have passed away like ships that pass in the night. But let us not indulge in paeons of praise for our- selves. There is still much to be done, so let us go on as we have before, fighting, struggling, battling ever onward. —M. F.

Page 13 text:

“REDEEMED” By Isadore Zuckerman He had deserted. As this terrible thought plagued unmercifully upon his entire being, the consciousness of the terrihed soldier beheld the grim, unpitying fea- tures of the firing squad. The truth of it all was so unconceivable. In his first experience at the front, his spirit had broken under the unbearable strain of it all; and he had hidden when the call for attack was sounded. He had tried in vain to go on, as the rest, but something inside had prevented. Perhaps it was the terrible sights of maimed men, shell-shocked and babbling incoherently through parched and blood- less lips. But, ah! no, unfortunately it was not so; the terrible truth could not be evaded—he was a coward. A few months before he had pledged himself to defend unto death his native land. How miserably he had failed! He was a disgrace to his regiment— one of the finest in the service. How they would despise him when they heard. Those, rough, un- daunted heroes of Mars, whose steely hearts held no mercy for a coward, would curse his name for the blot he had cast upon them. And yet was he not deserving of such contempt? Far off, miles across the wide, unrelenting ocean, he could see a lonely, grey-haired woman who beheld in her mind's eye great visions of her boy's bravery in battle. While he (a sob escaped his lips), her only boy lay hidden among the debris of a recently shelled town,—a man to be despised by all—a coward. Well could he imagine the terrible effects Madame, your son has been executed for desertion in the face of fire. No black flag with the familiar gold star would hang from her window in memoriam for the upon the dear old woman as she read: sacrifice of her only son upon the altar of her country. Hs could almost hear the cruel, unmerciful words of the crude farming people of his town as they dis- gustedly pointed out his house and said: “Thar is whar she lives, the poor old widow; :he is to be pitied, for her worthless pup of a son deserted in the face of fire, a disgrace to his Ma and the town, the dirty coward. Such talk would break her proud heart, —she of the beautiful and kindly features, upon whose knee he had oft listened to those fascinating tales of childhood. But even such thoughts revolving rapidly through his fear-possessed mind. could not alter his firm decision. He would not again face those whining, destructive shells, and the snakelike machine gun projectiles which inflicted such cruel havoc upon men. On one occasion, he himself had witnessed a