Central YMCA High School - Centralite Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 79 text:

LITERARY IV In Po-pofca-tefpetfl Or in Ve'zafgafpuftam, Old Central's pep has quite a rep In Kiel and Rotterdam, Along the winding Kongo Or away out in Siam Our Central guys will put them wise To the best old school what am. I THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS AND THE PENCIL I sat reading and listening to the radio when I knew I should be studying but I thought, Oh well, I'll rest a while and then start that home work. I' have a whole hour anyway. The story I had been reading dealt with an ancient god who owned a harp from which he produced such wonderful music that stones literally danced themselves to' gether into a stone wall. I could not help meditating upon its impossibilities and wondering what manner of people had been so simple as to take such tales as their religious faith. Dwelling upon impossibilities my thoughts turned to the radio. There it sat, a mass of inert wires emitting miraculously Iifeflike sounds. I fell into a lethargic state of musing. Radio, I soliloquized, you almost seem to think and speak of your own accordf' and after a pause a voice coming from the radio answered, I can speak. It's rather thoughtless and inconsiderate of you to doubt that, when I have always entertained you whenever you wished. I beg your pardon, said I, it was ungrateful of me to speak that way, although you sometimes insist upon entertaining me with things that I am not in the mood to listen to. Oh, well, it ironically replied, at least I give you a diversity of subjects and that is something your books and pencil can't claim to do. The books had taken no part in the conversation thus far but now they began to show signs of irritation at the somewhat unwarranted attack upon them. The English book fluttered its leaves and propped itself upright against a pile of other books and with a very erudite display of rhetoric, began a lengthy discourse calling attention to mistakes in diction that it had heard from time to time issuing from the radio. It gave evidence of continuing its rather wordy and boresome lecture indefinitely when it was sharply interrupted by the algebra book who in a few concise sentences gave Page scventyfjive

Page 78 text:

3f'u-lsff ..u-5-:5-'-1-g'v:-2f'-nf.'1l?io ' - 1ldlJuk4vMiJ s1!-fl-..'-Llxgg E was ,L J 9' -I LITERARY 5' 41 3. Q5 SCHOOL SONG 7 LK C -S THE EIGHTH WONDER P.. I fl QA Modest Tribute to Central to the Tune of Solomon Leviuj xl' 3 7' '.L I ig. Oh, you may travel the wide world round, 2' it O'er many a land and sea, 51' ,I And visit the Sphinx and all the ginks Q- That rule in majesty, Q' if And you may go to the ends of the earth, 5' g The wonders seven to see, is But you're out of date, till you see number eight, E' Ts The school they built for me! K '14 CHORUS: ll' ts 'l Cheer, boys, for Central-queen school of the West! if' E Yea bo! Central--school we love the best! 5- '.- Rahfrah-we've got the rep, we've got the e gi 'S We've got the faculty: ' 1 The blue and white will ever fight 11' Its way to victory. o':f II Q When elephants played on mandolins ' J. On the Paleozoic stage, ' And cavefmen beat their wifies meek, :Q Our yell was all the rage, , tl When Greeks and Babylonians 'I' :F Were looking for a sage, J' We sent our profs to teach their L'sophs Ii The wisdom of the age. 'If lv III .E You'll find our men in Kalamazoo, 4. France, Borneo, or Maine, Along the Nile, where the crocodile ' Eats men to ease his pain, FQ In Timbuctu or South Sea Isles, ,gf From Yap to sunny Spain, 2, ,S The cannibal goop says Central soup , 4, Has won itself a name. ' Page seventyffour 1' . 1 I 1 L l '? '

Page 80 text:

aaaswakf - ' - ' G:-,zfsmsy LITERARY various facts and figures tending to prove that the radio's faults lay in a wrong geometrical construction. It is obvious, said the physiology, that neither of you fellows are very Well informed upon the subject of healthful living or you would know where to place the blame for the lamentable faults that afflict the radio. It keeps all hours and has strong acids in its storage batteries which undoubtedly account for the irritating squeals and howls we are forced to listen to sometimes. Gentlemen, gentlemen! said the pencil. I am surprised to hear such scholarly persons differ on such trivialities. I have been recording incidents and thoughts for learned people from time immemorial and I early learned of the fruitlessness of arguf ment. It is better to draw your own conclusions and let the other fellow do likewise. It is more profitable to entertain than to antagonizef' XVell, then, the radio spoke up, suppose you give us a little entertainment. Agreed, said the pencil. If you will give me some music, I will attempt a dance in the course of which I will solve some of the problems in books that seem so to vex the human mind. The radio began a lilting tantalizing waltz so melodious and compelling that the pen' cil began at once to dance before the open books upon the table. It skipped and gyrated in an undulatory course back and forth across the sheets of paper and as soon as one sheet was covered with characters it disengaged itself from the tablet and wafted itself to the end of the table where it was soon joined by another and another until I saw my lessons for the coming day lying completed in a neat, orderly pile. The music, meanwhile, had been growing more irresistible and as it swelled into a grand symphonic climax the books closed and skipped nimbly one after another off the table and into the brieffcase. The music stopped with a crash and I awoke with a start. My books lay in the same disordered state in which I had left them fwhen I had gone to sleepj and I realized that in this somewhat pleasant hallucination I had sacrificed another golden hour to the God of Laziness. C, W. MA AUGH. MMYI Page seventyfsix L , l - I - Y i xi'aF'f'o ' 'T' 'auf 'l f 'F '1 Ef'I l '. '3 1'fa :auf 'a l F'I s '59