Charlotte High School - Witan Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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HIGH SCHOOL The VVITAN tf H ' ¥ Class Will VVc, the exceptional class of January 1932 of Charlotte High School, Rochester, County of Mon roe. Stare of New York being of nervous, flighty, uncontrollable nature yet slightly intelligent and possessing some ability do, hereby, declare and print this our Will and Testament. I. We bequeath to Walter Smith a new list of girls' addresses and telephone numbers in case he runs out. II. We leave these three candidates Gertrude Rappold, Gertrude Wolff and Ruth Murphy as possible secretaries for Miss Sharer. III. We leave Mr. West time to eat his lunch at least once a week without interruption or delay. IN'. We leave in the new school a smell proof building so that the occupants of the school will not have to suffer when cats with white stripes come around. V. We are going to take Walter Gunklcr's persistence (particularly, in asking girls to dance) with us; we may need it at a future date. VI. We leave Gertrude Rappold a new manager of the Book Exchange in place of our dearly loved Wilbert VII. We regret taking the biggest share of the athletic teams with us but we leave Everett Lockner, Billy Petroske, and Walter Fox as candidates for future teams. VIII. Wc bequeath to Mr. True a mail box to put outside his door to save rhe girls, bringing the slips around, the embarrassment of going into the boys' study hall. IX. Wc leave to the next candy committee a large supply of soft candy for Mr. Lacy so that he can keep the fillings in his teeth. X. We bequeath to the future Handbook Com- mittee Saturday mornings for work; more can be accomplished. XI. We bequeath a glass case for the candy so that Benny the prize candy feeler can lose the habit we’re afraid he might make a mistake and embarrass himself in an uptown store. XII. Personal Requests: 1. To Mr. Enright, a throne; it can be used to good advantage in girls’ study hall. 2. To Hermeana Prvsock, Vi Rentsch ler’s style. 3. To Grace Eve, Jean Estes’ singing voice. 4. To Rudy Wendt, l.ois Marsh's burden of playing in assembly. c. To Dean Lawson, Pom Cass's special knack of making announcements. 6. To Arol Weiser, Jimmie Smith's ath- letic ability. 7. To Kenneth Mersey, Cam, Critten- den’s boldness. X. Art Gordon's grin to Frank Polka. 9. We leave rhe school the much antici- pated and long expected handbook. XIII. Lastly we appoint the class of June 1932 executors of this will. Should it prove too much for them we suggest the faculty as assistant executors. Clast oj January 1932 Gladys M. Grotzincer Class Testator Witnesses: President, Percy Andrews Secretary, Ruth Punnetr '5

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CHARLOTTE The WITAN standing in front of. And—yes—he is a ballyhoo talker for Fingling Brothers Circus. What a man! And I had always thought he was rather quiet, and bashful. Water please! Burr—burr—just to look at that scene freezes me up. Snow, great lights in the sky and appearing in the distance a dog-sled. My, that man looks cold too. Why—Percy Andrews, so that is what he is doing. Exploring the Arctic. This is a good place for him to be, but even though he looks cold, I would bet my whole weeks’ pay (S.coo) that he is sweating under all those hear skins. Speaking of the arette regions, who is that going from igloo to igloo? Why, it’s Jimmy Weeks, and what is he doing? Oh, he’s a traveling salesman for Fanny Farmer’s Candy. He always was good at selling candy in school. But somehow or other I thought Eskimos ate tallow or somepin and not candy. Maybe it’s Jimmy’s personality who knows? Boy, after all that cold weather, this is the kind of place I would like to visit. A hula hula land from all the weather signs. I-ook at that girl dance. She looks like an American. Why she is! Suddenly, I feel faint. I never thought Ruth Punnett would come to this . . But there is an old saying, Still water runs deep. Well, if that isn’t dear old Avery I Kkner singing away. From the looks of things he must he vocalizing, as Mr. Marsh used to say. Oh, dear, I wish 1 had a voice like that, a voice that actually lulled people to sleep. This looks like yes, it is -good old New York City again. And by all appearances that is a news- paper building. It surely is. I always like to go through newspaper buildings (thanks to Miss Paul). Here's the F.ditor-in-Chief’s office. It’s marked private. But who cares? The Editor himself! Well, well, well, as I live and die! It is Axel Johnson suc- ceeding in Art Brisbane’s place as Editor of the New York Journal. Whar a class, rhat class of '32 was. We seem to be traveling all over New York City today. Here we arc at the Yankee Stadium appear- ing in the clear crystal. Everybody is all excited about something. My, look at rhat big handsome fellow hatting. Hooray, it’s a home run. And yes, vou guessed it, it’s Smitty! But here’s a secret I learned. He can’t run bases any better than he used to when playing on Charlotte’s Champion (?) Base- ball team. Eookit rhar good-looking man stump-talking to a group of people right on Broadway. Why, it’s Cam Crittenden, and he’s a salesman for Ford Cars. Thar rakes me right back to the good old days when Cam’s mania was to remodel old cars. But I thought he leaned toward the Essex. Well, the Ford is a good car. The next scene that is being unfolded from the crystal is a football game at Notre Dame. Notre Dame and Northwestern. And who's sitting on that bench. As usual a good player from rhe side-lines is Sam DcMato. He always was a good player in rhat same position on the soccer team at Charlotte. Oh, last but not least, I remember Pomeroy Cass. He always did seem to come in last even in the crys tal. And here he is as an acrobat and tumbler, traveling under the assumed name of Spigo from town to town. A tumbler is good! The best part ol Pomeroy is the way he falls down. Suddenly, a long, slim Austin looms into view and we see Frank Campbell at the wheel. Now Frankie's Mamma and Papa can have the Buick. The glass is becoming cloudy strange zig-zag dashes of tire appear followed by a cloudy foamy looking substance which crystallizes into white specks violently agitated like flakes of snow in a blizzard. Ali Bendou, puzzled, reverses the ball and Charles Richardson momenrarily appears succeeded by a violent crash as the crystal flics to pieces. One look at Prince Ali convinces me that I have urgent business elsewhere. Jean Estes Class Prophet CREST Long slow waves of memoria come rolling, Slowly rolling over dark green trees and mist. And hills blurred gray with distance. Vines that climb in aimless wildness, And brow n drooped sunflowers, too old to remember Even a namesake. And long slow waves of memories come breaking. Breaking into colored specks of foam, Breaking into pictures, dreams and dust. Pictures of a purple plume of sunset color, And the glowing green purity of moss and dew; Dreams of afternoons, warm and tinted blue. Of hours and breaths too short to hold The infinitude of a rose or moon; •And the dust of unforgettable sorrow Almost forgotten. •4

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The WIT AN CHARLOTTE Vj d V InV rr Literary Department ? 5W ?» A BEYOND THE FLOWERS The sky was an imperturbable ocean ofdepthless blue; and as the crimson sun sank very slowly to the horizon it seemed to draw up, in the cast, a little silver wisp of a moon. A few clouds were suspended peacefully in the west. Birds; the thrush and the lark, flitted over the fields, just clearing the tops of the grass and grain. A brown country road wound up the hills and down. And Old Tom trudged down into a valley, walked slowly toward the old house that was his home. Tom was short and ruggedly built, his skin darkened by rhe sun and the wind and the rain. His clothes, as his body, were rugged, old, and worn. He seemed tired; his feet dragged a little; but there was a hopeful and an expectant gleam discernible in his dark eyes. He had almost reached his house now. It was very small, built of large, Hat pieces of stone and roofed with their pieces of slare. The windows were small and curtained with scant draperies of coarse cloth. And the house was situated in the center of a half acre of carefully kept land. The yard in front was merely a smooth, very green lawn; hut in back many beds of blossoming flowers occupied the pre- cious space. There were long beds of roses and Straw flowers and hardy perennial plants. A single glance furnished assurance that it was the product of a careful and a skilled workman, and above all, a lover of flowers. 'Phis was Tom's garden; this was the cause of the hopeful gleam that escaped from beneath rhe shaggy brows of his large eyes; this was what Tom worked all day for; this was why he labor- ed in a neighbor’s field day in and day out. He was paying now the last fraction of the mortgage on that little plot of land; it would soon be his, all his own! His wife stood in the doorway as he came into the yard. She was neither short nor rugged; she was thinner than Tom and seemed to he not quite well. Her face wore an expression of fatigue, an expres- sion of endurance, endurance of a hopeless pain. Her hair was grey and long and a few strands vagrantly blew before her worn brow and her tired eyes. But Tom was not thinking of Hilda as he came up the door-path; he was thinking of his flowers, his garden, and of the short month before he would have it all paid for. How he cherished that garden, those flowers, those perfect flowers! How he admired the absolute perfection of each of his marigolds! Sixty- two years had taught him the supremacy of nature, had taught him to find an everlasting joy in the admiration of its beauty. Those flowers and the trees and rhe grass represented to him a God, a God whom he had heard little of, a God whom he could not imagine, but a God who was sufficient for Old Tom in the mere evidence a rose’s loveliness portrayed. No, he was not thinking of Hilda, or his supper, or his own weariness; he was thinking of his flowers. As he passed through the doorway he merely brushed by her, nor even noticing her presence. And after he had passed, his wife drooped her head a little lower and softly sighed. The supper was not ready and so Tom paused in the house merely long enough to wash rhe dust of the fields from his hands and face and then passed out again, this time into the back yard. He grasped his hoe, which was leaning against rhe wall of rhe house, and went to work in the garden. The profuse blossoming of his many colored flowers made him very happy and he whistled lightly as he hoed about the roots of the plants. This was his conception of a model occupation, this was the most pleasant thing a man could do. Such beauty, such colorful loveliness. And then a soft, saddened voice called him to supper. He did not heed the summons immediately; hut worked on until he had weeded out a little colony of plants and then he went into the house, washed again, and sat down at the small kitchen table. Hilda placed rhe victuals in front of him and finally sat down opposite him. The meal was a silent one. Old Tom ate hurriedly and spoke hardly a word. I lis wife ate very little and looked almost constantly at her husband. At the end of the meal he jumped up, gave a terse grunt of satisfaction, and darted immediately our of the door, determined to take full advantage of the scant half hour that remained before darkness. This he did, working steadily and diligently and when the darkness finally did arrive he put away his hoc reluctantly and before going indoors stood regarding with pride the beauty which t6