Classical High School - Classic Myths Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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C LASS O RATIO N lC0nfinuedl More than any other age, our society can be characterized by confusion, uncertainty, and apprehension. We must fill the spiritual void in America today. We must place our concerted effort here. The health of our culture depends on us. It is not as if we did not have a clear vision of our desired ends. We have a goal to reach and a national pur- pose. XVe want an end to hunger, an end to race discrimination, an end to crime and social maladjustment, an end to disease and human suffering, an end to ignorance, pre- judice, and meanness of spirit, an end to fear. We must recapture our faith and our moral strength. We want to maintain our heritage of a vital, virile, and active nation. Stated positively, we do have a goal devoutly desired. It is peace in freedom. Certainly absence of purpose is not our dilemma, but rather our problem is the frustration resulting from the failure of the means. complex that it is not easy for the individual to see what he can do about them. The tasks facing the frontiersman two centuries ago may have been grim, but they were obvious. Each man as an individual knew what he must do. But what can a man of today do about the far-reaching problems facing our society? Much faith can be placed in the indomitable will and courage of the human spirit through which man is capable of find- ing his way out of strange and alien dark- ness. But, the answers are never self-evident and solutions come only as the result of tedi- ous effort. As Class Orator I would not be so naive as to suggest that you, the Class of 1965, will in these matters solely shape America's destiny. No, not even I would claim that you will be supermen. But it is vital that you and I and all Americans realize that our nation's future will not be determin- ed by our immense physical and material Our national problems in this century have with the passage of time become so Cynthia Asher Paul Arsenault Ann Beard Paula Bergin Peter Bilazarian John Costello power, but by the spiritual and moral health of each one of us. It is within our power to determine this health through our individual commitment to peace in freedom. FIRST HONORS Mildred Chervin Linda Davidson Stanley Greenberg Marcus Home Lawrence Kegeles Harry Payne Thomas Mattimore joel Rosen Alan Mintz Alan Sherr Jerome Morse Marilyn Swartz Elizabeth Oginsky Eric Yoffie SECOND HONORS Richard Klauzinski Kenneth Kowalchek David Tinsley Lawrence joseph janet Knapik Gale Thurston Blue Ribbon Winneif Gold Key Winfzer Cerlificates of Merit Carol Seega Carol Seega Anna Louise Haglund Constance Morang Susan Rosenberg Carol Seega Raymond Yaskis

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CLASS ORATION JAMES LAUR113 AN AGE OF IRONY How much, I wonder, in three years at Classical High School have you learned about the Drupe Fruits . . . I mean in par- ticular the PEACH? I am referring to Pruus Persica, both clingstone and freestone. If you were to engage in picking peaches you might come across that variety . . . big, fat, round, ripe, and fleshy. But upon probing beneath the fuzzy yellow covering, as chance would have it, you might find that this particular drupe had been dropped, leaving its innards badly bruised and blackened, yet you would swear you had picked a real El- berta, a real peach! IRONIC ISN'T IT? The best-looking fruit is not necessarily the best. All is not as it appears. There is, too, a grim irony about the decade of the twentieth century, about this age in which we live. The age is surely one of amazing advancement, yet despite our pro- gress and the outward appearance of pros- perity within the corporate life of America, the inner life of our human family is bruised by a blackening moral and spiritual decay. Certainly our technilogical advancement is startling. NW e look toward new horizons of scientific progress in our attempts to control the heavens yet, at the same time, we falter in our efforts to hold firm the reins of things terrestrial. We toss a 200 million dollar tin can and a few cameras at the moon and the thrilling venture prospers us all. Economic- ally no people has ever known such prosper- ity. Yet, we remain dissatisfied, ill at ease, lacking in confidence, spiritually chilled and hungry. We live in what John Kenneth Galbraith calls the Affluent Society and still remain unsatisfied. Clearly he who said that Man does not live by bread alone was never more correct. Our great task of the future is to synchro- nize our ever-increasing material growth with a moral and spiritual code similarly well advanced. It is not difficult to see our so- ciety, greatly lagging in moral and spiritual effort. We are given evidence: noxious growth of juvenile delinquency, student violence on and off campus, racial strife both North and South, callous indifference to crime as too many find themselves cow- ardly passive witnesses to corruption and even murder, apathy and corruption rampant in public office, and the softness of our generation content to seek no more in life than what is euphemistically called leisure. We are too often reminded that we over- play, over-drink, over-eat, that we are over- entertained, over-sexed and under-exercised. Our new password for life is non-involve- ment. We are content to live in a world of fantasy and cringe at the thought of becom- ing personally involved with anything. Like the bruised peach we seem just to be too thin skinned and much too fat, over ripe and juicy.

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