Coquille High School - Laurel Yearbook (Coquille, OR)

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LMJUmiL As it was late we made our adieu and started for the Ritz-Carlton. On our way there, a huge crowd blocked the street. In the midst of it we could see a woman standing on a box and holding the attention of the awe-stricken multitude. These words reached our ears: “Open shop or ruin! ! Down with the advocates of the closed shops! !” Just then a man back of us said: “That’s Alice Barker, the noted speaker. Doctors say she has lost her mind on the subject of open shop, that she has a peculiar disease, the only known case in the civilized world, called ‘Open-Shopitis.’ ” We had heard of Alice’s wonderful career as a speaker but never before of her sad affliction. We made our way to the hotel and upon entering the dining room the waiter seated us at a table next to a dinner party of four, presumably two men and their wives. The men, we noticed, were very distinguished and foreign looking gentlemen, while the women both wore Parisian crations. Suddenly we heard our names spoken and looking up we saw one of the women standing at our table. “Why, you don’t know me, do you?” she said. No sooner had she spoken than it dawned upon me that it was our friend, Eunice Perkins. She introduced us to her husband, the Earl of Garbage Manor, of the famous Dishwater Estate. And who could the other woman be but our former Dorothy Bean, now wife of noteworthy Count Noe Count, the other gentleman at the table. He had first met her in Riverton, while there on a royal commission of investigating cabbage output of that city. A case of love at first sight, I took it. It seems that Eunice met the Earl in Greenland’s icy mountains, where she was traveling for her health. We happened to mention that through fate or luck, we knew not which, we had either seen or heard of all of our old High School Classmates, except Viola Knife, Mary

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anything else, we stepped into the “Midnight Follies.” The girl on the end looked familiar to me, so I asked the girl next to me who she was. This is what she said to me: “Oh ! That pretty girl with the baby blue eyes ? Why, that’s Dorothy Newton, the big hit of the season. And do you see that woman in a severe tailored suit, a sailor hat and horn-rimmed spectacles. “Well,” the girl went on, “That’s Myrtle Newton, Dorothy’s sister. Being heart-broken at her little sister’s advent into the chorus, she has made a life career of the Chorus Girl Reform. She’s the author of The Reformation of the Future Generation of the Daughters of Eve.’ ” I repeated all this to Gertrude and, as you can imagine, she was as completely astonished as I was. After the show, we loitered along Fifth Avenue looking in the shop windows when a funeral procession passed. The Pythian Sisters were all out in their regalia and an endless string of cars came behind the hearse. We were standing there, wondering who, of so much importance, it could be, when a man behind us said that it was “The Most Excellent Chief” of the Pythian Sisters, Rosanna Schroeder. Why, it couldn’t be our Rosanna Schroeder, but deciding it could be no other but she, we followed the procession to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Upon entering the church who should we see in the pulpit but our classmate, Wayne Woodward. We remained after the service to talk with him of our old school days. He told us he had spent four years in the Cannibal Islands as missionary but for the last two years he had been converting Hula Hulas in Hawaii. He appeared to be much in love with his present occupation and anxious to return. Upon asking him of the cause of Rosanna’s death a look of intense pain shadowed his countenance. “It is a sad case, Her Most Excellent Chief hit her thumb and poisoning set in.”

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k LMUSSIL Bennett and Lowell Simpson. They were very much surprised to think that we had never heard of the celebrated Prima Donna, Madame Scandala Voica, as Mary now called herself. At the present they informed us that she was touring South Africa, giving benefit concerts for the natives. We were astonished to hear of the renown which Viola Knife had won for herself. A dream convinced her that she must devote her life to the teaching of little children. As a result she completely revised that profession by teaching through the medium of mental telepathy instead of by word of mouth. This form of instruction is now the only kind allowed on the Island of Luzon where she now resides. Of course, we naturally expected to hear of Lowell’s great success in the art of surgery, but to our amazement, he had continued in his father’s footsteps and was now owner and manager of the largest Laundry in the U. S. And to add to his success, he had invented a new variety of “washing-powder,” for which he is now known the world over. At present, we learned that he was in Poland, securing a large contract with that government for his invention. To be sure we felt quite honored at being acquaintances of such noted personages. Having finished our dinner we returned to my apartments with a feeling of satisfaction, knowing that our afternoon had not been spent in vain. jA jA jA Now I set me down to cram I pray the professor an easy exam, If I should croak at the bitter end, I pray the folks may comprehend.