DeWitt Clinton High School - Clintonian Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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BOARD OF GOVERNGRS Gut of the future, the midterm, the Final week of plunging across . . . Cram . . . cram . . . hiting on the sharp pencil point . . . Outline. Review. tve got to pass . , . Got to. . .. Itys come: FLUNK, 2 out of 5. How can I face them: mother, dad, excuse, what to sayp Somehow the days pass, and everything smooths itself out. it think, stowty, caretuuy, now. Xvhat have 1 accomphshed: foothau, SL. Squad, what can they mean with a 72 averagef Have I any reat teacher-friends7 Do the fellows like meg or are they only pretendingp Have I 'lived tuuyp is there an improvementp Xvhat have I done with two-and-a-halt yearsp Thirteen to fifteen: I have heen in the Service League, the toothau squad: and a 72 average. I used to think when I was in ifirst term. I didnt know what a cigarette tasted like then. I didnt know girts, I was shy, htushing like the devit when I spoke to anyone. I couidnjt dance, I was htunt .... Dad, teu me ahout myself . . . Shrewd, matured, father sinks hack in his chair . . . Five . . . Ten minutes pass quietly, softly . . . tong-thought-of words that seem to How from him . . . I sit and listen: true, tetting words, ctear advice, the ifirst reat wisdom in these two years. From eight tiu ten. The icirst hours Vve spent with my dad in a tong white. Thanks. Thatys au I can say or think. Thanks, dad. Qver two months, the long Summer cools and hardens my thoughts: time to think things out, to understand the fundamentals ot good and had. Time to appreciate my mother and dad: time to reahze their sacriticesg time to strengthen vivid new ideals. Time: time to took ahead: to make them proud: to crystatize some glowing amhition. Like diving from a high steepte into the rushing water, chithng you,

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y yy A Aq, G .O. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Decemher, the coId, freezing hite of the winds . . . Novemher, stiff staIks of I-Iarvest wheat and turkey . . . Qctoher, Iong twiIight shadows-1 My God, what happened to yesterdayp Like a revoIving door: HHappy Christmask, New Year . . . same girIs . . . same soft hair, and Iips . . . same parties. . . . But where are those streaming ideas: those pungent First-term ideaIsP Those mature, massive thoughts of death, Ioeyondfa Buried down deep heneath the speed and tearing coIor of the days. Sunday night . . . a soIemn night, quiet, time to reIaX and understand . . . Now under the yeIIow gIow of the Iamp, in the aIoneness of the kitchen with penciI and paper hetore me and text hooks stacked on the hare surface of the tahIe . . . I can work diIigentIy, catch up with those Iost hours of waste and speed and girIsg I can write down the numhers with sIowness and thought. YeIIing from the window . . . UI3arty.H Come down and join the fun, free for aII, sweII time, sweII gaI, HI'Iey, you gonna gIue your eyes to those hooks for the rest of your Iitepy ,... A spIit-second of thought. To go or not to go. that is the question. fSmooth crackj . . . SIamming the hooks. Hcoming hoys, he right downf, Un the dark stairs, step hy step, smoothing the new grey fedora . . . Why am I going7 Xvhyp . . . The throhhing heat of conscience: Heading tor an awIuI 1CaII, a crack-up, it,s coming, coming, coming, take it easy. watch your step . . . No . . . not me . . . shake it otli . . . HI'Iere I am hoys, rarin, to go., J... Back Iate, no home work done, the sour taste of cigarettes, throw mysehf on the hed. Youyve done it .... Unprepared again . . . zero, zero, zero, mounting on the record-hooks . . . no work done, snap out of it: conscience hattering in that hidden corner of my hrain . . . DAY OF RECKCNING. . . .

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awakening, coId, rude, hiting, hurIing you hack into the shuftte of hoys. Sep- temher opening, schooI Iying waiting ripe, for you to cut it open and drink the juice of success .... One among tens, hundreds, thousands of hoys .... Ikve got to tight to it through, to study and ptug, to rise up, up, up, to hattIe through a maze of ohstactesz the past, cIogging memories, understanding the teachers as human heingsg serious, cIean, hacking a path onward .... The ADULT marks Howing in Iike good cIear water, the reaping of efforts. INSTITUTE Like a b0Ii 'KTHIRTY SHOPPING DAYS T0 CHRISTMAS' time, SQUAD so swift, not understanding, not sympathetic, hut ripping oft the days, crueIIy, Iike tearing pages from a catendar. I Christmas . . . New Yearys once I I that gives the hoIidays a new Iightff- more, eternat hut with an 85 average, SIC is its 34 Looking hack nowg I remember the drive and life and red-hlooded pound- ing in my veins, to get hack, to go on, and achieve some coveted goal that year at school .... Then the car smash- ing against my legs . . , the crumble of hlackness . . . the ambulance . . . tlie plaster cast which hoisted my broken limhs kiigli over the hospital tied .... Three months l lay there eating, sleep- ing, reading little, lying motionless and following the clouds with my eyes from the window . . . the pain in my fathers eyes . . . tie, who with his simple voice and stolid, sacrikcial guidance had hoisted one out of the rut .... I remem- I her, also, the second-kand knowledge l gleaned from old hooks , . . the few real I , friends, sitting on the hed and slowly, patiently, going over the work with me, g p g U , g . . . How quickly it spedg prepared for the exams, passed with more than the CHEMISTRY skin of my teetkg the term in a slow peaceful endingif-HH SQUAD I remember regaining my strength during the summer .... Slowly nourish- ing my forgotten limlns .... Wfalking the long miles in the country, over the hot, verdant green of the kills . , . sucking in the rick country air . . . washing away the remains of the accident, and the futile chaos of those first two years.