Dominican College of San Rafael - Firebrand Yearbook (San Rafael, CA)

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HOMER 11 11 OMER knows many people well, but he has few ll II friends. He accomplishes much, but he is seldom appreciated. Because his talents are unacclaimed, Homer is developing an inferiority complex. In case you have not met Homer, he is Benincasa ' s ghost. He is really very congenial, as ghosts go, but the poor thing is saddened by the realization that the thirteen inhabitants of the old house have very little affection for him. When he came from Nowhere, in nineteen hundred and thirty-five, he chose to live in Benincasa, which the college had just purchased. For a few years the house was closed, except in the summer- time when the priests who taught in the summer school lived there. The house was very quiet in those days, and Homer longed for company, so he was over- joyed when he heard the news that Benincasa was to be used as a residence for college students. He whisked around gleefully, covering everything with dust and misplacing and cracking everything, to welcome the college girls in September. His dismay was overwhelming when he heard the uncomplimentary remarks about the confusion he had caused. For a while he sulked in the clock in the living room, where he lives, but his natural curiosity 77

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and hanging out windows during our before-one- twenty-five breather . . . sloshing happily up to Fanjeaux in pouring dew on a dress-for-dinner night . . . the stocking-caps . . .the knee-length socks . . . Hawaiian hulas from island girls . . . the lazy spring feeling a quince blossom evokes . . . spring and Easter vacation . . . hollow expectancy of finals . . . abrupt and startling realization of the never-againness of Meadowlands freshman life . . . and the uncertain mixed emotion of the first year ' s end . . . These memories may pull a familiar heart-string in old Meadowlanders, but they are ours. They go with Meadowlands nineteen forty-six, forty-seven as we know it, and present to Dominican a memory pan- orama of . . . The Freshmen. Rene Brooks ' 50 BOOK WORLD I wandered into a new book. And found beneath my casual look, A land which stretched beyond the lined Demarcations which now bind The earth to me. I walked a new strange world of mind Completely free. Marguerite O ' Reilly ' 50 76

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aroused his old spirit of playfulness soon again. He tried to win the love or friendship of the girls by play- ing little tricks on them, pondering for days over what they would think cute, funny, or helpful. Always he was greeted with a similar rebuke: a displeased look, a sigh of disgust, or an angry Oh go away . Instead of giving up, he followed the old maxim to try and try again; he is still trying. 78