Eagle Rock High School - Totem Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Snow and Ice Snow and ice Hard and cold Stretching on For time untold. Covering over Land and sea Building world Of fantasy. Surface with A glassy sheen Crystal top Smooth and clean Why deceive us- Whitened mass? We know well We cannot pass. Below, you are No path of gold 0 snow and ice Hard and cold! By Margaret Tepper

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LORETTA WHITMER

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RlC'HARD EVELYN BYRD, Rear Admiral, U. S. N. VA One day in l9l6 a young lieutenant of the United States Navy stood staring at what might have been the death warrant to all his hopes. The paper in his hand was a discharge from the navy due to physical disability. The young man was Richard Byrd. lvlagellan, Drake, Peary, these had been his heroes. Frail boy though he was he had dreamed of adventure and exploration, and always his dreams were linked with the sea. The North Pole, strange and mysterious waste land, had been penetrated by man. Some day he would go to the North Pole-and perhaps to the South Pole, too. Young Dick Byrd wasn't the type merely to talk or dream. With the vision of polar exploration before him he set out to train himself for the hardships he would have to endure. Knowing how bitterly cold the arctic and antarctic regions were, he prepared his body for them by discarding superfluous clothing. One winter he left off his overcoat, the next, his jacket, and the third winter he had discarded all but his lightest underwear, trousers, and shirt. At the age of fourteen he worked his way around the world and stopped to do some fighting in the Philippines en route. ln a few months he tired of the Islands and went to the Orient on an old tramp steamer. On this trip he learned the necessity of painstaking care. Because of the care- lessness of one of the mates the ship he was aboard lost its bearings and floundered into a storm that proved nearly fatal. Surely jin those long years of waiting for a chance at the Poles he must have whispered to himself, Easy, Dick. Better be slow, slow and careful. Better be careful. At the end of this trip he returned home to enter the Virginia Military institute in order to secure the educational siderof his pre-Arctic training. Here occurred the incident that shaped his future. Playing first string football, he broke a bone in his foot, andthough the accident seemed unimportant then, it changed the whole course of his career. Having graduated from the Institute, still follow- ing in the path of his dream, heientered the naval academy at Annapolis. ln his senior year he again injured his foot, this time in attempting to invent a new way of doing a certain dangerous bit of tumbling. He managed to build it up, however, in time to enter the navy as ensign, and during his period of service was commended for bravery several times. Trouble remained the constant attendant of Richard Byrd. One afternoon as he stood at the top of a gangway, his ankle collapsed, and the navy, with many expressions of sympathy, gave him the slip of paper that he considered the death warrant of his plans, And that day in l9l6 as he stared at the paper in his hands, the future admiral believed that as far as the navy was concerned, Richard Evelyn Byrd was through. ln order to ease the disappointment he felt at his discharge, he began to train the navalfreserve militia of Rhode Island. He soon found that this work, though successfully enough conducted to win him commendation from Washington, was not intense enough to use his great store of energy. The day after President Wilson and his congress declared war on Germany, Byrd joined the aviation school at Pensacola. He knew that in the air his foot could not handicap him. Therefore the airway was to be the path to his goal of adventure. lf his friends are to be believed, no more daring man than Byrd existed in the corps. How he kept from breaking his neck only his guardian angel knew. The TOTEM - page fourteen