Elston High School - Elstonian Yearbook (Michigan City, IN)

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Page Four INTRODUCTION Awk! Awk! Students, here we come, Oscar and I, to see what all this gossip is about. We heard that we are supposed to be the theme of this book and just got here in time to get under the cover. Have you ever been a theme ? What is the theme supposed to do? We have never gone through such an experience, and before we do anything, we would like to have a staff member tell us what this is all about. Oh hello. Penny and Oscar! You are just in time to hear why we chose you for the theme of our annual. You see it is like this, a staff member happened to mention Oscar, our late famous sea lion of Lake Michigan, and some one else jokingly suggested penguins, which he had recently seen in a magazine. Why not? There was our theme—Penny, the penguin, and Oscar, the sea lion! What a pair! But why penguins for our annual? Simply because those meaningless, and innocent looking creatures resemble mankind more than any other bird does. Just imagine them as they strut about in their white waistcoats, black coats and trousers, black shoes, and, if your imagination will stretch a little, top hats. Then think of Couden, McKee, and Gilmore in the Junior Play last year or of Clemens and Wellnitz in their soup and fish outfits in the Senior Play this year. Now do you get the idea? If you want to know how penguins compare with humans as to character. I shall attempt to show you. Penguins are very inquisitive, just as some of our students are; they are also persistent and will not give up. As to the comparison of their actions with those of human beings, especially young boys and girls, the penguins are extremely initiatory. They have individual preferences; they are indolent and industrious; they possess trivial minds, and in some cases are conceited. Now who could not picture students like these penguins? Of course, we have them. Now don't you think that there is a connection? In penguin life there is the conceited dandy who thinks that his mere presence must be

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Page Three PENNY, THE PENGUIN OSCAR, THE SEA LION Talk over the situation at Michigan City high school and choose the 1936 Elstonian in which to portray the student life and activities, for the year 1935-36.

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a delight to all beholders. Of course, his prototype exists also in humanity. Then there is the unhappy-looking creature fluffed out with drooping feathers who appears to do nothing at all but sit and consider how utterly wretched he feels and what little advantage there is in living. Doesn't this last example remind you of the seniors that received E’s, sitting in the assembly, brooding over their misfortune? Now don’t you see why you students make us think of Penny and Oscar? Penguins resemble mankind to a T’ and also give a light, humorous subject which can be satirized and with which one may draw comparisons. Because we needed a companion for you, Penny, we chose Oscar, the sea lion, one of your friends in your native country. Oscar has been very close to us during the past year. A refugee from a local zoo, he chose Michigan City's lake front as his home. Oscar romped about our lake front, evading all attempt by our Frank Buck Club to capture him and lived happily until someone without any sense of animal preservation shot and killed him. As a staff member. I have attempted to show you in the preceding discussion why we chose you. Penny and Oscar, as our theme. If we have been successful in winning you over to see it as the staff does, we should like to have you take the students through our annual, showing them the high spots of the school and also telling them the history and great acts of the Class of 1936. The Editor Page Five