Essex District High School - Argus Yearbook (Essex, Ontario Canada)

Page 19 text:

THE INSIDE STORY OF CUR TRIP TO NEW YORK Once upon a time there were thirty-two Grade eleven students who were bored with school. They packed their bags, bought their train tickets, and went to see the world. But the world is a pretty big place, so they had to be content with New York City. Naturally those adventurous individuals were not quite adventurous enough to undertake that dangerous journey alone. Fortunately (or un¬ fortunately, depending on viewpoint) they had the honour of being accompanied, chaoeroned and protected by Mrs, Crane and their beloved Mr. Monteith. These two unsuspecting souls assumed the dubious priv¬ ilege of the companionship of an innocent, well-behaved group of adolescents for four long days and three longer nights. Since this courageous young group left their comfortable homes for a holiday of hard ' beds, small rooms, and twenty-lane traffic on Sunday morning, one can imagine that the fun began on Saturday night. It would be about then that the girls discovered a broken zioper on their best dress, someone realized that the bank WLsn ' t open at eleven P. M., and, tragedy of tragedies, someone else forgot to get tooth¬ paste . Despite these minor difficulties, a wide-awake group congregated in the New York Central station at the unearthly hour of eight-forty o ' clock. Amid yawns, they succeeded in giving headaches to everyone else in the waiting-room, driving the station master batty, while fond paren ts looked upon them with loving eyes and said, For heaven ' s sake, stand still and shut upl Revelling In their families ' tearful good-byes, the group mounted the train, scrambled to windows for one last look. Thus they departed. The railroad company, always considerate of their patrons ' comfort, thoughtfully isolated Essex High ' s contribution to mankind in their own special coach. Except for six poor passengers, the other people were only disturbed by the frequent trips of exploration from car to car. The aforesaid six passengers, however, were not so lucky. By some quirk of fate, they were unsuspectingly planted in Essex ' s coach, and by ten o ' clock Sunday night they were shaking their aching heads and wondering what the younger generation is coming to. On the whole they were very understanding about it, and even joined us in our off-key harmonizing. But they drew the line when our patriots sang 0 Canada in the middle of New York State. While most of the Essex travellers took the trip ' s events in their stride, Mrs. Crane and Mr. Monteith were on the verge of heart failure throughout the last half of the day, when it appeared that our females were exercising their womanly wiles upon a pair of young and susceotible sailors. The attraction of a uniform and all that made the two chaper¬ ones cast their worried eyes ucon the situation, but at last count, all of our ..-rirls were present and accounted for, so they needn ' t have troubled their ooor little heads. After sitting for twelve hours, the travellers were quite happy to stretch their cramped limbs in Grand Central Station, but that attitude changed when energetic Mr. Monteith jovially informed us that we would walk the five blocks to the Times Square Hotel.

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A ffr IP TO T T - T T RQY -.T Vfl FTTR FM ' On the l)|tb of November, 1 D 56, a group of grade 11 fc 12 agricul¬ ture students accompanied by Mr. • Mrs. Findlay left the school at 6:00 a and began the long and tiresome journey to Toronto. The ended around 11:00 a. m. when the bus, driven by Mr. Kennedy, pu-led into the Exhibition Grounds where the M • nter F ' ajr was bei p seld. After we scrambled off the bus and stretched our legs Mr. Findlay gave us an interesting and educational talk- about the Fair. Then we eoar- ted and wandered around tbe big building viewing all t ' e wonderful d splevs. That aftern on we met again and went to the ain erens i or f ' -e horse-show. After all the horses had been jud-ed and the nr zes awarded the Royal Counted Police presented their famous musical ride. This over we were all herded back into the bus and were taken to t e Walker House tT tel where we were to soend the e ening. bile some went to the hockey game others entertained themselves by taking in a show. We f ine 11 y shut our eyes at about 3:00 a. m., after a night oi rvnni ng around. ° r :e squi u on The following day we were rudely awakened. We found ourselves on floor, mattress, covers and all, and looking up we Sew, tor oug - nting eyes, t e unmistakable figure of r r. Findlay who had taken it •-imself to rise and shine bright and early (after a beaut’iul eight or nire hours’ sleep). After breakfast we were tsVen to the stoc v -vards where we ssw a few cattle auctioned off. Fro- there we took a drive around Toronto sce-’ng am-ng ctbor things, Toronto University and C-sa Loma. Leaving Toronto we stcooed at the Ford DakviUe Plant where we were taken on a guided tour through tbe entire plant. Although we had a tough time getting the boys away from tbe receotionist we finally broke loose and continued our journey. Instead nf ta-cing the direct route bone we went a few miles out of our way to the Ontario Agricul¬ tural College at Guelph where we were able to cent ct, two graduates this school. Aftej . f I Me again resumed our homeward jour¬ ney, reaching Essex about 10:00 o. m. Before I finish, on behalf of all-the students who took the trip I should like to thank Mr. Findlay, his wife and tbe school board for making this trip possible. Gordon O ' Connor 11CD

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Once safely settled in our own hotel roams, the fun b; an. After paying for those rooms, no one thought the money should he wasted by sleeping in them, so we explored and experimented. The switchboard operator thought she was being sabotaged by the time each room had called eleven times, and the elevator boys were run ragged. But may it be said to Essex High ' s credit, no one bothered the elevator boys after two a.m. Instead, they cheerfully traipsed up and down dark dingy flights of stairs to visit. That was the first night so every¬ one retired early--about three o ' clock. After reveille was sounded on each roo. ' s telephone at seven o ' clock, everyone promptly went back to sleep, just to assert his independence. So fifteen minutes before departure time, we came to our senses and arose, only to miss the deadline by about half an hour, while Hr. monteith paced the lobby. Finally on our way about an hour late, the sleepy group tried to squeeze into one bus, and succeeded only by pushing the other pass¬ engers out the windows. We eventually reached the United rations headquarters, and spent a pleasant hour flipping the dial on our re¬ ceivers, playing with our ear phones and listening to the English speak in Russian, the French in Spanish, and trying to put our class¬ room French into practice, having heard toe Algerian situation aired in five different languages, we left the conference room little wiser, but, in the case of one young woman, with her hair much more mussed up. Havin. had enough of that for one day, • were escorted in two .roups (they didn ' t trust us all together) throw, n the U. h. building, having one particularly uerutiful council room, expressions of awe were voiced by most of the visitors, bus Gordon ' s sole comment v;as Can we eat now? .We couldn ' t. ■..hen we finally left the place, we were directed to one quaint little greasy spoon, where we feasted upon cold French Fries and ■ reasy harnbur ers. lir. Monfceith decided that we needed sortie exercise, so he kindly oer ' iittod us to walk halfway across ; ew York to the Empire State Building. Deter ■lined to survey New York completely, lost of us went ur to the Observatory to see just Ijow far we had walked. ,.isn that realization struck ho ie, everyone found that he was exhausted, ith was persuaded to return 1 hotel, .lore w© almost a ad time to eat the ' usual meal of French Fries and chocolate sundaes before being trundled off to Came i. Iall to have culture mixed with our indigestion. Having sleet through the concert, few people were ready to rleep when they reached the hotel, ficr lettin Ll :mr ©leers retire in peace, the hotel awakened, and the corridors were Tilled with youn people in various stu.es of cress, or undress. The aracin, t vo Hy stopped, and half of Nr, outer : r 3 family coulc be found, in one room watching television (just lihe home} while the others were congregated in one or two rooms having a gay old time. John Seabourne, finding ’ alkmg in trie hulls too tame, tried to go from room to room on a lodge eleven stones above Times Square. Ant. ’hr, Montoich slept through the whole night-. Some of the very ambitious individuals opened their bloodshot eyes at five-thirty to visit a television snow. For the others it was an accomplisament to rise at nine-thirty in anticipation of another day of ■ a vement-pounding.