Evander Childs High School - Oriole Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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Back Through the Mists Several years ago, at the time of our entrance into Evander Childs High School, the world was in a state of seemingly hopeless chaos. However, having heen assured that education was the pathway to eniightenment, we entered Evander to learn how to soive the worlds prohiems. And so we immediately proceeded to he- come more confused than evert A seemingly inexpiicahie maze of ruies, reguiations, and unfamiiiar customs confronted us. All these, our teachers carefuiiy explained, were for our advantage. Looking hack, we can- not heip hut agree with those teachers. ' Upon our arrivai at Evander we had our First contact with that elevating force, that exaiting purpose, the Evan- der school spirit. Everyone, hoth of the student hody and of the facuity seemed eager to help us. If ever we went up a Hdownu staircase, heaven icorhidi the memhers of the patroi squads were always ready to heip us hy taking our names and frightening us out of a yearis growth. The facuity, appreciating our desire to team to he sociaiiy correct, were kind enough to provide us with student ieaders who taught us which piece of siiverfwware to use for each course of the sumptuous Hspeciaisn served in our cafeteria. Aiso we were taught what to say when we met people in order to keep them from committing assault and hattery the First time they saw us. Littie did we reaiize that some of us would one day hecome student leaders and he just as Uheipfuiu to other freshmen so soreiy iacking in the sociai amenities. Graduaiiy we hecame acquainted with the various Evander institutions. We learned that there was a Gen- eral Grganization and that it was our privilege to eiect officers. Election times, with au the fierce campaign- ing, were particuiariy interesting. We were given the supreme thriii of parading around, festooned with campaign literature fshades of the old sandwich manij. The various candidates were aiiowed to hedeck the school with piacards in the most heautifui kitchen-made artwork. As we acciimated ourseives to the Evander customs and hahits, we hecame truly ardent in our desire to tui- Fiii the ohiigations which schooi tradition imposed upon us. in our zeai to do things the Evander way we memorized the pledge we had to sign at the heginning of each examination, the over-zeaious of us going so tar as to include in their memorization the ninstructions to candidates!! However, even these Hzeaious zeai- otsn have not as yet found out what Hprima facie evidenceu fit must have heen the work of our classically- minded Dr. Aipernj as used in these instructions means. Besides ascertaining how to he good Evanderites, we aiso, within time, grew to know the various Evander per- sonalities among the faculty. XV e iearned how interestingiy Dr. Aipern couid conduct assemhiiesg how he

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-'LoolQ,H she repeats: and on loolcing again, l see arrows 'llying down the avenue and arrows llying up the avenue. Tomahawlcs descend, scalping lcnives tlash. There is awful yelling and war-whooping. uldow otten have l told that Serius he might he hetter employed than in malcing deadlier tomahawlcs and arrowsf' whispers Pipsissewa. Then the scene fades, and talqing her hand l remarlc, Hxvell anyway the lightls green now and we can go across. Xve cross-and l can tell you l hold Pipsissewa close, tor a terrilole rattle ot gun-carriages and roar ot artil- lery assail our ears. Nxvhat now, Pipsissewa, what now?U Hxvellfl she says. Hthis is Gunhill Road, isn,t it? Youlve heard ot George Washington and the Revolution, l hope. How strange that you who deal in the words ot the dead, should he so startled when you actually hear the voice ot the cleadfl Uhlayhe. hut nevertheless all l want is to get to my school. l3ipSiSSeWe. td lilce to tleer H hell fiflg- Please, Pipsissewafr So the thunder rumhles into silence, rolling us across Xwhite Plains Avenue, where we hear the glad sound ot the Monastery hells and clown the glowing road we see a fort-lilce mass of hriclfs with Hag tlying under a hrilliant slay. with, Dear old Evander, Pipsi. The Qriole is playing :Dear old Evancler, on the celestial color organf, Htgut mayhem she says, ache is playing let There Be luightl, Rememher the spring, the deep spring in the swamp down unclerf' Hllll never torget it, Pipsi. After the stones were laid, the Steel pleeed, and the lvriclis piled up, that everlast- ing spring pushed against the foundations. So they made fi diabolical reclietz tearing, pounding, dumping tons ot stone and cement on the spring and sealed it with ter. l thinli now . . She piclcs up my words. ul thinlc now l have as little trouhle getting out as l had hetore. You see, it was this way. Our chief called the war dance, and the warriors danced themselves into loloody wrath. Then l undicl the dance hy malcing sott eyes with some ot his hardiest. The chiet was angry and said, lUgh, Pipsissewe, go sit hy the spring. l send tor your parents., ltls an old, old custom, you seef, A At the spring l saw Serius. l'le had a strange game with the tish in the water. l-le would clap his hands and say, lDingo Ding, and all the Fish would swim around in a great circle. Then he would clap his hands again, and the tish would separate into little quiet groups, nilo, nily, nihhling ot the water until they heard Seriusis :Dingo Ding, again, when they would all swim around in a circle once more. Hgerius said to me, You see they learn., H just then my Qriole hegan singing in a trough nearloy, and all the hsh jumped out ot the water to hear his song. That angered Serius and he gave me a murderous shove. l splashed and sanlc, all the huhhles going out ot me until l lay on the hottom. But loolcing up l saw my Oriole llying higher and higher and spreading and spreading until he covered the slay with a heautitul light. Uxvell, that spring has heen my sleeping place ever since. But every morning a sparrow or a Starling awalc- ens me saying, llnipsissewa, your Oriole is tlyingelthe golden onef-the comprehensive wisdom., Then l come forth. But ot recent years otten the tingling ot hells and the sound ot thousands ot teet, stamping round and round, awalce me and l come torth. To remain invisihle fl clonlt want my parents sent tor-it would he a long waitl l enter and hide in tirst one young hody and then another. It is lun to see how l loolc in as many ditterent shades ot slcin as possilale, and to see how the world loolcs through many, many thousand ditterent pairs ot eyesfy Hpipsifl l say, Hthis is very heautitul, hut you have made me latef, HDon,t worryf, says she, NGO along nowf, So l go along, lout no one notices me when l enter, my card has loeen punched at the cloclc, and when l get to my room l lind Serius teaching my class. l somehow lqnow it is Serius, although he loolcs exactly lilce me. lgwhatever shall l do now,H l wonderg hut l see a tlash of gold light over the head ot a little girl who imme- diately goes to the deslc, Serius disappears. l sit in the seat vacated hy the little girl, and listen to her words. 'Wllhe Qriole is tlying, the golden one, the comprehensive wisdomf, This is a true story-fl hope. ALBERT BLOHM

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was atways ready to taunch off into a tesson in Greek for that other foreign tanguage, Engtisht NN e teamed that the estimahte chairman of the speech department, and one time coach of the Evander hasehatt team, htr. John B. Schamus, has certain vocat and tonat quatities which would quatify him to compete tavorahty with the hIetro-Gotdwyn-Mayer tion. XV e learned how nonchatantty Dr. B. Rohert Sitver coutd add one or two periods to a Htirst to the sixth program. frlqhinlc nothing of it, my tad, t would do the same for anyone.j Xve teamed that any student upon perceiving Mr. Quimhy, coutd do an ahout-face with a speed and efhicien- cy that would cause the memhers of the Health Education department to think Utopia had arrived. Xve discovered among many other things: that Dr. Xvetts is a scholar who tets neither time, nor space, nor gloom ot night retard his historicat researchesg that, hesides teaching Biology, Mr. Mandt is also something ot a snake charmer: that Dr. Deixet ot the Latin department can tett a tunny story and hurst into taughter over it with as much ease as he can transtate a passage t rom Cicerog that according to Mr. Friedtander, Napoleon, too, was a smatt man: that Nr. Zieph maintains that there are no taws in economics, that att existing taws are wrong and that att students know stightty tess than nothingg that it was useless ptanning and truittess trying to present htr. Findlay and Miss Cunitte with an assortment of aches, pains, or other maladies as excuses for cutting: that the grade advisers ptace stitt tess faith in dead or dying grandmothers when they are used as excuses f or ahsences. It took us seyerat years to learn att these things. During these years we underwent an evotution which changed us from confused and naive freshmen, to arrogant sophomores, to sophisticated juniors and Finatty to supercitious seniors. The schoot, too, had undergone an evotution of its own and hy the time we had he- come seniors many changes had tatcen ptace. The trattic system had heen changed, Monday was made un- prepared day for att suhjects, an escatator for the Gunhitt Road station wasHweH, anyway it was proposed. hftost notahte of att changes, however, was the tact that we were now no tonger unimportant tower termers, hut SENIQRS, knowing att the answers fat least until we were caught cutting some ctassj. How different were we from the confused, frightened freshmen that entered the schoot severat years agot So confident were we in our immunity as seniors, that traffic monitors no tonger held any fears for us. We even dared tatlc hactc to them C and had our names taken for our painsb. Moreover, those ot us who had atready hecome memhers of the squads now had their chances to frighten other freshmen out of a totat ot severat centuries of growth! During our senior year the schoot underwent another quite remartcahte change for shatt I say revotutionj. lt suddenly hecame attame with a grand htaze of cotor whose hrittiance was comparahte with that of the rising sun .... Boys suddenly hegan appearing in what atmost seemed foh horrorstj pintc pants. Their feet were hedectced with soctcs whose cotor schemes hrought to tight hues and shades which were not inctuded in the rainhow. The fairer sex, not to he outdone, wore equatty picturesque costumes. In accordance with the an- cient Evander tradition of signing, initiatting. or decorating anything with a ctear surface fwitness Bridges, senior hats, senior year hootcs, destcsj, the young ladies made their appearance in oh'-the cutest tittte jackets which seemed to he a cross hetween a Vxfatt Disney cartoon, the work ot an overzeatous tattoo artist, and an autograph athum. During this new era, reterred to as the sharpy period in Evander history, Heverything wentf, Trousers which appeared to he sorely in need of an invitation to meet their wearer,s shoes, tcerchiefs worn a ta Russian Bahoushtca, hideous cotor cornhinations, summer shoes in the middle of the winter,HaU were per- missihte. After severat weeks of watching these Usymphonies in fcotorn shag, truck, and Big Appte go hy, our scientiticatty minded students were in quite a ditemma, wondering how soon this metange ot cotor would result in a wave ot dark glasses and dichromatism fcotor htindness to youu. So much has Evander taught us. tn addition we have teamed many things, some ot which witt enahte us to hold high and important positions in later hte. From experience ohtained in the Evander cafeteria many of us would he tutty quatitjied to wortc our way through cottege as waiters in the Catstcitts. Evander titcewise has prepared us to he hetter, more sociatty-minded citizens. Certainly an ex-Evanderite witt never he seen putting gum on a seat in the suhway f as do some of the harharians who never went to Evanderj. He win at least have the decency to put it under the seat. Evander atumni witt certainty take proper care of puhtic property fatter the way teachers insisted on covering hootisb. Thus we see, that in addition to Hhootr tarnin, H Evander has also given us something which wilt enahle us to tive hetter and more wholesome tives.