George E Westinghouse High School - Sketch Book Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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Dolomite Alps as I like to remember them. For centuries the lake has been a favorite spot with the villagers, up this path has passed generation after generation, as stolid and placid as the mountains themselves. II. The World VVar threw the region about the Dolomite Alps into turmoil. Every C apo di C ouzmzme received orders to mobilize his men' within twenty-four hours. Molina seethed. People ran hither and thither in a daze as if unable to realize the full import of the news. Messengers were dispatched to summon the men from the lumber camps. In rapid succession came packing, last minute recommendations to grief-stricken wives and sweethearts, tears, embraces, good- byes. A continual tramp-tramp-tramp and the complaining of transport motors gave reality to what at first appeared a bad dream to the women and children left behind. For fifteen nights and days an unbroken column of men, horses, trucks, supplies, and ammunition passed through the village on their way to the frontier. Then a brief intermission. More troops. Another breathing spell. Several years passed. The Fighting drew nearer to this section. Cannons roared around it, sometimes during the day, sometimes in the middle of the night. Disabled soldiers returned to tell of the bitterness of war. The town was torn by dissension. Half favored the Germansg the other half the Italians, under whose rule it had once been. Gradually the Allies closed in on the slowly retreating German forces. Starv- ing Austria laid down her arms. The war was over. But it left in its wake devastation, sorrow. and death. III. It is true, the same road runs out from Molina and still makes a right turn where it crosses the murmuring stream over an antiquated wooden bridge, there to cling to the mountain-side and climb upward. But it no longer seems the same path that for centuries capriciously followed its own peculiar whims: now hiding from the sun under great trees, now appearing as a silvery ribbon among the green, now descending, now climbing. It has grown unkempt under the strain of sorrow and death and devastation. As it laboriously struggles upward, it passes great white gaps on the once tree-covered mountain-sides. The rill that has ever been its travelling companion hurries on as before, but some of the joy has departed from its message.. Even the canaries chirp a less care-free melody to the deep-rutted highway. Piles of debris and smoke-blackened boards strew the grass-worn plateau. Concrete cannon-bases and ammunition-tunnels deface the humbled peaks. Only the little lake, amid peat bogs, trenches, and barbed-wire barriers. because of its celestial birth, remains the same and defies the hand of war. Time will return beauty to the Dolomite Alps and heal the wounds of the villagers. But the scars will remain on both. The mountains have changed, and the people have changed. Their former tranquillity has departed forever. What price war! DAVID DE MARCHI. Twelve

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LITERARY The Dolomite Alps I. The Dolomite Alps of Austria symbolize beauty and peace. XYars have waged around them, yet for centuries they have remained immutable. ln their secluded recesses nestle tiny villages, and into the souls of their unsophisticated inhabitants has poured the ennobling influence of exquisite natural scenery. The region about Molina is especially majestic in its tranquillity. Out from this village a dirt road runs for a short distance parallel to a snow-fed stream, then abruptly makes a right turn, and crosses it by an antiquated wooden bridge. Cn reaching the opposite shore, the way clings to the mountain- side and ascends to a park-like clearing. Here in summer. brilliantly colored wild flowers and rusty brown umbrella-shaped mushrooms break the monotony of the deep green grass. Continuing with a gentler incline, the dusty highway winds beneath white and yellow pines, which almost hide it from the rays of the sun. From high above, drifts the sing-song of lumber-men punctuated by the crash of falling trees. Among the boughs of the near-by eyergreens chirp golden mountain canaries. The rushing and gurgling of an irresponsible rill harmonize with the soft notes of a playful breeze. Rambling upward, the road passes a decrepit, but picturesque water-driven lumber-mill from which issues the buzz of saws cutting through bark-covered logs. The way becomes more precipitous and degenerates into a mere path as it climbs above the forest region and wriggles through scraggy underbrush to a grassy plateau. The bells of the many cattle grazing this lofty range peal forth pastoral notes of contentment. Higher up, hidden from the casual observer. lies one of the rare jewels of the mountainsw-a deep green lake, austere and cold, a tear of the gods, Above it, rugged peaks, seemingly immune from the ravages of time, point their fingers toward an azure sky. A cold brilliant sun transforms the perpetual snow on their summits into myriads of dazzling crystals. Such is the picture of the Eleven

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A Day With a Berry Picker liarly one August morning I started out to pick berries. While the dew was still heavy on the grass and bushes, I left the fields behind me and entered a promising young maple wood. From here I tramped down a deserted road, brown with a carpet of pine needles. It led to an abandoned railroad, overgrown with blackberry bushes, weeds, sumacs, and ferns. Then down the rusty red rails I wandered for several miles to the berry patch. As far as the eye could see, it stretched, confined on only the lower side by the black Clarion River. It lay on a mountain-side, grown over with the after- math of a forest fire-the fire-cherry and the blackberry. Here and there a tall blackened tree trunk rose spectral-like high above the tangled mass of bushes. Intermingled with the blackberry were clumps of tough mountain laurel. The treacherous mountain-side, covered with immense charred logs, loose rocks, and slash offered but a precarious foothold. I began to pick at the top where the berries were thickest, with the inten- tion of continuing until I reached the river. They were big, long, and juicy- but what stumbling, falling, and slipping to secure them! Even the berries ripped my pants and shirt, and cut my flesh! All this discomfort for a few blackberry pies or maybe some jam or jelly! The sun, glittering and relentless, rose gradually higher in the cloudless sky. My throat became more and more parched, and my garments, wet with perspiration, clung to me. I was still only half-way down, and the sun had become its hottest when suddenly I heard a rustling and then a crackling. Cau- tiously I investigated. A black cap caught my eye, then a tall man with drooping shoulders looked up. He wore a heavy black woolen shirt, open at the neck, and dark trousers. My eyes were attracted to his sweating creased face, to his dark dreamy eyes, and to his long pointed moustache. We greeted each other curiously. Then I asked him whether he could direct me to a spring. In reply he led me away from the tangle to a pine wood. Far in the pines along a sodden logging trail babbled a tiny, cool, clear mountain spring. I grumbled about the unbearable heat. He replied that it reminded him of the days he had spent in Central America. As we two sat resting beside the moun- tain spring, our feet reposing on the water-soaked logging trail, our heads shaded by the dark green pine boughs, and our hot bodies cooled by the damp air of the forest, I questioned him in regard to his life. With the proverbial slowness of a Swede and the reluctance of a man who has lived many years alone, he hesitatingly related a few of his experiences. His life was so full of heartbreaking hardships that it reminded me of the wild desolation of the berry patch. When he was just a youth, his parents died, and he was forced to leave his native land to make his way in the world unaided. First he became cabin boy, then a common seaman. Strange were his tales of the sea and of foreign customs. Ill-luck followed him when he! joined the French Canal Company in the eighties and went to torrid Panama. Here to his dismav he found the workmen dying off like flies from the dreaded yellow fever. He attempted to Hee but was unable to do so, for the French would not permit the steamship companies to take away their laborers. VVhen the men died faster Thirteen