Germantown High School - Record Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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THE CLIVEDEN very close to the shores of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. On these coasts the mountains rise directly out of the Pacific and stretch range upon range into the hazy blue distance. They are covered with dense tropical forests. The thermol equator follows that close line. Engine room temperature was often a hundred and fifty degrees. The crew were a peculiar conglomera- tion. The cook had played football at Cornell 3 one of the fireman could not read or write. From the stubborn Dutchman to the easy-going Carolinian, they were a hard swearing, hard drink- ing crew, but surprisingly decent to live with. VVe had seen a number of schools of porpoises and many flying fish skimming the waves. The sight of a gull, sitting on the back of a sea turtle, was as amusing as the antics of the sea lions farther north. The precipitious shores of Lower California were unimaginably desolate. Nlountains of red rock and clay, barren of any life, towered up out of a sea made brossy by the fierce reflection of the sun. A month out of Port Newark, we put into San Pedro, in California. Yvhit and I took a day off and went up to Los Angeles and then to Hollywood. The great studios, the palm shaded streets, and the like, were rather interesting. Yve went to Long Beach. On the way we were impressed by the obvious aridity of the country, the prevalence of Mexican settlements, and by a forest of oil wells covering sand hills stretching forty miles and more. Popcorn and swimming suits abound in Long Beach. The next day the Sulorpio sailed for San Francisco. Shortly the refrigerating machinery broke down. Stifling am- monia fumes made the engine room un- bearable. YVe were forced to work in gas masks. The extreme heat added to the inconvenience. YVe drove her into Frisco. After docking late at night, W'hit and I saw a bit of Chinatown, a bit of the section that had been the Barbary'Coast, and quite a bit of the central districts of the city. YVe railed later across the bay to Oakland. But through the Golden Gate again, we paralleled a fog-shrouded coast up to YVillipa harbor, in VVashington. The stevedores loaded lumber at the primi- tive sawmill tower, which the great pine forests all but crowd into the river. The roads are, for the most part of unfinished logs. With the assistance of the honest-to-goodness lumberjacks, almost the entire crew managed very efficiently to get themselves drunk. Whit and I went swimming off a log boom in the icy river and hiked far into the heavily-wooded hills. Heading south again we went a couple of hundred miles up the Columbia River, past salmon rivers and logging operations to Vancouver, Wlash. The pinion gear on the turbine had to be repaired. Whit and I worked steadily for twenty-four hours and more, pulling on chain falls, swinging Mondays, replacing gaskets and bushings. W'e went to Portland. From Portland a day off took us out the Columbia River Highway. Water falls, immense panoramas of pine-covered mountains, snow-capped peaks, en- hanced the beauty of the river valley. The twin lumber cities of Aberdeen and Hoquian were our next ports. Whit and I went to Seattle one week-end, seeing Mount Rainier and very nearly everything of interest. In Seattle we lived well, and by the time we set out for the ship, our capital was negligible. We did reach Aberdeen and were out- ward bound within several days with a load of lumber piled ten feet above decks. .31 3Q Ig.

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WHIWE ANJID JIIQWWIIIIIDJIEBJIRS DAVID G. WRIGHT HE Suforpio is probably a rusty, ill-conditioned freighter. To us she looms immense-she is painted over her rust-by unforgetable associa- tions. YVhit and I went aboard the Suforpfo while she lay alongside the slip at Port Newark, loading iron piping and ex- plosive. VVe signed on as wipers, the lowest of the Black Gang. The first assistant engineer set us to work im- mediately, stowing stores, helping repair the circulating pump and scrubbing the corrugated iron floorings of the engine room with wire brushes and kerosene. Early the next evening the longshoremen cast us off and we put out of New York harbor in the gathering dusk and a misty rain. For a few days the sea was quite calm. V7e encountered several terrific squalls in the night somewhere off Georgia. The wind and spray were so strong that we could not stand on the forward deck, but found it necessary to crawl on hands and knees with the aid of a line. Our course brought us quite close to a number of small islands of the Bahamas. They presented beautiful pictures with their brilliant green palms and shining white beaches. Making the VVindward Passage between Cuba and Haiti at night, we entered a very choppy Caribbean. The water was the deepest imaginable blue. We had been spending eight hours every day scraping the tank tops. The scraping of the tank tops is reputed to be the meanest job afloat. Cramped between the lowest engine room floor and the bilge tanks, sweating in heat at the least a hundred and thirty degrees, tossed by the roll and pitch of the ship upon the untouchable steam pipes, crawling at full length in immentionable filth and bilge water, in darkness, with the literally deafening roar of the tur- bines above us, we scraped from the tanks the accumulated waste oils, paint chippings, cigarettes butts, rust, tallow and-other things. YVe awoke one morning in Colon harbor. Some twenty planes maneu- vering over the bay, a couple of sub- marines lying at anchor, the modern white buildings of Colon, all seemed incongruous surrounded by the jungle covered volcanic hills of Panama. A pilot and deck crew of darkies came aboard and we started the passage of the Canal. The intense heat necessitated our staying on deck all day to trim the ventilators. As the boatapproached the Gatun Locks, a few small banana planta- tions were seen lining the low shores. At Gatun the ship was lifted eighty five feet to the lake. The shores of Gatun Lake are tangled to the water edge with rank tropical growth. Occasionally there is a tiny ellowing with its grass roofed hut and its dugout canoes. Be- yond the matted vegetation on the banks, distant ranges of hills stick needle points up into the sky. From the lake, we passed into the canal itself, through the Culebra Cut, a great raw gash through a hill of rock, and finally in the Pedro Iniguel Locks, to be lowered. Around the last set of locks, the miro- flores, are a number of palatial residences and a country club, with fountains, but even here white men seem peculiarly out of place. Due to favorable currents, we kept n

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THE CLIVEDEN After touching at San Pedro for fuel, Yvhit became an oiler, superior to a wiper as regards salary and social standing. Some where down ofi' Mexico I too, was promoted. Un a jagged little rock heap of an island coast, I saw the smoking cone of a volcano. The entire crew had been sleeping on deck due to the intense heat, when, in the Gulf of Quihuantepec, a real storm caught us. The Suforpio entered the Bay of Panama about two weeks out of San Pedro. lVe passed Balboa early in the morningg every buoy marking the channel had a awkward-looking pelican atop it. Again by that wonderfully precise system, we were raised from the Pacific to the level of the canal. On entering Gatun Lake we saw several big Crocodiles sprawled on the banks. Our passage was delayed and we had to lay at anchor for some time in the lake. Several of us dove over the side and swam around the ship for a while. The darkies, meanwhile, had been dickering with us over prices for souvenirs and other things. I was taking bells during the latter part of the transit and only came of watch when we were well out of sight of land. In the Caribbean I caught a large sea bird, a booby. The bird and Baldy, the ship parrot, drastically disagreed. NVe saw Cuba and Haiti and Iamaica only as blue clouds on the horizon. Ive were apparently in the vortex of violent storms off Cape Hatteras. There was an always continual supply of wind bellowing from every quarter. Several days later the Suiorpio fol- lowed the low Iersey coast line into Port Newark and there docked. YVe had gained a bit of weight and experience. The fun we had had was incalculable. O1 :ooa :o SOME IRISH IMPRESSIONS Bicycles ......... Guiness' Stout ..... . odors of liquid Qnot airl spirits . . right hand drive autos . . . tram cars an inch wide . . VVoolworth's ..... . brem ice cream .... . restaurants fwhere are they?j . Copper sorr . . . . . daylight at 10 P. M. . . . . trunk labels . . . tea ........... jaunting carts ........ Irish Free State soldiers with gloves on their shoulders ...... Yissir, the appunce, sorr. . . . a queer green flag with a harp . . the Irish Navy fwhere is it?D . . thatched roofs .... . peat ...... . hedges and stone walls . . Murphy's Stout . . castles ....... acrobaticoto kiss the stone . underground passages . dirt roads . . . . . darkhills .... Killarney Lakes .... list like the' lakes t' hum . . . Gap of Dunloe ....... severe cases of brain fever induced by attempts to master coinage system . leather heels blackthor canes ...... shillelahs . . blue eyes . brogue . . curiosity . souvenirs . strange Mauvorneen never came back . and it seems to me ...... Murphy's Stoutl . al 31 la