Girls High School of Brooklyn - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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Q66 E l E Southern Hoslbitczlit 4-Q, ff, KATHLEEN ZIER, s ' X, ! LIKE MANY OTHER patriotic Americans, We have taken into our home refugees from a warring part of the world. We give these poor un- fortunates the very best of food, the luxury that they never enjoyed in their native haunts, the attention that it is only meet to bestow upon our abused foreign friends. ln fact, since we began to extend all this hospi- tality in the interests of humanity, we have had to expand our housing accommodations, until now we have four tropical fish tanks, with well over two hundred fish who look to us for their daily bread and watery shelter. Here, in their huge crystal tanks, these south-of-the-border representa- tives drift about in unparalleled leisure. Not for them is the perpetual struggle for food that their relatives in the natural stamping grounds must engage in. All that these pampered city slickers must do to enjoy a varied diet is to nibble daintily at the choice morsels placed before them at meal time. Our largest tank, holding slightly over thirty-five gallons of water, is replete with fluorescent lighting, water filterers, aerator, and heater. Here about eighty of our choicest specimens have set up housekeeping, or rather cavekeeping. Each nook and cranny, each little rock has its own special tenants who are not very hospitable about receiving visitors. This nautical Monroe Doctrine is strictly enforced when the community goes to sleep, but when the lights are on, a good-neighbor policy is generally followed. First to be noticed, for he is always in the limelight, is our charming little red platy. He is the latest addition to the tank, but unlike his pre- decessors, he is not in the least ill at ease. Bravely he flashes his blood- red body to and fro in the forefront of the tank, resembling nothing so much as a waving battle banner. Much shyer, but exquisitely colored, are the dwarf gouramis. The lady gouramis are rather modest, dressed in demure black and silver, but the gentleman of the family is the Rudolph Valentino of the tank. His small, compact body is a flat sheet of watered silk, with an iridescent red and blue pattern rippling his entire length. lndeed, so vain are the gouramis, that one striking specimen could not survive the humiliation of having his fringy tail nibbled into wisps by the mischievous clown fish. Pining for his lost beauty, he gently gave up the ghost. The waggy fails are the friendly puppies of the tank. Continually thump- ing their black, rounded tails, set at the end of cream-colored bodies, they gleefully blunder about among the plants and rocks, cheerfully receiving the nips of the irate fishes with whom they collide. At the moment, the martial sword-tails hold the trident of power over the other fish in the tank. When these imperious gentlemen swish their kf ,'VLJ.1 r' o0.,'L'- ' j , ZX ffl' in SQ! jf r Z K v , j I I Jyflldff' 9 V' U N h A 1 ,glfgimf -ek Q ifm. gf!!! 'igw' PZ if SSN 1 f1gfQ e7 me-r 1,27

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NOVEMBER 6, 1941 Sailed from Trinidad for New York. NOVEMBER 13, 1941 1933 miles Arrived New York. Anchored at Quarantine 6 A.M.-Passed quaran- tine. i' W i' The foregoing lines, terse, authoritative, undramatic in the extreme, were written by a man who is but too familiar with long and perilous voyages in the faithful and everyday execution of duty. We who remain at home know very well, yet cannot recall too often, the matter-of-fact courage and resolute selflessness constantly shown by the men of our armed forces and merchant marine. These qualities have been uncon- sciously woven deep into the fabric of the above narrative, and are perhaps most poignantly revealed in the unqualified two-word entry of Iuly 30, 1941- Air Raid. The dates in this log are only an added proof that these men of the Navy, long before we entered the war, were already cooperating with our British allies, calmly enduring prolonged bombings, and still sailing round the world and back if so instructed, despite the submarine menace. These, too, are the men who now hold our first line of defense. And God willing, they must and shall continue as they have begun--toward Victory. GILDA FRANKEL, 7 Authentic Material-EVELYN BOUCHER, 5 Gutter Streams Some slender sticks glide gaily down the gutter streams. 27 These are my men-of-war and those my yachts of dreams- That fiercely thunder fire at the hated foe, Or cruise in whispering waters where soft south winds blow. And I, the captain, gaze at ice-bound coasts, or see The Emerald Isles or sun-kissed sands of Italy. I sight the storms that wreck my rafts and drag them down Beneath the waves to Father Neptune's coral town. I mourn my vanquished boats, that l'll not see again. But all my dreams are not swept down the sewer's drain! LORETTA JOHNSON, s Waslaout I thought you a typical sailor girl, A child of the sea-spray and white-crested waves, But alas! on subjection to nautical climes, How your make-up behaves! And your hair is deprived of its curl. JEAN GORDON, 1 8

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long orange bodies through the water, pointed tails whipping this Way and that, woe to the slow-witted ones who neglect to bow and scrape before their masters. Nonetheless, romance flourishes in this marine community in the char- acters of the kissing gouramis. Behind a projecting leaf or jutting stone these clandestine lovers may be spied at their maritime billing and cooing. Occasionally, one will entertain the other by standing on his head, pink- and-white body rigidly vertical. Mouth first, he hops about on the gravel bottom. Love does queer things to fish, as may well be seen. For intricate detail in design, our tetis furnishes the best example. From stem to stern, he looks like a, piece of white Chantilly lace behind a pane of polished glass. Little loops, intricately crocheted rosettes, and all as fine as a cobweb, can be seen within his body. Squarely in the middle is a small black beauty patch, looking much like a misplaced eye. Our smaller tank, with approximately a twenty-five gallon capacity, is the kindergarten division. Here the younger fry gambol in childish inno- cence, until they attain a size that is too big a morsel for a larger neigh- bor to swallow. Baby mollies, minute platys, and other tiny nondescripts play hide and seek among the plants. Here, too, are those freaks of nature, two baby white sword-tails, who receive more cherishing and pam- pering than society debutantes. They are far too rare to be treated as any other than the bluest of blue bloods. But the fish whose beauty is proclaimed far and wide, and whose wicked temper is equally well known, is our four-inch fighting fish, kept in a small, special tank where he and his harem are luxuriously wined and dined. If another male fish were to be put into the same tank, a fight to the death would ensue, but as it is, our specimen is only reasonbly nasty. This male fish is startingly beautiful. At the end of a shimmering red and blue body, a long plumy tail of rich purple velvet fans gracefully back and forth. As he moves majestically through the water, writhing pattems of color play upon his whole body. He is noticeably hostile to one of his less-gorgeous helpmates, but the other seems to have him well under her fin. While Mrs. Fighting Fish is off with the other ladies indulging in a little nautical bridge party and gossip, the mere male is at home, gently, with infinite patience, conveying one by one a pile of microscopic eggs to a cushiony layer of bubbles in which they are cradled. The lady of the house may well be pleased with her model husband. Almost two hundred fish, flashing their loveliness against a background of thick green plants-a small portion of the Sargasso Sea framed in glass for my exclusive appreciation. Let those who will, travel a thousand miles to see a mass of coral and seaweed through a glass-bottomed boat, and gape fleetingly at creatures about whom they know nothing. I am content to chuckle at the antics of fish who are as familiar to me as old friends, to enjoy a marine paradise in miniature-as I stretch out comfortably on the couch dangling a wriggling green worm before the eager eyes of a hungry catfish. 10