Groton School - Grotonian Yearbook (Groton, MA)

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P passed through me as I realized how I had murdered my loyal valet as he raced to save me from the guillotinef' On Prize Day, Russell having eoxed a crew that term and won his letter. turned to track to join Ames, Poillon, and deGersdorff in jumping high and broad for ribbons, proudly received at the Last Night Exercises. Brassert, Bator, and Salm joined your ranks in Third Form yearg Mr. Calhoun appeared to teach you English fand printingb, but left at Christmas to be replaced by Mr. Philbrick. Mr. Moss began to film the Peabodys' last year. but violently objected during club football games to Mr. Thomas's neutral, unbiased indications of where Salm ran out of bounds on every play. Mr. Thomas so convinced you in class that you were a row of pins that you became pin-minded about Ames's seat in Brooks House schoolroom. Coe, in the village without permission, had the ironic luck to thumb a ride from the master-of-the-day, who promptly put him off village for the rest of the term. Coogan learned what it meant to handle a worm with kid-gloves, as Biology hcame the course of the hour. After the 26-20 defeat at Southboro, the weeks moved swiftly through IIallowe'en and Thanksgiving, when your scribe gave the address, and so to the final week, when the Dramat featured Davison as the goat-boy in Sister Gold, Cabot and Kings. ford in K'Pipe in the Fields, and Vreeland in The Old Lady Shows Her Medals. In the winter term play, Charley's Aunt, Cabot distinguished himself 3 but for sheer dramatic e ect Reed's oration f God made the country, man made the cit-y J de- serves mention, as your own Weekly would have said. In other theaters of activity, Mr. Philbrick's hitting trees time and again while coasting t Jolly fun, isn't it? j, Chambers's pelting of Mr. Iglehart at the entrance to his cubicle both remind us of the major snow event: the snow-fight back of Mr. Nash's in which Poillon tinted the walls of the fort a brilliant, contrasting scarlet. Undaunted by the vanishing snow and ice in the spring term, Davison, Vreeland, and Kingsford found roller-skates, rolled to Townsend Harbor, thumbed home, sold the skates, just before the Rector announced at the close of school next day, No roller-skat- ing. The other sports of the term seem confused, though, to your chronicler, who finds for example that Ames, having broken five oars and numerous riggers in April, was a promising pitcher by late May, anyway, he was the equal of any prowlers he encountered subsequently in Mr. Iglehart's dormitory. On May 5, fifty-five graduates, one from each form, presented the Rector and Mrs. Peabody the volumes of letters and snapshots of all graduates, together with cash presents from both graduates and school, silver boxes were at the same time given to Betsey and Margery. Other remembered snatches from the term: the mural in Mr. Nichols's classroom, the biology excursion to Boston, including Iiobb's experiment with citrus fruit, the band's debut on Memorial Dayg and finally, of course, the never-to-be-forgotten Prize Day of the Rector's retirement. You returned to Fourth Form year to find the Crockers here, and many changes, the gym had had a fire, Messrs. Kremer and Lowenberg were new masters, and Mr. Strachan had returned: Forbes and Johnstone entered the form, and Willcox was to do so during the year, the Good Will House opened its doors: knitting needles appeared. In the Presidential campaign. Davison, Welling, Kingsford and Curtis opened Republican headquarters, Witte and Tucker the Democratic, pamphlets, stickers, buttons, and heated words fiew everywhere, as Mr. Iglehart loaded an incredible number of you into his Gar- gantuan Cadillac on the junket to hear Willkie speak in Lowell. It was indeed a hectic time, what with Mr. Sullivan's thirty-six blackmarks to Mr. Lynes's students, the seances in Ames's study, Welling's moist, photographic pose outside Brooks House, the pillow-fights, l27l'

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Gould's strategic placing of a flash-bulb in Knowlton's cubicle-light, and many another incident that needs no recording here. Innovations of the winter term included the hour's extra sleep and making of beds, Sundays. R. U. R. was the play, Reed's study the center of newspaper accumulation, the Green Dragon Society the social diversion , Robb the non-stop debating star, Gould the non-stop slider into Brooks House prayers. Also remembered: Willeox's bleats to Salm to cease snowballing his cubicle, and Coe's friendly, cheery Good-night, Gurnee, as he went by after Hundred House prayers. In the spring term eight of you became librarians, The Food Shop opened with impressive ceremony, and flags were captured in the maze. Davison caught a fly in the Tufts Freshman game, not another soul being available by that time to play right field. In the three-day forest fire, Reed vividly recalls his finesse in giving Mr. Thomas a lift in Mr. Robertson's car CMr. Robertson, for all he knew, having been left to burn to a einderj. Not all the adventure of the term was in the fire, though, for Hoyt, Welling, Howe, and Curtis prowled the roofs and lawns of Brooks House at unconventional hours, Mr. Nichols was awakened by realistic bugle-notes, Willcox encountered tonsorial attentions on the form--picnic, and the faculty rolled you in the aisles with The Happy Faculty Hour and Information Please. On the last night Nicodemus led your singing in gestures guaranteed unique in the history of that occasion. Fifth Form year brought Messrs. Comstock, Freiday, Gammons, and Satterthwaite to the faculty, Mr. Strachan was again away. Among the highlights of this term were Mr. Beasley's numerous searches for Vreeland on the tangled slopes of Monadnock, ably assisted by Brassert, Robb's and Coogan's Virginia Reels in Mr. Wright's dorm, Hoyt's blushing interpretation of the true but dry meaning of a sun-dial, Ames's hypnotic eflortsg Curtis's stolid acceptance of a prefcct's three blackmarks, the defeat of St. Marks 26-0, in which encounter Coogan, Crocker, and Robb won letters, Reed's debut as cal-pianist, Davison's and Reed's sensational pull-out, take-out, black-out play in C-team backfield, Willeox's swim with its dire effects on the Grot Room ceiling, and many another easily recalled episode tending to offset the increasing effects of war's shadow over school life. The winter term seems a recurring vision of evenings when Mr. Wright, supervising the popping of corn while he nonchalantly bid and played six hearts, deftly sampled the ehoicest morsels, to exelaim, quietly, hm-hm, as the assembled form awaited this ver- dict of approval amid a breathless hush. The afternoons were given zest by Poillon's dis- pensing of interesting patent medicines to the hockey-squad, while as long as we had river skating, Howe had a superb vanishing act guaranteed by your chronicler to send shivers through any spectator. Mornings in the schoolhouse found the History Department more successful in suiting the subject to the patient, Willcox, than did the Mathematics Department, whose wares were, after all, so obvious. In the spring came the deferred play, Petrified Forest, your first counting dance, fthe censor has been at work upon this part of the manuscriptj, Hoyt's and Howe's subsequent discovery of much good humor, Mr. Thomas's deferred strawberry festival, Chambers' adventures with the out- board motor, and Willeox's natty appearance in impeccable garb for day-labor on Mr. Gallien's Work Squad. Other evidences of the war's impact, incidentally, included air- raid drills, watches on the O.P., a diminution of sugar, entertainment by your form on a May Sunday of forty convalescent soldiers, and bond and stamp sales. This in the main and by and large is the fifth-form history, but for any further detail, look it up in Muzzey. ' THE HISTORY OF OUR FINAL YEAR IS ON PAGE 33. I29 1'