Harper College - Halcyon Yearbook (Palatine, IL)

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In Medieval England there lived a maiden by the name of luliana. She was ofa noble family which was running about three steps ahead of Poverty, the local tax collector. That made if difficult for luliana's father to marry her off. Nor did she help matters any with her peculiar brand of oddity. She had the habit of beginning at least every other sentence with, Oh, fiel luliana spent the first two and a half decades of her life saying, Oh, fiel to everything in sight and looking very bored. One look at her portrait lwhich was hanged in the Royal Museum by the other portraits therl would be enough to convince the most charitable of persons that luliana had no room to Oh, fiel anyone. For this reason, whenever her father proposed marriage between her and some noble man, a reply of Yek! was always forthcoming. Her father tried mightily to find a husband for her, He even tried the tax collector who replied, Yekl l'd rather have the money. luIiana's father began to eary of the search for a husband for his daughter and one day he suggested, very discreetly, that she take up the quest herself which was, theoritically, against the rules. Oh, fiel she answered. What need have l for a husband? Well, for one thing, her father retort- ed, if I should ide, under the law all my property, such as it is, will go to your cousin, Egbert! Now, cousin Egbert was about as rotten an egg as Medieval England every produced. He was a fat, slovenly pig who ate with his fingers, slept with his hounds, bathed twice a year, and never trimmed his beard. Of course, this was true of most of the 52 Terrify By: Leigh Heflin nobility of those times. But Egbert had one definite drawback which the others did not: he wasn't fussy. He'd marry any- one - even luliana. And, under English law, when Egbert took over the property of luliana's father, he also took over luliana. He could even marry her if he wanted to A if he could get a dispensation from the Church. fThis was not difficult.l After giving some thought to the above proposition, luliana shreked, Oh, fiel true to form, and determined to try to find a husband. In luliana's case, this was not a simple task. The harder she tried, the more meager the crop of prospects became. As word of luliana's search spread, eligible men, young and old, began to marry themselves off, left and right to practically anybody. fThere is even the story of one man who married himself off to a donkey and made it stick - but this is pure heresy. She placed want ads in all the local minstrels, but to no avail. She even wrote a letter to be king, who could't read, but it was useless. He did not become alarmed until he learned that seven hundred and fifty-two eligible bachelors had left the country during one particularly active month. The king invited luliana and her father to London to attend the camel races which were being sponsored by a band of wander- ing moslems in an effort to spark the Bonds for Islam drive which had been starting fires all over Europe. While attending the races, sure enough, a fire broke out. While fleeing from the flames, luliana came upon a disgruntled knight whose winning pari- mutuel parchment had been destroyed by the fire. Oh, fiel he said, which was a

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Tlze thought of death submerged in a lake the wind of a life HUF to be. settles in the ripples of the surface directs it as a strictly pensive process, the current of a being that was stirs in the depths of latent conscious developing from a slowly swirling insignificance The thought of death submerged in a lake gripped by a bowl of terrain known as existance No Name THE WIND By Cynthia Norris The wind knocks upon my door. MV door rattles, then parts ofthe wind come in around the cracks and the pine standing next to my cabin rubs its short, strong needles on the boards. I sit straight up, awakened from a sound sleep: the door rattles and bits of wind come in so I snuggle down under blankets and sheets before the moving wisps of air make me cold, but the sound of the tree rubbing on dead wood makes me cold. FROM A PRISON CAMP Look God, I have spoken to You, But now I want to say How Do You Do, You see God, they told nze You didn 'I exist, And like a fool, I believed all this. Last Niglzt from tlzis hell hole, I saw your sky I figured right tlzen, they had told me a lie: Had I taken time to see Your Face. Well, I guess tlzere isn 't much nzore to say But I 'nz sure glad God, I niet You today: I guess the prison guards will soon be here, But 1'nz IZOI afraid since I know You 're lzere. They 're connning - well God, 1'll have to go, I like you lots, tlzi I like you lots, I want You to know, Look now, tlzis torture lzas lzorrible fright, Who knows f I may come to Your house tonight. Though I wasnlt friendly to You before, I wonder God, if You 'd wait at Your door, Look, I 'nz crfving - nze, shedding tears? I wish 1 had known You these many years. They 're lzere e I have to go now God f Goodbye! Strange. . . since I met You - I'nz not afraid to die! Prisoner of War Camp Osaka, Japan August 12, 1945 51

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mistake right there because Iuliana over- heard and was immediately drawn to him. This knight was Sir Waldred who had fallen out of favor with the king because he invariably burped loudly whenever the king made a speach. Sir Waldred had no man- ners, all kinds of money flinglish, Roman, Greek, Persian, etc.I and he would do anything to get back into the king's good graces. Word soon reached the king fthrough Iuliana's megaphonej that maid Iuliana was smitten. With the use of a little royal oil fa little dab'll do ya, but two for good measurel Sir Waldred soon discovered that he was madly in love with maid Iuliana. And seven hundred and fifty eligible, tax-paying bachelors returned to the realm of their birth ftwo had gotten marriedl. We know, from the records, that luliana and Sir Waldred were married but the only parable to come out of the auspicious occasion is that when asked if she took Sir Waldred, and all that, she replied, Oh, fie! Of course, I do. After the ceremony, a page read a message from the king fduring which Sir Waldred burped parcitically non-stopl, in which the king raised Sir Waldred to the rank of Lord. So, Lord and Lady Waldred settled down in papa's castle, where Lady Waldred resumed her vocation as the first lady of English snobbery. Lord Waldred embarked upon a cam- paign to please his new bride. But she would grow old and narrow before he would accomplish this. In fact, he never did. He became expert with the bow, practicing at every opportunity. Oh, fie! The lowliest yeoman can do that. He became an expert at iousting, win- ning many honors at the tournaments. Oh, fie! All the nobles do that. He told her she was going to have a baby. Oh, fie! Dammit! It was during a fox chase that Lady Waldred's father caught it. First, he caught the fox, which bit him. Then, he caught rabies, which killed him. When Lady Waldred heard of this she said - well, you know what she said. For months after the funeral, people had reported seeing a ghostly figure walk- ing about the moors at night. just what all those people were doing out on the moors at night is not clear, but it must be remembered that in those days they didn't have drive-in movies. Nevertheless, one morning a frightened servant reported to Lady Waldred that she's seen her father's ghost roaming the castle at night. Oh, fie! I don't believe in ghosts, she admonished. The next day Lord Waldred announced that he had seen the ghost. Oh, fie! You're as bad as the servants, his wife chided. That night, while Lord Waldred was sitting up with a sick friend, Lady Waldred was alone in her bed chamber, embroidering Oh, fie! on the family crest. Suddently, there was a blast of chill wind and the room was cast into darkness. Before the eyes of a horrifed Lady Waldred there appeared the ghost of her father with drawn face, drawn sword, and drawn blinds. For once in her life, Iuliana was speech- less. What? No greeting for your father? spoke the apparition. There was no answer. Not even a fie for your father? Still, there was no answer. If you'll not give it, as once you gave it so freely, then l'll take the fie! He reached into her throat with his specter's hand and wrested and wrench- ed until, at last, she croaked, Fiel See! I told you I saw your father's ghost, came a voice from the doorway. It was the servant. What are you doing here? the ghost demanded. I told you to wait in the kitchen. I just came up to tell you the tea's ready, she said. l'll be down in a minute, said the ghost. The big-mouthed servant just couldn't keep a secret and she spread the story all over the place. Yer shoulda seen the ghost tear a fie from 'er throat, was her favorite line. And pretty soon, tear a fie came to mean that a person is so frightened that he is unable to speak. When the phrase was brought to this country during the latter part of the eighteenth century, feeling was running so strongly against England that the speeking was changed out of sheer spite. We had ruined one of their favorite words. rl.. L'ul