Henry Ford Hospital School of Nursing - Sonah Yearbook (Detroit, MI)

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DEAD END A Play Revue WAYS of violence are learned young in the classroom of the streets. This is the theme of the play, Dead End, written by Sidney Kingsley, author of Men in White. lt pictures the dead end of an eastbound New York street which runs into the East River, characteristically revealing a neighborhood in which haughty river house apartments rear their compelling heights against dingy tenements that are literally infested with humanity. Included in that humanity is a score of kids whose playground is the street and whose swimming hole is the East River. The play teams the life of the slums with the distant sounds of the busy city, and as it progresses, individuals emerge from the mass. There is Tommy, an orphan left in his sister's charge, a bright boy and leader of his gang. His good qualities may easily be submerged by his surroundings. Out- standing is the character of Baby Face Martin, who was also a youngster like Tommy and who is now a notorious killer with a price on his head. He comes back to his boyhood haunts to see his mother and his first sweetheart. lt is on this boy and this man that Mr. Kingsley pins his thesis: Will Tommy become another 'Baby Face' or can his abilities be directed into worthier channels? Cimpy, now a young man, who used to play with Baby Face, recog- nizes him when he comes to visit his mother. Gimpsy is tempted to notify the law and obtain the reward for Martin, which will then enable him to marry his sweetheart. He decides against this until Baby Face, in a fit of temper, boxes his ear for some remark he made. Angered by this, Cimpy then notifies the police and Baby Face is cruelly shot down in the gutter. Society, which has no time to investigate, pushes Tommy one step further towards racketeering. Tommy and his gang have started out as the oncoming generation. They have beaten and robbed a sissy son of the rich next door and when the boy's father comes to the rescue, Tommy stabs him in the wrist with a pocket knife. There is a difference of opinion in the way the play ends. Some say Tommy is sent to the reform school. Others think that the reward money which Gimpy received is used to keep Tommy from the reform school, and that he later follows the steps of Baby Face. This play portrays river realism and the street as a gateway to crime. This is brought out very clearly because Mr. Kingsley himself grew up with the boys of the street-not with the tough gang but with the gang farther west who carry on a perpetual warfare with them. The language of these children is quite vile. lt is carried through the drama in strains such as Chickee de copl , Oh, shut up ya fat bag o' wind, and Aw bushwaf' At the end Tommy is being led off by a policeman. The remnant of the gang is left alone in the dark, and they break out singing the jeering strains of The Prisoners' Song, which one of them picked up along with consump- tion at a reform school. As the curtain goes down, the gates of the East River Terrace remain grimly closed, harboring the echo of You'll get it, yuh squealerl ln a pig's kapoachl -Virginia Olsson. -H 7G -

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DIET KITCHEN EXPERIENCES ELL, l've been looking forward to this-getting it over! You know, I never did do any cooking at home-but that's an old story. I just must tell you about my first day in the kitchen. It happened to be Sharply at seven o'clock in the morning, l walked in the door, rolling up my sleeves. IMy gait was much slower at three-thirty,l I picked up some diet sheets the maid pointed out-special, weighed diets and what a bunch of them there were! I did the lVl's with little trouble, but the other four- teen would make a longer story. The telephone must have rung a dozen times a minute, asking that a glass of this be taken there and a glass of that be taken to the other place. They always want it right away, you know, yet it rides the dummy for half an hour and then come complaints that the people in the kitchen are so slow! The orange scjueezer came next on my program. That was some funl The juice flies high until you're covered from head to toe. You really need a pair of aeroplane goggles to assure perfect vision after one week, for dodg- ing seeds is not so easyf Nor does the juicy floor fail to lend complications. Keep moving or in no time you'll be stuck fast. Next came the bottling of the malted milk. Yes, you all receive that honor. Warning to all who follow: When you have filled a case and go to set it down, ease it carefully to the floor or you'll think you're in the center of the fountain at Crand Circus Park. After the shower is over, you look like a piece of dotted swiss, to say nothing of the way you feel the rest of the day. Having bottled enough malted milk for the time being and collected all the other nourishments, I started for the lVl's with the rickety old stretcher. Ohl I shudder to think of the first morning-I couldn't wheel that stretcher straight, as the traffic was terrible in the tunnel. There were stretchers with patients, wheel chairs as thick as rick-shaws in Chinatown, plus all the food trucks, supply carts, and laundry trucks piled high, These contrivances took up most of the space, without a chance of passing them for fear I might col- lide with land-knows-what. Last but not least, you'd have thought from the number of pedestrians that there was a bargain sale in the X-ray depart- ment that morning the way every one was rushing in that direction. At last came the M elevator, a nightmare in itselfl What with the heavy traffic and all, I was completely exhausted but greatly relieved when the nourishments were set safely on a substantial shelf in the diet kitchens. It was a joy and a treat to be on my way back, even with the wabbly old stretcher and its squeaky wheel-the stretcher that reminded me of the old one-horse shay that ran one hundred years and a day. Thus the day passed and likewise the other forty-eight, but unlike cheese, they didn't improve with time. -Jeanne Weeks. A NIGHT Oh beautiful moon Thy shining light Creates within An urge to write But how can words Describe this night? I-low can phrases Paint a tree? 0 Lord this beauty Weakens me. -59-

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ACCOMPLISHMENT I gazed in admiration long And called my friends to seeg I even wrote a letter home, So they'd be proud of me. I threw a party too that day To honor the eventg And everybody drank a toast To my accomplishment. It thrilled me more than anything That I had seen or read- This, one great masterpiece of mine- Of perfect corners on my bed. CRAZY QUILT OF LIFE Each friend a different pattern Each love a new design, Each disappointment an imperfection Stitches out of line Each effort a different color Each day a different knot Designing each tomorrow As the prettiest of the lotg Each adventure another block, Stitched carefully in with strife Each dream a different fashion In the crazy quilt of life. -L. Fain -.7l ,