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

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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 ,

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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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lullS'I' FUR hIFE by Irving Stone Book Review Lust for Life, by Irving Stone, is a biographical novel of Vincent Van Gogh, salesman for a firm of art collectors, evangelist, painter. His career was made tragic largely by circumstance of heritage and the fact that he lived during a transitionary period, when moral, social, and economic principles were being subjected to vigorous attack. The group of Dutch painters of whom Vincent, because of his place of birth and Dutch ancestry, was really a contemporary found disfavor with his work and his philosophy. This secluded group carried the Dutch conviction that no work or labor was justifiable unless it was financially productive. As a consequence, these men painted portraits of wealthy people or found artistic subject matter from a source that insured a ready sale to the wealthy class. Van Gogh, on the other hand, believed that any work of artistic ex- pression should have as its first objective an accurate reflection of contem- porary life, whether or not this subject matter reflected social, economic, and moral principles unpleasant to a certain class. He was concerned with truth and not the justice or equity of what existed. inadvertently, Van Gogh found himself an exponent of the mass. He was, accordingly, considered an outcast of the group he justifiably should have been a leader. Van Gogh's paintings themselves reflect his impatience. An idea in his head, he could not eat or sleep until its satisfaction was realized. Thus, many of his paintings were started and completed in a day or less. So impatient would he become to complete them that he could not stand to take the time to spread his oils upon the canvas with a brush, but instead, in a mad frenzy, would take the tubes themselves and garishly place the Oils upon the canvas by squeezing them. He was professionally and socially an outcast. These two circumstances, along with his discouragement in failing to see his own philosophy prevail, led to periods of insanity, during one of which he committed suicide. lm- petuosity, impatience, and sensitiveness only hastened this ending. The book should by all means be read. lt can demand the closest atten- tion of the most fastidious critic of the novel as an instrument of literature, as well as serve as an interesting and enlightening source of information to those persons whose interest in the works of Van Gogh has made them curious to know more about the man. True appreciation can come only from thorough understanding. These two objections have been pleasantly harmonized by the use of a simple but expedient technic. As the narrative of Van Gogh's life unravels, and his spiritual development grows with each succeeding step, the author has placed among the pages, colored and two-tone reproductions of the art- ist's work, contemporaneous with that period in Vincent's life with which the accompanying pages deal. Study of the painter and the paintings is made easy with study of the man. If there is any criticism, it is that the book will unfortunately have a limited appeal. Not many readers will be likely to go out of their way to procure it unless they have some interest or attraction in the paintings of Van Gogh. To those of you who do, however, there is an emotional experi- ence in store for you to equal which you will have to read many a novel. Had Van Gogh never covered a canvas, a study of his life, told as this one is, would be reason enough to spend two or three close hours with this book. -Thais 1. Bolton.