John Burroughs Middle School - Burr Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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ARE TEACHERS HUMAN? By BEATRICE WEILER As you see your friends, to kids you go around with, every day, do you ever wonder what they ' ll be doing, say, twenty years from now? Perhaps they will be some kind of shop owner, or an electrician, a salesgirl, a doctor, scholar, teacher or as we say, joking, maybe a garbage collector. Will they go far in the world? Will they be charitable, kind, rich or poor, happy or sad, good or bad parents, good citizens or not? If you consider them human and friendly now, will you think them then? For an example let ' s go back 20 or 40 years and see what kind of people teachers were then. From the teachers you know try to consider, some were book worms and gradu- ated from high school at sixteen with honors. Others were athletes in high school and col- lege. There were bad boys and I won ' t say anything about the girls. They were school leaders, quiet people too. Some were the prettiest and most popular in their graduating classes. They had strict parents and easy parents. Lots of them went through these pre-war days just like we are doing now. They didn ' t al- ways do their homework and they had their fun, too. So far, for all practical reasons, let ' s say they were just like us. Well, let ' s look at them now. They ' re teachers and they demand respect and obedi- ence. Some of them are crabby while others like to tell jokes. Some do a better job than others, have more friends, help more people, and therefore go farther in life. They ' re really all working people holding down a job. They have families, and homes and have old friends and schood chums. Some like movies and sports. They get sick and they suffer and most of them have the common shortcomings found in a man. Maybe they ' re just like other older people, like your dad and mother. May- be they enjoy life just as much. Maybe they are dads and mothers, too. Yes, perhaps they really are human. HILLS By JOHN MITCHELL Hills in many ways are like human beings, with their various exclamations of joy, friendli- ness and seclusion. Perhaps you ' ve seen them early in the morning shrouded in mist as if they were women wishing to conceal their ruffled hair from the early morning beams; or standing bright and distinct with the ocean fog crawling up their bases, like a great blanket being pulled by some small boy over his huge bed so that he may have those last few precious moments of slumber. THE STATUE OF LIBERTY By MYRA GITLIN Pierre stood staring at it with amazement This was what he had been looking forward to for over a year, he dreamed of it when he fled from the invaders of his France, he imagined it when bombs were bursting about him in England. He turned to watch two little Czechoslo- vakian girls playing tag. Magda tripped Lucia, and they laughed. They were young. They could laugh. They could forget the horrors of war. They could forget their parents who were in Lidice on that unforgettable day. Pierre wondered if he would ever laugh again. He was fifteen years old, and it was hard for him to forget. He looked at it again, and smiled. Why, he didn ' t need to forget. He could remember war-torn Europe, and laugh. He could laugh at the invaders fleeing from France, and all the other occupied countries. He could laugh when France would again be mighty, with the help of the United Nations. As his boat glided peacefully by the Statue of Liberty, towards New York Harbor, Pierre said to himself, I ' ll be there when France lives again, and he smiled at the Statue with confidence. PAGE TWENTY-EIGHT

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YOUR SHARE? By SHERWOOD FEINBERG Beneath the fields of flowers, Away from booming shells, The doughboys now are resting, Away from human hells. To die for God and nation, For family and for right, The spirit of the fighting free, Insured our country ' s might. The inborn lust for battle, The spirit of the fray, To shear them down like cattle, Was the cry from day to day. The whistle of the strafing plane, The rumbling of the tanks, No fear secreted in the hearts Of bold and daring Yanks. Those doughboys died a thousand deaths, On land, on air, on sea, Would you not die a thousand times, To keep your country free? LIFE IN THE MERCHANT MARINE By JOHN MESTAKIDIS The life of an American merchant seaman on one of our new cargo ships isn ' t what it was in the good old days. To be sure, the risks are greater, the hardships under attack are worse. But an oldtime sailor would be surprised at the provisions made for his com- fort during the voyage. . The speedy efficienty C-type vessels, pride of the U. S. Maritime Commission, have the finest crew accommodations of any cargo ships afloat. American tankers are exception- ally well equipped from the seaman ' s stand- point. Other vessels, such as Liberty ships and various types of smaller cargo carriers, have less elaborate but equally clean and comfortable crew accommodations. Men who remember the dank,, ill-ventilated, unheated and dirty glory holes or fo ' c ' sles where all the sailors were crowded into one room and the engine crew into another, there to eat, sleep and live, are amazed at living quarters amidships where crews have outside staterooms, four men or less to a room. Many new ships have forced air ventilation through- out, and all have dry, well-heated, clean quar- ters. Instead of shifting for himself, the sailor ' s bed is made and his room kept tidy by the steward ' s department which also waits on him at table. 3 u2T THE VACANT CHAIRS By MARILYN HIRSHFELD Perhaps the most enjoyable time of day is at dinner. At this hour the family settles down to eat and talk over various matters, as during the day they have seen little of each other. But somehow, now it is not quite the same a sit used to be. That vacant chair across the table where there once sat a boy. Many families now have a vacant chair or chairs at the dinner table. These chairs are a symbol of freedom. Their occupants are fighting so that once more whole families may sit around their dinner tables in peace and security. PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN

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GROWING PAINS By NANCY LEE ROTH I scarcely was conscious that day, waiting for the bell to ring. The bell that told me I could go home and see for myself if it were really true. Mother had told me this morning that it had happened, but how could it have, so soon. Finally the bell rang, and I practi- cally ran home. A strong hope seized me, and I was filled with anxiety. My skin was clammy and my forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. My heart was pounding a million miles a minute, it seemd, and was loud enough to be heard for blocks. I scrambled upstairs and ran to the win- dows. Looking in the window boxes, I saw it was true — my first carrot sprout was up. IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN HERE! By JOANNE SPENCE The A9 gym class was called to order by the captain, but that was unnecessary, for the class was already in order. The sergeant gave no demerits for no one talked through- out roll call and each one was in her gym clothes. Roll was taken in 10 seconds flat that day, which is indeed a record. Exercises were then given, and everybody did them perfectly. The class was dismissed for team games and every girl reported for the games. When the shower bell rang not a person remained on the field, all were taking show- ers. While all the girls were getting ready to leave, a whistle blew and everyone came to attention, when Miss Robinson announced that it was too late to start being such angels, for grades had already been recorded. The next day the girls were back to normal, noisy and rambunctious as usual. LUNCH WITH FRANKENSTEIN (Alias Curt Siodmak) By ANDRE PREVIN Of course you have all heard of Franken- stein, Dracula and the Wolf Man, but have you ever thought of who the man was that thought of all these characters? Whose devil- ish brain could have conceived these mon- strosities? I had always wondered, and imagined him as a spindly, meager, wild man, with a maniacal look in his bloodshot eyes, thin fingers with long yellow fingernails, warts on his face, and an acid-scarred complexion. One day, not long ago, my brother, who works at Universal Studios, asked me whether I would care to have lunch with him and the man who wrote Frankenstein, Wolf Man, etc., at the studio. I replied, horrified, that I would certainly not care to, that I couldn ' t force any- thing down in the presence of such a repulsive personality. My brother convinced me though that he was not such a bad character after all, and I finally consented. The next day, I wan- dered out to Universal, entered the commis- sary, and after erring around between medi- eval knights and Sioux Indians, I finally found my brother ' s table. He turned to me and said cheerfully, This is the man I ' ve been telling you about. Andre, this is Mr. Curl Siodmak, writer. I caught my breath, spun around, and stared. This couldn ' t be — ! But it evidently was. Before me stood an im- maculately tailored, smiling, normal, hand- some young man with a Hollywood checkered sports coat and a loud tie. I looked desper- ately for the long fingernails, the warts, or some other disfiguration, but it was all in vain; I couldn ' t find any. During the lunch, I worked up nerve to ask him how he ever thought of all the horri- fying things that he wrote about. When I finally questioned him, he laughed, and be- gan to talk. When I came from Austria a few years ago, he said, I didn ' t have the faintest idea that I was going to be a writer for horror pictures. I had worked on comedies and stage adaptations for a European concern, and I had never done anything more grue- some than a parlor comedy in my life. I was hired by Universal a couple of months after my arrival, but sat around doing nothing for a long time. Finally, the studio needed someone to write the script for a pic- ture called ' Dead Men Will Talk, ' and out of sheer desperation, I wrote it. The producers liked it and I was assigned to the ' Wolf Man. ' It seems a funny thing to say, but unfortunate- ly it was a success. In quick succession, I penned ' The Ghost of Frankenstein, ' ' The Purple Hand, ' and ' The Mummy ' s Tomb. ' By now, I ' m thoroughly ' typed ' as a horror pic- ture writer and I shall be enormously lucky ever to write anything else. Oh, darn it, he continued, I always want- ed to do something nice and cheery, bright and funny, but oh, no! I ' m not the type, say the executives. He finished his lunch in silence. Then he got up, sighed, and said, Well, back to work. And the nice, friendly, unfortunate young man went to his office and continued on the cheerful little epic, The Monster Walks. PAGE TWENTY-NINE