Katharine Gibbs School - Platen Yearbook (New York, NY)

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talent. Three first-year girls in cute pique dresses with big red apples on them did a tap dance to School Days. We all sang White Christmas and went home very mellow. Ianuary 5 Back in the old routine. Vacation seems like a lovely, far-away dream, what with reviewing for exams beginning already. Still, life has its consola- tions. I quote my favorite English teacher, Mr. Earle. P1ease stick with me: as soon as we cover one point, you kind of let go of me. lanuary 24 Air raid drill today. Queer to be lined up against a solid wall and imagin- ing how you'd feel if it suddenly caved in on you. But Mrs. Williams cheered us when we got back to class. She said, and I quote verbatim, You went to the wrong place during the drill: one bomb would have gotten five hundred of you, instead of two hundred and fifty, as it is supposed to. February ll Well here it is almost Lincoln's Birthday and Valentine's Day all rolled into one. Everyone is clustering in a corner with her best friends, looking very coy, and exhibiting lacy squares of paper. One of the first-year girls got a remembrance that had to be packed in a dress box, it was that heavy with satin ribbon. But life goes on in spite of all this. Mrs. Caverly remarked about a lazy student, Her ambition in life seems to be to get by with a seventy average, but sometimes I find I cannot cooperate. March 13 Well, here it is at last, the thing we have all been waiting for, planning for, buying dresses for, and writing frantic Specials to Princeton, etc., about. In a word, 'I'he Dance. I hope everyone is having a good time. As for me, I am home with the measles, and at this very moment, Bob is waltzing around the living room with my new dress hung over his arm, instead of me. May 15 Sorry for the lapse of time. Certification loomed, so that I could not think of lighter things. It is upon us now. I, for one, will never live through it. I am Man, not Machine. My brain is not a ticker tape, spaced with commas and semicolons at exactly the right intervals. It needs a little time - a split second or so - to ponder such questions as To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? Iune l Queer, isn't it, how life turns out to be all for the best? My certificate is nicely folded away in my top bureau drawer, I have a job, an office of my own, AND - a boss who dictates at a snail's pace. So it was worth it, after all. Dear old Katie Gibbs .... MARILYN FELDSTEN 43

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DIARY OF A GIBBS GIRL September 22 Fall Session starts. Such congestion in these once quiet halls! The noise and rush of these beginners simply appalls an old timer like me. Oh well, they'll learn. These books seem terribly queer. Looks as though they'll be heavy to carry. October 13 They are. In fact, life in general is very, very hard. Started taking our first speed tests today. Something is definitely wrong somewhere: things aren't going at all as I thought they would. October 20 Glad to report that difficulties are clearing up, and it looks as though I may be a stenographer yet. Ocotber 23 Oh horrors, they can't do this to me! Iust when everything is rosy, they catch me unawares and spring transcription on me. It's worse than love. I just don't coordinate. October 29 The boner of the year! Today Rene told Mrs. Graves to open a f1orist's box on her desk. Box was decidedly empty. There were plenty of red faces, especially Mary Lou Richards'! Thomas came to the rescue - doesn't he always? - with some pretty posies for Mrs. G. Wonder whom the empty box belonged to. November 16 We may say with conviction that a number of future WAACS, WAVES, and SPAHS were born this morning in 440 when Miss Margaret Bondfield spoke to us about the work the British women are doing in the war effort. I found her talk both enjoyable and enlightening. Her description of the rip- ping suits the British fitted their farm workers out in brought smiles to all faces. December 2 I should like to present a little brain child of Miss Doyle's. The title is Sandburg Did It: Why Can't I? The rain came on little dog feet Stayed all day, Then went away. December 16 Christmas party today. An extra-special, glittery tree CThomas was so proud of it he almost burstb, very good plum pudding, and, even better local 42

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RETRIBUTION Pacing up and down, back and forth across the dark, narrow cham- ber, she thought, Nothing could be more horrible than this. This is the end. I'll never be able to go on. Outside, the dreary rain descended in a steady drizzle, beating its faint tattoo on the window pane. lf only she had it to do all over again, how different things would be! Oh, she'd been careless in a hun- dred small ways, but to go out that night - that had been fatal! And then, fool that she was, to do it again! She saw in a haze the face of the young ensign. It was a handsome face, with dark curly hair and a crisp grin. But it brought her no pleasure. To have thrown away her whole life, her whole future, for someone so unimportant, so trivial. someone who simply meant an eve- ning's fun. But she must push these thoughts from her mind. It was over now. Nothing more could be done except to be calm, to face it. The time must be almost at hand. The minutes as they passed stretched to hours, centuries. Her nerves were strained to the breaking point. The blood pounded in her ears. Was this strange, floating feeling the pre- lude to insanity? The faint echo of a closing door drifted down the hall. Footsteps! She counted them. One, two, three, four. They came nearer and nearer. They reached the door. There was no escape. The door opened slowly. You may come in now, and I'll give you your marks, said the dean. MARGARET DOYLE LIFE IS IUST A BOWL OF ETC. Etc, says Mr. Webster, is an abbreviation for et cetera which means 'and the rest: and so on: and so forth.' Although this is a schol- arly definition, it seems to me rather incomplete. Take, for example, the word as it is used on examination papers. To the question, Who was George Washington? a student might reply. A man who fought in the Revolution and was one of the thirty-odd Presi- dents of the United States, etc . Such an answer is worth a high grade. First, it gives us the approximate time of Washington's life. Second. it tells us that he was commander- in-chief of the Colonial forces: for anyone with intelligence realizes that only the people in the most important commanding positions are remembered one hundred and fifty years after a war has been fought. Third, we are informed that Wash- ington was one of our Presidents. True, we may not be able to discover whether the writer meant that thirty of our Presidents have been peculiar, or that we have had a few more than thirty of them. But the etc. redeems the entire re- ply. It indicates that there are so many important facts about Wash- ington that it is impossible to enum- erate them all here, and actually should suggest to the examiner that it would be worth his time to read a good biography of the illustrious man. MARGARET DOYLE