Kent School - Kent Yearbook (Kent, CT)

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Q H game played in an atmosphere far removed from the old-time gambling fests which we held of yore. Bame Harris was constantly being mis- taken for a second former, except when in class. e WHOSE GIRL IS THAT? Bergamini, the pre-historic, lay like the Vardiff giant on his bed, in the corner room of the Dining Hall, and talked learnedly of the different smells and noises of milk cans at five o'clock in the morning, and airplane engines, and cameras. Bevo Hasbrouck was, after four years, still explaining Einstein. lYilliam Harrison Took was still taking pains to be completely fog-bound in Latin Class, sending llr. Humphreys into convulsions of rhetoric. Frereo Blair was none other than Frereo. Figgis was constantly tormenting Humphreys, with new and more awful nicknames springing from his fertile brain every week. Figgis himself had acquired a couple of nicknames that caused him to snarl like a trapped animal whenever they were mentioned. ltlonkey Dickson was developing poise, most of the time. Benny Balsam, charter member. and connoisseur of the nether-world, was so absorbed in his New York contacts and loud ties that he had almost forgotten us. Bridgeman, red-headed, and always draped in a natty pin- stripe, was the sports-loving roommate of Howe. Brandy Brandreth, he of the sus- piciously heavy pack-basket, he who knew the local Coca Cola dealer well enough to get reductions on the price per case, roomed with Buckingham, angular cultivator of the Tennessee walking horse. Scudder Boyd was still in business, except that now it was fine furs instead of trunks. Boyd had formed a syndicate, with S. Boyd as president and treasurer, and various lower form hangers-on, including the fabulous Smoky Stone, as skinners of skunks. Boyd was, with the exception of Cliff Loomis, the most acute mail-order businessman in the school, and occasionally received letters to the general effect that the writer had been in business twenty years, and had never been called no liar by no young whipper-snapper yet. This never plussedfif that be the opposite of non- plussedfour Scud, who made substantial profits every quarter. Now, as we leave the specihc, and turn on into the general, let us consider for a moment the case of Ajax Jones. Oh, Ajax, how regally did he wear his crown of ver- satile corruption. Lewis has vouched for the beauty of the sob stories he wrote when he should have been listening to words of wisdom. Ajax himself proposed to a high official a mass fight between the fifth and sixth forms. for the avowed purpose of unifyiing the fifth form. When his room was raided, and practically the entire wains- coting stripped off in search of secret panels, Ajax was not angry: he merely said ruefully, Well, if .lock they'd only asked me the combination, they wonldn't have had to rip up the floor, too. During that crisp autumn of 1941, the di- Lacs

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A N V 5 f ' formers, until the lower formers are put wise, W, ,i g 1 and also the athletic members are very palsy- walsy with the big boys in the sixth form. The only trouble with being a fifth former at all seems T'-E-6,1 6 to be the rule about getting to bed at nine o'clock. No responsibilities, a lifetime of ducking studies, Som NOTE enjoying sports, and getting around the sixth form with the wiles born of three years experience. W'hat fun! Soon the fifth form, living on the second floor of the Auditorium, got to spending the entire night in the room of W'hitely, a scholastic half-breed, who was in and out of the sixth form. Many times poor Hotbread Rod Todd, a legal senior, was forced to fight his way through the crowd into his own room after lights. Among the more delightful joys of fifth form year were Lew Baldwin's miniature study hall in his roomy closet, Harry Jambone I'eckham's window garden, and rose in Brooklyn, and Deeck the Greeck Jones career as mathematician and engineer of deviltry. Earlius W'ilson reached, with Prickett, heights of contraband hoarding never before conceived of in the mind of modern man, and Fodder Snap-it Hodder politicoed up and down the hall. W'allis and W'ierum were still playing Tom Hamil- ton's Football Game, started in second form year. The only furniture in their room besides the beds was the game, two chairs, and a table. Hooper industriously blew up his muscles like balloons. Peake and Atkin gave that debutante tinge to the hallway. Their room was stuffed with racy little trophies. such as mouldering evening slippers, of evenings at hot spots up and down the Atlantic and Jersey coast. W'ell-meaning Brad Locke of the sixth form vainly tried to enforce a modicum of law and order, and occasionally cracked down on such as Blouse futler and Fingers W'ard, the constant purveyors of ersatz foodstuffs that needed only hot water in a child's teapot. and a match, to bring them to a succulent boil. Cutler had used his ingenuity to get himself a seven foot bed big enough for a whole regiment, and he with Peake was the only possessor of such gorgeous apparatus in the school. Ogden, the virtuoso, who taught himself to play a new musical instrument every year, played mournfully on his collapsible flute. Swanson Silvers drifted in and out, interrupted in his silent wander- ings by those who wanted to know how the Arab maids of Algeria compared to the Hollywood ideal. The Dining llall was a mechanized hive of activity. Leaders in Catiline plots were the old-timers, Janboy Harvey. liirdskin Caldwell, and the carefree Ajax Jones. A daily guessing game was carried on. Whoever could guess what was in the sus- piciously bulging sack that resident inspectors LAM David Green and Don Dickson used for an icebox. dangling from the window, won the daily double. C'ollier forsook studies for the gay life. and with others introduced the game of bridge, a scientific K

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DEECK verse activities above mentioned galvanized, for the most rart into football. The dissenters, such l o as Jimmy franc, .lock Lafferty, .lim Vhild, who studied the science of touch football as a scientist does astronomy, J. S. Boyd, and the ever lethar- .lusr I'i,,us .lm gic Brandy Brandreth, who was dubbed Harmon by the scotfers, played for Gilliarn's Vommandos. Wallis, Hooper, Howe and Peake were snapped up by the first team. The residue went to the second team, and some, including Little Budd Ogden, sifted down to the juniors. It was a good football season, culminating in a trip to Taft, which, although the game was lost, gave most of the fifth form a chance to cadge rides in genuine automobiles, while the proletariat rode in busses. Sunday, December 7, 1941, was a gray, dirty day, and we sat about the buildings moping, slinging hull in a bored way, or sleeping. During the afternoon, Hose 1Vallis came down the hall, and said, Well, boys, the .laps are bombing Pearl Harbor. Sure, Rosie, we said, that's a hot one. It was a hot one all right, as we soon found out, and realized to the fullest the next morning when we gathered in job as- sembly to hear President ltoosevelt's speech. At first, great excitement swept over us, but we soon calmed down, and became quiet and angry. All of a sudden, the cryptic little notices in the paper about men lost in battles over Europe, and the warnings of our English classmates came back to us. Within the next few weeks, the swift changes in the country and the confusion in lvashington, might have fazed us completely if it were not for the help and understanding of Father Vhalmers, who made us realize that our job was at Kent until the government told us where to go. 1Ye began to see the job that faced us then, and the job ahead in sixth form year. 1Yhcn we came back for the winter term. after a vacation spent in admiring female charm, we fell to producing an epic drama. The Girl From India, a product of Pater's active mind. We were particularly honored in being allowed to produce this play, as usually they come but once every three years. and the class of 1941 had given a renowned exhibition only two years before. With Pater's scheme, and willing hands, the tale of love among the Himalayas was given on the auditorium stage. Joe l.ewis played the part of a middle aged secretary to a high-pressure business- Inan, with bird feathers for hair, and an awful Bronx accent. Vutler, attired in a sheet and his imagination. was Gandhi. Sabu 3 bumps and a grind that'll shake the second balcony franc was the heroine, and Fido Phelan gave an amazing im- personation of Tinny lfakah, the hater of cold, Drum whose watch word was lt's cold as a balm in here. We had a racy chorus line, with Earlius 1Yilson. ltame Harris. Dick Jones. and Frere Blair as the babes dressed in costumes thought E, . .I ERE