Kitchener Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School - Grumbler Yearbook (Kitchener, Ontario Canada)

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THE GRUMBLER 'Gb 5,0658 C. jk Q UO ECICLWZ Jean Lackie. A XIII A Baby Dawn, what thoughts are thine? What lies in those eyes so blue? Is it the light of a future world Destined by God, through you? Will your small hand, in future days, Paint nature at its best? Will suffering souls be gently eased By your soft touch, so blest? Will music flow from your street soul As years roll swiftly by? Or will you just dream of things unseen, Ancl wonder, the same as I? is

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28 THE GRUMBLER The Conspirators Harvey Clarke, A XII D S the young policeman closed the station-house door behind the wild-eyed man who had just been forcibly ushered out, Sergeant Adams shook his head slowly, removed his cap, and scratched his bald spot. To the rookie he said: He still tries to give himself up. Never a month goes by without his trying to get put away. To think that a man of his intelligence should come so close to insanity over such a trivial thing I The rookie took his place under the sergeant's high desk on his own hard stool, and eyed the older man with a quizzical expression. Who is the nut, Sarge ? he in- quired. You seem to know more about him than anyone else. When a guy goes around trying to confess murder, he's not usually kicked out of a police station. What's the real story, Sir? The old sergeant paused in his work, put down his pen, and looked unseeingly out across the city lights below him. With a sigh, he began. Well, son, it started 'way back in my last year in high school, when old Specs Walters, our Latin teacher made Pete Gatineau, the class ring-leader, spend two hours one night after school, writing de- clensions and vocabularies for throwing chalk in the ink-stand on the teacher's desk. Now Pete was a powerful lad, and very brainy, but more than a little spoiled. He was quite used to getting his own way, it was too bad for anyone that crossed him, for he had a cruel streak, too. The morning after the detention, he walked in on our bull-session at the back of the room and said: 'Well. gang. for the next few days we're going to try a little psychological experi- ment. Listen to thisl' In the moments that followed, Pete unfolded his unconventional plot. Each of the .boys and girls in our form was to find an opportunity during the day to impress upon Specs how sickly, pale, or elderly he looked. Pete gave each one of us minute instructions on just what was to be said. No one spoke till he was finished. Then Bertram Barton announced that he was hav- ing no part in such a plan. Now Bertram was a tall, gangling youth, a regular grind, and a good Latin student, and he let us know that he bore no grudge against Mr. Wal- ters and refused to get mixed up in the affair. However, Pete took him aside, and by some means known only to him, managed to cajole him into helping. 'After all, Bertram, you don't want to spoil it for everyone! Come on: be a sport. It'll be lots of funl' Well, everybody helped. and even some boys and girls in the other classes heard of our scheme and joined in. Mr. Walters had help in everything, from cleaning the blackboards to carrying his books, as well as a good deal of sympathy. Everyone had at least one chance to speak to him during the day, and by its end he really did look as haggard and white as his students had implied. His wife had been wanting him to take a holiday. so when he asked her opinion. she was only too glad to agree that he look- ed pale and sickly, in the hope that he would take a vacation. The second day we really turned on the heat. Pete got up in the morning Latin class when Specs tConlinued on page 84l

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30 THE GRUMBLER A Masterys Interpretation ot Jazz Maru- Lautf-nslagffr. A Xl c A master of the classics looked down from the above where he abode since his death in 1904. The spectacle tore his heart and he ut- tered in anguish, It is an abomin- ation. They call themselves mo- dern when they are like war danc- ers wriggling to a primitive con- coction of a jazz band. Now that I am dead. I may without a prick of conscience visit this club called the . . . . Jive Hive . There the orchestra is tuning up noisily and brazenly. The so- called bobby sock Susies in baggy sweaters and slovenly poses are waiting at the rail while the Joes beat out snatches of rhythm with impatient feet. Oh! that sudden gust of music is almost deafening- hot and sweet they describe it. Couples are beginning to shuffle and hop. The night is slipping by, and the tempo seems to have ac- celerated. The musicians no longer lean back, but sit forward, alert. There is a knock-knock-knock of a wood- en hammer, prolonged rumble of African tom-tom drums and crash goes the orchestra. It is jungle time! That wild. horn wails like a jaguar in distress, the saxophones seem to quack sardonically like ducks, trombones bray like don- keys, a brass horn croaks in imi- tation of a bull frog. How the blending of it all can be enjoyed by civiliezd minds is more than my faculty for understanding per- mitsf' These young people, I fear, are depriving themselves of richer and fuller lives which might be found in the appreciation of our sublime classics. Anyone with an aesthetic taste would surely love Mozart's clear, melodious symphonies. Ah well, my life on earth is now only a memory, but how often I do recall being able to brighten dark hours of dejection and even des-pair by drowning them in the strains of that universal language -music. Oh that these mortals might come to this realization Y F 0 o t in a ll Bill NICK:-f-. A Xl D -The most dangerous single threat to mankind- to-day is the game of football. This statement was made by Professor I. B. Noots of Hicough College at a re- cent caucus of the World Society of Imbeciles and Deranged Individ- uals, Local 173. The Professor is well qualified to make this state- ment as he is one of the world's most famous students, having stu- died under Rachminanoff Publisky and Alexander Graham Bagle. tYou never heard of them I-Well to tell you the truth, neither have 1.5 Our hero is of slight build. Cstanding only six feet six in his stocking feet? with hair that falls to his shoulders and a. long up- turned nose. Two front teeth. miss- ing from his upper jaw, were mis- placed one morning when he mis- tlfontinueil on page l66l