Louise S McGehee School - Spectator Yearbook (New Orleans, LA)

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THE SPECTATOR Forty-nine she shakes her shoulders like Carmen Miranda cmd does the best rhumba this side of Cuba. Once she gave S10 of her lunch money to the March of Dimes because she knew how those poor kids feel, and had to pawn a solid gold football given to her by one of her ardent admirers in order to live the rest of the month. She loves to reform people by setting a bad example and though somewhat crazy and headstrong, she is undoubtedly the most likable and sweetest girl I have even known. '43 The Cabbage Miracle The cabbage-and it seems strange-has been woefully neglected by the philosophers as an object for aesthetic contemplation. When we consider, in the praise of women, to what pains the poets have put them- selves to thrust aside the diabolic and behold only the angelic, it seems indeed lamentable how few the sighs of admiration which the queenly cabbages elicit. I am inclined to think the cabbage has baffled even vegetarians because of an enigmatic reticence on the part of this bras- sicaceous plant which I attribue to a significant equivocation in regard to its life, surroundings, and indeed its whole appearance, here, for the first time, I believe, exposed to proper enquiry. First, it must be known in what regions the cabbage is most pleased to flourish. This I think can easily be answered-in the mountains- where rain falls through no great filter of grey smoke, where the soil sleeps on no flat, springless bed of plains-in the mountains where the rain drops in its pristine crystals, and the land lies pillowed among mossed boulders. Here, in the mountains, as in no other region, the sun is hot, the wind cool, and the ground moist. Here the cabbage with its fibrous abundance stands in contrast to the threadless frugality of lone- some ridges which for centuries have cloistered these lands which in- troduce the grass to clouds. Here where the growing season is briefest, summer is a most munificent and vigilant attendant of her crops. It is no wonder that the cabbage is indigenous to the Appalachians where it can grow over the deep breasted hills, although its roots are short. F rom the farmer in those regions, the cabbage receives due homage as a staple vegetable. Beyond this, however, a close understanding with the cabbage is impossible for him, since he lives with it far too in- timately ever to suspect the presence of any qualities which do not nourish him in his immediate need. When he has eaten his plate of slaw, his soul has no further appetite. He, the master of the ploughshare, has no sympathy with that which can not be dug out of the stolid ground.

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Forty-eight THE SPECTATOR Character Study She was christened Helen Dorothy Grigsby much to her disgust and uses that as an excuse for all the kicking and crying she did during her first few months on earth. She began school at six and loathed it from the beginning, and, though exceedingly briliant, she hated studying and did as little as possible. At nine, while crossing the street, she had a nightmare --as she calls it, for on crossing she saw a truck four feet away heading for her at full speed and she couldn't movep her feet were as thought cemented to the street- like a nightmare. Next thing she knew, she was in a hospital in a plaster cast with a leg broken in three places. Dot stayed in bed for a year. Finally she was able to walk on crutches and again began school only to have her leg become infected soon after. She was operated on twice and missed another school year. Having recovered, she was extremely upset and was sent to camp to avoid a nervous breakdown. Here she became Counselors' Enemy No. l for she spent her time making pie-beds twice a day, filling pillow cases with hoppity toads and broken dishes, total bill for two months of fun -3450. Thoroughly cured, she was placed in convent Cand don't ask whyl where she skipped Latin classes to go talk to the hired man who was much more interesting than Caesar. He taught her how to smoke and she kept it up in memory of him. Now nineteen and in college, Dot is forever being chased by those of the opposite sex whom she treats unmercifully. She breaks dates to go out with girls, stands up boys who range in looks from Apollo to Clark Gable, and was voted the most popular girl in a school of a thousand. She cusses like a sailor among her most intimate friends, smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, despises alcohol, drives like a maniac, and is the only girl of high society in her city that has worn a path from her house to the pawn shop. She sleeps with lipstick on, hates cold cream and powder, and, in spite of it all, is the best-looking girl in the city. Grigsby's passions are horses, smoking, and above all, flying. Against her family's wishes, she has taken up three planes, one which she flew over her home where her mother was in the yard admiring it. When the fond parent was told who it was, she fainted. Dot adores horses blindly, has had four, her favorite being one she bought from a peddler for S5 because it looked so underfed and sick. The horse died two months later and she bought a black dress and wore it for a week. Her pet abominations are jitterbugs, boy-crazy girls and road hogs. She loves Stardust and lazy music and can't dance to a fast piece:

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Fifty THE SPECTATOR But if while he sleeps we glide among the patient rows of cabbage. the green leaves, purged of all but their essence, shimmer with a mystic chill in their bath of silver. Meanwhile the beaded mists permeate the porous ground, newly raked. Now, the blades of moonlight touch each plant with a sort of royal accolade. Then, as the light diffuses, each wrinkled leaf seems like the sliced cerebrum of some thoughful phantom. How charged with secret animation each lulling second. Close by, a glowworm slips in the cabbage heart. Far away, the cabbages are ruffled ovals set against the indigoed indifference of the slope. Unable to see now beyond the fancies which circle in the brain, alone sleepless, and but half-enchanted among all these remote realities, spills its reason as it stoops among the cooled globules, fringed with silver, which, none- theless, seem all the more unreal for being thus caressed. The reality of the inanimate is far more shadowy than we suppose. What happens to the cabbage, merely wholesome by day when it stares into the moon by night is beyond all ordinary powers of speculation. How fragile and delicate each plant which studs the furrowed black with its mercurous sepals. How utterly equivocal remain the silent cabbages. Carmer '42. Impressions As the young man stepped through the door, he could hear the loud humming of voices. When he sat down at the piano, he ran his hands gently over the keyboard, as if it were dear to him. Then he be- gan to play themes of familiar pieces. He realized that people were all about him in the room. He could hear the gruff voice of a big man who was talking to his hostess. She had on a soft and fluffy evening gown: he had touched it as he came in. She was toying with her necklace. He could also hear a group of men over in the corner who were very much interested in the stock market. Two women with high pitched voices were discussing new recipes and domestic problems. As he struck the first cords of Tschaikowsky's Piano Concerto in B Flat Minor, he knew everyone would stop and listen: he knew that his hostess would stop flitting from guest to guest, he knew the men, in terested in the stock market would stop and listen: and he knew the two women discussing domestic problems would stop their chattering, for the music was so familiar and beautiful. He knew all of this, because he studied the people about him. Their natures, voices, mannerisms, and everything but their faces meant nothing to him, for, you see the young mmcim was blind' Gloria Ratchford '45.