Lyman Hall High school - Singer Chronicle Yearbook (Wallingford, CT)

Page 18 text:

16 THE CHRONICLE hangs a mirror and last but by no means least is my bed, a plain, hard one, with a couple of broken springs. 11 sags a little in the middle and squeaks whenever I take a deep breath, but when I'm asleep I don’t notice it. I’ve stood it for about eight years now; so I guess a few more won’t make much difference. A-nony-inous, ’39 ()LI OR NEW? Outside it had been snowing steadily for two hours, and now the ground was white. It was the afternoon of the eighth day of January as Helen sat in the living room of her home in a small Massachusetts town. She was a senior in high school and was trying to do some homework, but she hadn't had any inspirations for an English theme; her mathematics examples refused to come out right; and everything she touched seemed to go wrong. Malt' unconsciously six opened her history book and began to read. The lesson was on the life in her great grandmother’s time. Helen closed the book. She didn’t like history, and anyway who cares about the life of our great grandmothers? Helen would much rather have some life of her own, in modern 1939 style. Unthinkingly, she murmured this fact aloud. Someone answered from behind her. “Humph! You've spent a whole hour there with your books, and you haven't done a single thing. When are you going to get down to work?” Startled, Helen turned and saw to her astonishment that the picture of her own great grandmother had come to life, and the little woman stood before her. The lady spoke again. “Don't you think you’d better get busy? It will be getting dark before very long, and you won’t have much light to study by.” “Hut I can turn on the lights like this, exclaimed Helen, still wondering at the appearance of this quaint person. She went to the switch and demonstrated. Grandmother, surprised and frightened, uttered an exclamation and then asked why Helen didn’t do something about the fire. Helen laughed, then explained as well as she could about electricity. Grandmother stayed and talked with Helen all the afternoon, interested in the many strange things around her She wondered at electricity, gas, automobiles, and countless little things that seemed necessities to Helen. Toward the end of the afternoon, Grandmother became very quiet. Helen noticed this and asked what tlx matter was. Grandmother thought for a minute, then said, ‘'ll seems to me. Helen, as though all this 1939 equipment has made you a bit lazy. Why, if you had been doing that homework in my day, you couldn’t have sal day-dreaming as I found you, because the light would really have gone. As it is, you have all the evening to do it in. where I would have had all the evening to do something else1. I think I prefer to go back to the picture on the wall to remember my own school days, rather than to day dream into the future as you seem to do when you should be doing homework.” Helen sal for quite a while, deep in thought. Would it really be better to live in those days as Grandmother had said? Helen remembered that it didn’t

Page 17 text:

THE CHRONICLE 15 MY ROOM Well, to begin with, my room is about twenty feet up in the air. (on the second story, of course), and is in the form of a rectangular solid eleven by fourteen by eight feet. It contains, among other things, two doors, two windows, and a closet. The hinges on the doors need a little oil; the windows could stand a washing; and the closet—well, I’m trying to convince my father that it needs a few more clothes in it. The floor is covered with light brown linoleum, much the worse for wear. A daintily-flowered pattern adorns the wallpaper, which I assure you, I had no part in choosing. This effeminate atmosphere is partly remedied, however, by large maps tacked on three of the walls, covering about three-fourths of their area. The maps are not put there to hide torn patches in the wall paper, either. Since I have a hobby of collecting maps, I tack some of my best specimens on the walls. On the walls are four of the National Geographic Society's maps of South America, Africa, Europe, and Central America; road maps of New York, New England, New Jersey, and Connecticut; a house number map of Manhattan and the Bronx; and my favorite, a U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Chart of the Connecticut Coast from Guilford Harbor to East Haven River. The coastal chart is the kind used as an aid to navigation and gives the position of rocks, harbors, buoys, and lights, as well as depth soundings, channels, the character of the bottom, and other information vital to navigators. On the wall opposite the most frequently-used door glares a vivid sign, ready to smite the eye of everyone who enters the room—“PLEASE—FOB THE COM FORT OF OTHERS—DO NOT SMOKE”. I swiped this sign from the window of a Connecticut Company bus. To ease my conscience, I can truthfully say that the sign was about to fall off anyway; so always ready to make myself useful, I saved the company the trouble of picking it up. Also decorating the wall are several pictures of sailboats in action. (Yes, I’m a sailing fan.) Most of the pictures were clipped from Life and the Sunday Herald Tribune. In one corner of the room are an almost antique desk and a typewriter table with a typewriter on it. There occasionally, when nothing more interesting to do can be found, I buckle down to a little homework. On the desk stands an electric alarm clock, which I had spied, broken, in my father’s office. I brought it home, took it apart, and put it together again. To my great surprise, it worked! So ever since, I have been awakened at seven-fifteen by the noisy buzz of that darn clock. In the desk is a bottle of red ink, which I have not used for five years, although I have been “broke” for nearly that long. Near the table is a dusty book case with twenty or thirty books on it, the titles ranging from Mutiny on the Bounty to Neiv French Review Grammar. In another corner near the closet, is an overflowing wastebasket, which I ought to have emptied two weeks ago. Over there is an odd-looking piece of furniture, a combination table, bureau, and cabinet. On it is a portable phonograph and a pile of jazz recordings, the latest of which is Chick Webb's A-Tisket A-Tasket. In the third corner stand two tennis racquets and my trusty gun, a Daisy No. 195 Buzz Barton Special. While it’s been many a day since I last pulled the trigger, I can still remember the very first window I ever broke with it—and there’s a good reason why I can remember. On the other side of the room is a large, rather dilapidated bureau. On it are a hair brush, a couple of combs, a tie pin, and a wrinkled necktie. Over it

Page 19 text:

THE CHRONICLE actually lake her any longer to do her homework than il would have in her grandmother’s day. These modern things saved her time, so really she had more time to do other useful things than her great grandmother had had. Helen went back to her English theme, mathematics examples, and her history lessons, reassured that she would rather live in 1939. Molly Brockett, ’10 SMALL TOWN GIRLS “Toot toot” shrieked the whistle, as the train rounded the bend. “Toot tooooot!” Lazy cows, grazing in the meadows, gazed curiously at the large locomotive, as it sped hurriedly by. Inside the train, sleepy passengers lounged in their seats, reading, talking, or just looking out of the dusty windows. Joyce and her friend Chris were the only ones who had any life in them. The others had been to New York before, and thought nothing of it, but this was the girls' first trip. They were talking excitedly and counting the miles which brought them nearer to their destination. Joyce was a tall, beautiful girl of nineteen, and Chris was a short, chubby, happy-go-lucky girl of twenty. They were on their way to make their fortunes in the big city. Joyce wanted to become a professional model and later an actress, and Chris’ ambition was to enter the great Bellevue Hospital, and train to become a nurse. An hour later, the train pulled into Pennsylvania Station. The girls walked out into the crowded street, and stood confused, not knowing which wav to turn. Finally they asked a kind policeman to direct them and he took them to a near-by hotel. Here they engaged a small, but attractive room. I lie next morning Chris left for the hospital to put in her application, and Joyce left for a large model agency. Both girls felt confident that they would return with good news, but fate was against them, and two tired and disappointed girls returned home that night. Joyce had discovered that she was not the only beautiful girl in the world. At the agency there had been many experienced models who could not get work so there was little chance for her to obtain a position right away. Chris' application to Bellevue was refused as there were about fifty applicants ahead of her, and hers could not be considered until the next class graduated. After telling each other their troubles, the went to bed, hoping that the morning would bring a better outlook on life. Days passed bringing no luck to either of the girls, but they refused to give up, even though lack of money forced them to find positions as clerks in a Five and Ten-cent store. During her spare time Joyce made the rounds of the model agencies, and Chris was patiently waiting for the tilin' when her application to Bellevue might be considered. Finally their luck changed. Joyce obtained her first modeling position and Chris' application was accepted. After that, both girls were successful. Joyce became more and more popular until she was one of the best models in New York, with prospects of Hollywood ahead of her; and Chris became one of Bellevue s best nurses. Although in due time they parted, they promised each year they would meet and go back to their home town together for a visit.