Maynard High School - Screech Owl Yearbook (Maynard, MA)

Page 14 text:

thinking, and gave me a certificate for fine First Aid work. When we were alone, Jim gave me a lecture and said that he had always shunned me be- cause I had chased him and all the other boys so. He also asked me for a dance date the day he was to be discharged from the hospital which incidentally was the day of the Sweet Heart Hop which is strictly for sweethearts, so he said. Janic.f Morgan, ' 52 You Just Can ' t Win One day in the not too distant past, I took it upon myself to be absent from school without the proper authority, playing hookey, you know. But some lovely litle bird, heh, heh, put the buzz in Mom’s ear. Result? No Friday night dance for me. Now what could be more gruesome than that? But leave it to me. After fifteen years, four months and twenty-five days of existence, I ought to know how to go about rearranging my Mom’s thoughts. To make a long story short, I had a fiendish plot in mind. Friday morn found me prancing out of bed bright and early. After five lovely hours of school 1 dashed home to commence with the commencement. With my dungarees on and my hair tied back with a ker- chief I was ready to start working. I started with Mom s bedroom. The bed was made perfect, square corners and all. Then I dry mopped every nook and corner I could find, and repeated this performance for good measure. Then came the dusting and polishing of the furniture. Whoops! There goes Mom’s face powder on the floor. Oh, what a mess. I figured Fd better start on some other room and come back to this later. Next on the agenda was the parlor. After the pre- liminaries were done, such as vacuuming and dust- ing, I took down the Venetian blinds and did a beautiful job of cleaning them. There was only one slight slip-up there. I couldn’t get them back up. One of the nails slipped and we were then minus a pane of glass. But I figured on coming back to that later. First I wanted to get the kitchen floor washed and waxed. That was one job that came out perfect. Almost, that is. For some reason or another that wax was awfully sticky and wouldn’t dry. Oh, well, I didn’t have time to worry about such incidentals! It was five minutes of five and Mom came home at five o’clock. So, I dashed down the hall, knocked over a vase and broke it, then back up the stairs to ( wait till Mom came home to see what a beautiful job I had done — except for those few minor accidents. But Mom wasn’t as pleased as I had expected. When she walked in the door the first thing she cried out was, Who broke my new vase?” Were those my knees I heard knocking? With my courage slowly disintegrating I came down the stairs only to find Mom standing with her hands on her hips, surveying the condition of the parlor. From there she marched out to the kitchen. It was then I discovered why my floor wax had been so sticky. In my haste I had grabbed the furniture wax I still don’t see why it wasn’t as good. Slowly but surely Mom searched the house for further damage, turning a bit redder upon each new discovery. But why go all through this. Friday night I ended up in my room, thinking of what a wonderful time I could have been having if I had just left well enough alone. Gee, you just can’t win! Barbara Thijmith, ’52 Life ' s Little Problems You enter the house, a little apprehensively, and are met by the lady of the house who is more than a little excited and flustered. As she flies about, getting her hat, coat, and her husband ready, you gaze upon three small, upturned angelic faces which gaze back at you just as intently. Their mother kisses each in turn, and with a few parting words, leaves for a gala celebration of her wedding anniversary. The door shuts behind her, steps fade away down the walk, and instantly bedlam breaks loose. Uh-oh!” you think. I should have known.’’ Now listen, kids,” you bark at them, deciding to be firm, that’s quite enough!” You should have saved your energy; no one heard you. As one noisy cherub darts by, you seize him and hold on tight. All right, young fella’. To bed with you, and I mean now!” Whereupon amid a series of protests and a doubled amount of confusion, you drag him up to his room, deposit him on the bed, slam the door, and start upon your quest for the other two remaining dears.” Aha! There’s one, peeking from behind the kit- chen door! After him! Don’t let him get away! And after a mad pell-mell chase, (you really should go out for track, at this rate) another little warrior is captured. Off to bed he goes, too! JO )

Page 13 text:

in the game. It was good to hear him go around the house whistling. As I entered the field my heart beat faster. What if he was hurt and carried off the field? What would I do? Oh, heavens, this was making a nervous wreck of me. As I crossed the field, I noticed the op- posing team trying out. Then all at once I saw a boy who must have weighed at least three hundred pounds. Good Lord, if he ever hit my boy, he would surely make a mess of him easy. This was going to be awful. There goes the kick off and our team has the ball. My poor boy is going to get his uniform dirty. The team is running down the field now. For heavens sake, the boys don’t even know how to stand up. Why, they are falling all over one another! I simply can’t keep my eye on the ball. Then here I am with my eye on the one boy running down the field with his arms folded, and all the while the real ball is being carried over for a touch down by an- other boy. I just can’t make heads or tails out of the game. The final blow came when my son, mind you, got the ball. There he was in clear field running faster lhan anyone had I’d ever seen. Why was everyone screaming? He must be doing exceptionally well! I was so proud of him. But little did I know that he had become so scared when he got the ball that he had run the wrong way and had crossed the wrong goal line. There isn’t much more to say except now he’s trying out for cooking classes. At least if he mixes the wrong ingredients, he has only himself to make suffer. Betty Hatch, ’50 Goodbye Wearing a black suit, and a rather forlorn smile, the little man moved quietly out of the house. People were sitting and talking on the front steps. Trying hard not to appear sad and troubled, the little man made his way through the crowd to the sidewalk. While the row of long, black cars was forming, he glanced sorrowfully at the leading limousine and sighed heavily. Finally the line of automobiles started, looking somewhat like a winding snake creeping up on its prey. The procession stopped at an ivy-covered church, and the little man stepped out of his car. Are all the, er, details taken care of?’’ he quietly asked a tall, thin individual at the head of the stairs. Quite, sir,” answered the long blue suit. People were beginning to arrive, looking under- standingly in the direction of the little man. From the choir loft, the soft strains of the organ could be heard faintly from where he was standing. Taking a deep breath, the little man entered the door. He could see the faces of his friends turn ex- pectantly toward him, as he led his only child, a beautiful daughter, down the aisle to her future hus- band. Marjorie O’Connell, ' 50 He Fell For Me Janie and I were unusually boy-crazy. This was all right except for one thing. No boy would take a second look at either of us. One Saturday after- noon we decided to drown our sorrows by taking in our favorite pastime, horseback riding. When we got to the stables, we saw a boy whom we knew, on one of the horses. But, as usual, when he saw us he started riding off, without even speaking. Janie and I yelled to him, but he didn ' t even turn around; he just started riding all the faster. Quite disillusioned, Janie and I saddled our horses and started off. What is the matter with us?” we asked each other. Did we use the wrong tooth paste? Did we wear the wrong kind of clothes? We just couldn’t figure it out. As we were riding along we saw a horse prancing up to us. It looked like Jim Baker’s horse. Yes, now I was sure it was. But where was Jim? Was he hurt? The whinnying horse and our com- mon sense told us that something had happened. We followed Jim’s horse until we came to a secluded spot where Jim was lying unconscious. It looked as if he had been thrown, and he was in serious condition. Noticing his injured leg, I said, Gee, Janie, I think his left leg is broken, and look, he’s got a big scratch on his head.” Yes,” said Janie, we’d better get him to a doc- tor.” But by the time a doctor gets to him he may be dead,” I reasoned. You ride up to the stable and call an ambulance. In the meantime I’ll administer first aid.” I ripped my sleeve into strips and then bandaged and splintered Jim. After what seemed an eternity, the ambulance arrived. Jim was taken to the hospital and was said to be in critical condition. In a few days he was getting better, and, to my sur- prise, asked to see me. One day while I was visiting him, the head nurse complimented me on my quick

Page 15 text:

Now the chase really is on! Where can the last little nuisance be? You’ve seemed to have looked everywhere. Hmm Crash!!! Oh! What hit me? Little man, with a Hying tackle like that, you’ll be a great football star some day. Come now, be a nice boy and go to bed.” Whew! And as the angry, indignant roars above subside, you sink back into the nearest easy chair, and for the moment, completely relax. But wait! What was that someone said about the patter of little feet?” You can hear them now, and they’re far from sweet! Crash!!!! Here we go again! Sara Boeskk, At) Things I Like To see the sun in all its glory rise above the sleeping world, The briskness in the Autumn air, The leaves so bright and fair; The cheery smiles of the girl next door her words are equally bright; The warmth of a fire on a wintry night, With chestnuts crackling within, The fairyland likeness of a snowy morn With the snow soft as a new born fawn; The cooing of a contented babe, fresh as a rose; The smell of freshly ironed clothes; The moaning of pine trees as breeze sighs through; The chatter of an agitated squirrel, venting his anger at you; The roaring of the ocean as the wind caps the waves with white; The mew of a seagull as he swoops upon his prey from the height; The look of gratitude upon the face of the little old lady down the street As I offer to help with her bundles whenever we meet; The roar of a bubbling brook with its first Spring song, So glad to be free again it tumbles merrily along. All these things and many others, too Make me realize Life’s pleasures anew. Barbara Rich, ’50 Ghost Ball in the Sky An old ballhawk went trotting out one dark and gloomy day. The score had been tied up as he went along his way, (II ) When all at once a mighty clout of home run length he saw, A’ climbing up into space and through a cloudy draw. Yippee-i-o, yippee-i-ay, the ghost ball in the sky. Striding back he twists and leaps in quest of that great ball, And with a mighty clash he bids, but now we see him fall. He’s got to run forever on that diamond in the sky, But he won’t catch that vital ball, no matter how he’ll try. Yippee-i-o, yippee-i-ay, the ghost ball in the sky. He’s running hard and fast in chase of some im- mortal fame, But like most men he won’t succeed, with only him to blame, Of life he made a gamble, which ended in a strife And he’ll find out you can ' t fool God in this vital game of life. Yippee-i-o, yippee-i-ay, the ghost ball in the sky. Henry Nowick, ’51 In Our Shanty Made For Three Way up in them mountains, Where’s ah use ta call home, 1 remember Maw and Paw, We three lived all alone. We lived in a little shanty, Just a made fer us three, Maw and Paw never worked, But we wuz happy as could be. Once Maw made some biscuits, We wuz havin’ company, Uncle Yokum were a coinin’ ta visit. In our shanty made fer three. Maw’s biscuits corned out hard, As hard as thems could be. But Maw still served them fer dinner, In our shanty made fer three. Uncle Yokum weren’t use ta hard biscuits, He got as sick as he could be, He died that night of poison, In our shanty made fer three. One day Maw decided The shanty needed repairs, She said them steps were broken, And she couldn’t go upstairs. Paw said that he’d fix em, O’course he never did, When Maw reminded him,