Middlesex School - Yearbook (Concord, MA)

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MIDDLESEX Sc:HooL N gg- ggCONCORD, MASS. K X .S ., 3, , . aw I how much devilment they can raise. They keep on changing, and soon they be- gin to want other things, seeing the girls, and having a good time in Boston. But they're big by then, and it's time for them to leave: there are others coming right along behind. You fellows missed most of that, because of the war. But you are like the rest of them, your fourth class year was just the same. We certainly did get a pile that year. Bass, Bagley, Bigelow, Copeland. Downs, Cushman, Freeman, Ciarfield, Gooding, Lennihan, Moore. Nathanson, Reynolds, Stewart, Wells and-Who else was there? Merrill-he left this year because of illness, someone offered. A'How about Barry, Birley, and Sheehy? All three of the boys named were gone now. Barry to the R. A. E., Birley OH to school in England, and Sheehy-well, just gone. A'Where's Copeland now? l miss his bright smiling face. He's off in Colorado in the Ski Troops. But are you sure that's what you miss about him, Murph? A'And Moore and Bass? They're in the Army Air Corps. GarHeld's at Harvard in V-IZ. We're forgetting Davis. I-Ie's in England in the Army Engineers. But in the fourth class we reallv began to assert ourselves. Dumping trash cans and overturning desks. Poor old Room D took a beating. And tvery Sunday night after supper there'd be a good blockade outside the dining hall, and then a mad dash for the flagpole, or the pond. 'AThat was the year of the first of Moore's Dances, wasn't it? God, you started young, didn't you? And you've got your Goodings- 'But in the third class we really hit our stride. Then we were in the up- per school-two trips to Concord a week. Page Fiftven

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MIDDLESEX SCHOOL CONCORD, MASS. CLASS HI TGRY OR In With the Hurricane, Cfut Witl1 the Draft 'ASO you think you're going to graduate? He leaned back in the chair that we had placed especially for him. And so you'll be leaving us now. It wasn't so very long ago that the first bunch of you little fellows was dumped off at Eliot Hall. There weren't many of you, but enough to put a little twinkle in Mr. Baldwin's eye. Let's see, there was Taylor, Winsor, Bisbee, Foster, Bishop and Plory- And Doyle and Truesdale. But they dropped back. too rough for them. 'lYes. and Ward went on ahead a class. But there was one other one. Oh yes, Sundback. You can't very well get around him. Someone groaned, and the old janitor went on. 'iThat was back in 1939, the year of the hurricane. The year the war started, too. Murph Hnally lit the dead cigarette which had dangled miraculously from his lips as he spoke, and then he resumed. You boys have spent the biggest years of the world's history right here at Middlesex, but you aren't much differ- ent from all the rest of them. Everything else changes, and you grow up, but boys stay the same. Your fifth class of Brown, Clay. Mead, Ellinwood, Murphy, and Farrington did the same old things: canoe trips, walking east to your rooms, and dumping each other's beds. Yeah, but before he left Murphy taught us his method of catching high flies M-on the nose. And Doug, he stayed right up to the end of the second-class year, when he joined the Navy. He's off on some destroyer now, probably drumming the heck out of the bulkheadsf' He always was an awfully good drummer, But Murph got started again. I've seen them come and go, and they're pretty much the same. Little fellows, in the fifth and sixth, who think that fun consists of comic books and candy. But then they start to change, and school is nothing but Page Fourteen

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MIQIEEQEZ4 ..5C1j.Q0EAcc.ac-cc-- .--cQQNQ0RDf M25 Yeah! Gentlemen-at-large. as long as we stayed on school bounds. But Concord Academy really suffered that year, added a cynic. But how about us guys that went to those dances down there? ques- tioned a realist. Ignoring him, someone continued- We got Ellis, Thorne, Parsons, Little, and Selfridge that year. And Toll and Kistler, both one-year boys. Post dropped back from the second class, but he kept on dropping, and soon was safely out of school. 'Al-low about Howard and his fourteen stone? Murph finally broke in, You boys keep on going and you'll be making up names. I-lis cigarette was out now, but what was left still clung tenacious- ly on. That was the year we entered the war. Remember how we gathered in the assembly hall to hear the president's speech? And then the dark days of the spring of '42, The only bright spot was the dance at Moore's. Someone snickered, and Murph broke in, But in the second class you be- gan to change. By that time you were getting pretty big: you had quite a number of fellows on the first team. And all of a sudden you began to dis- cover those mysterious aunts and dentists whom you had to visit in Boston. That winter you got Mac Keyser, but he didn't last long: just a brief visit, and he was gone. But you stuck it out all spring. Hey, do you guys realize something, that although we lost only one boy to the services during our first class year, Mitch Draper to the Marines, out of the forty-seven boys that were in our class at one time or other, only twenty-five can possibly graduate? That means almost one out of every two. Sort of makes you wonder how we got through. doesn't it? l wonder if we will. No one spoke, and finally a few rose to go. Soon all had gone out. leaving the room behind them empty, and useless. Page SIi.X'll'C'l7