Mitchell College - Thames Log Yearbook (New London, CT)

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lklllvkllflk I promise I will never again try to fix the tail light while going ninety miles per hour. Thank you, God, Thank you for not making it hurt. I can hack an itch. Two heads. Moon-man and someone new. My God, what happened? He just came right over. Into my lane. He must have been going a hundred! So fast!! I've never killed anyone in my life! Are you a policeman? No. Good lord. It could have been me and not you. Well, what can we do? What can we do for him ?,' Oh,jesus. I don't believe it. Look. He's still blinking. I can hear you, guys. How about helping me out, huh? Where's his . . . other leg? My other leg? I don't know. Oh, no no no. Why did this have to happen? Why did this have to happen to ME? Youl? He just hung there on top of the windshield for so long! Arn I cut up? Will you look at my car! Can you imagine how fast he must have been going? I'm lucky to be alive! YOU'RE lucky to be alive!! Well, let's try to do something for him. Anything. Ask him if he can hear us. Ask him if it hurts. Ask him if he's coldf' And then the moon-man laid down on top of me. Very roughly. In sheer panic he placed a wet, glistening hand in my face as he scrambled to get away from me. He stood there, shaking violently, and from the surviving headlight's eerie beam the blood now covering the front of his clothes looked shiny black. I thought he was going to gag. Or cry. I slipped. I fell on him. Oh, Mother of Godllv And so I knew he wasn't going to ask me if I could hear him. Or if it hurts. Or if I'm cold. And he wasn't going to scratch my leg. And I was lying in a lot of my own blood. And the bike is mined anyway. So I decided to leave. I didnit even look back. I just turned away and headed straight for Amy's house. And the night seeped in to fill the void I left behind.

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lk ll' lk ll' lk ztHrn?55 You're a great lay. From out of her serene face came those big blue, searching eyes looking over at me. A trace of hurt, a little bewil- dered. Did you have to say that? The dim green light peering down through a floating layer of smoke wanted to know, also. I looked at her very carefully, and something turned sad inside. I'm sorry. You know me, darling. I didnit want you to look at me that way, Please don't feel bad. The whuff of lavender sheets. Their rise and the slow, ballooning fall as they clung again to her body's profile. The rich brown treasure of her hair as it is flung away by the hand which now cups her cheek. The disarming, smooth mold of her neck, shoulders, breasts. And still those imploring eyes. I'm sorry. She softened her gaze. Oh, it's my fault, too. It just sounded like . . . another language. I mean it just didn't fit the mood. It hurt. I am sorry, Amy. Damn. Why did I have to say that?,, There came from her a slight jolt which was a tiny laugh. She tumed and traced the line of my nose with a slender, gently arched finger. She jolted again. What's so funny? She now wore her free, ingenuous smile. Which filled with her hair as a summer breeze came in over us. It brought us back to life. You are! You should see yourself pour! I'm funny when I pout, huh? She teased at my lips. I teased at her lower ribs. She squealed and her cheek fell off her hand. I'm funny, huh? She shrieked and began to flay away at me, at the bed, at the breeze. I'M funny?! Let's see how funny YOU can be!! Q And I wrapped her in purple satin and bore my laughing, struggling captive away from her bedroom and across the dimly lit living room, where she tried to cave in my skull with a huge, tasseled pillow. I fought off her counterattack, and with a cruel laugh I held the quaking, screaming corpse head down over a bottomless pit of perfumed bubble bath. Last chance, Amy! Do ya give??! In reply she smothered my grinning face in a great expanse of billowing lavender. With my most villainous chor- tle, I poured her hysterical bronze form ever so slowly into the mountain of bubbles which exploded slowly, beauti- fully, around us. The room was laughing at our struggle, echoing louder and louder, the patches of suds floating everywhere, the last tail of satin the only clue to our disappearance as we drowned ourselves frantically, lusciously, voluptuously. ilklklklk Watching her breath forming large, rolling clouds under the street light, I stopped and looked at her pensively. There was no way to hold back the coy advance of our smiles. And she's beautiful when she smiles. She kickstarted the bike, bare feet, bathrobe, and all. Next week? I promise.

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A Modest Proposal by Thomas H. Finnegan Seat belts save lives. That slogan ought to be clear enough for every occupant of every automobile in the country to glean the message therein. But, by all appearances, the message is NOT registering, studies show a disappointingly small percentage of American drivers consistently buckling up to insure their very lives if and when. Obviously, then, the lesson is not being leamed. Realizing that a stern, lecturing approach is not the best way to drive the point home, interested groups resorted to levity - the smug sense of humor. Television, radio, and press ads showed the good excuses and where they get you - I find them too confining followed by a shot of the speaker solidly confined to traction in a hospital. Apparently the viewing, listening, and reading audience was favorably entertained, but the sermon was promptly ignored. Perhaps a different tack? Shock. Signal Seven and others of the gender, cinema footage of the decade's finest, most spectacular traffic fatalities and injuries, with special attention paid to unorthodox and imaginative maimings. To ensure that, prior to age twenty-one, every young driver has the opportunity to savor decapitation and dismemberment, not to mention the dazzling destruction of lots of high-performance iron just Like His on the big screen moments before his embarkation for The Great American Holiday Weekend Wars. The memory of all that red, red krovvy, as they say in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, should keep his speed down for a good . . . oh . . . two hours? Well, that would be a great help, were it not for the fact that his destination invariably lies well beyond two hours' drive distant. All right, then, how about The Real Thing? Preceded, as always, by a frantic flurry of brake lights and the forma- tion of long queues of now-wide-awake-and-definitely-ready-for- the-very-worst spectators, in order that no one should remain asleep through The Feature, lest some martyr shed his blood in vain. Even those not yet old enough to be Principle Combatants could derive some educational value from the sight - to heighten the youngsters' appreciation of the event, a rating system could be devised C'Gee, Dad, that was NUTHIN' compared to that 65-pointer we saw last Easter! j. For the benefit of the brave souls who staged the event, troopers at the end of the Accident Zone could compile the comments of the spectators C Tell the guy in the Buick that a rollover woulda clinched my vote, willya, officer? J, and a national system of Recognition and Gratitude could be established in order that the Veterans' names, like those of Vice-Presidents and Tag Team Wrestling Stars, may become household words, if not folk heroes C Gla- dys! Gladys! Guess who I saw on the way home from work?! johnny the jackknife!! Christ, he nailed three Volk- swagens and then winged a cop car before he stopped rolling!! It wuz beautiful!!! j. As always, there is a tremendous potentional for a huge and profitable aftermarket, also Cthere - now we have the backing of the Business Interestsj. Bubble gum trading cards, T-shirts, model car kits and racing sets, beer mugs, even autographed replica crash bump- ers. All of this might help immeasurably to lend some glamor or even a note of dignity to an otherwise sordid and unattractive aspect of our Great American Lifestyle. Perhaps we could begin by changing our usual reference to