Newton South High School - Regulus Yearbook (Newton, MA)

Page 22 text:

f 3 2 i Rott! 1: Miss Hatch, Mr. Nye, Miss Allen, Mrs. Friemarck, Miss Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. MacKerron, Miss Silk. Not Prefent: Miss Lanigan, Department Head, Mr. Cams. Row 2: Mr. Youngblood, Cornick, Mr. Crouse, Mrs. Hansberry, Mrs. Hubbard, Mrs. Ratner, Mr. Slater, Mr. Weiner, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Goggin, Mrs. Kargman, Miss Smith, Mrs. Yerkes. english department Sometimes it doesn't take much-maybe a glance at a newspaper headline or a few words of a news broadcast-to make you wonder how what you're doing every day of the week, morning, noon and night, Hts into the whole scheme of things. Who really cares when the verb monter is conjugated with Metre and when it's conjugated with avoir ? Is it really important to learn some inane set of formulas for Chemistry? So what if you get an A or an F on a test or if you ever write or grade that composition? What's that have to do with what's really important in the world, such as the war in Vietnam, civil rights, local and national elections, etc? Often, nothing at all, which makes things all the more frustrating. And, then again, are these problems worth thinking about? Maybe we do the what seem to be menial tasks because they're within the realm of our competence, whereas the other issues are beyond our total comprehension. Or, maybe they do represent a part of the big picture. I don't think any of us has the answer for anybody else. However, if ,we can't justify in our own mind the time and energy spent on our given tasks, the future looks pretty grim, which is a rather unhappy prospect, particulary when there is so terribly much to be gained simply by opening our eyes occasionally to the world beyond our own little one. There are so many people to know, so many things to find out about, that it's some- times exasperating when you realize that you don't even have the time to listen to a record or go to a movie, and there you are again, right back where you started, trying to figure out what's worth it. This dilemma can be depressing but, at the same time, it certainly makes life terribly exciting, even at school, thank goodness. JOAN LEIGHTON

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administration i I Mrs. McGuire, Secretary to the Afiiftant Principal Mrs. Letteney, Secretary to the Principal A 'ifgww fmpixi an MAIN OFFICE STAFF: Mrs. Santucci, Mrs. Gilroy, Mrs. Mendelsohn, Miss Leone, Miss Lawless. Not Preient: Mrs. Kempenin.

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language department Row l: Miss Leighton, Mrs. Hagarth, Mrs. Nichols Mrs. Mazzotra, Mrs. McChesney, Miss Cohen. Row 2 Mrs. Hayman, Mr. Rivers, Mrs. Leisher, Mr. Petrillo Mr. Cornell, Mr. Ethier, Department I-Ieadg Mr. Little: Miss McLane, Mrs. Pike. Not Prerent: Miss Ashley. To give an impression of the year at Newton South in 200 words is like trying for a good snapshot of one's wife, or like finding a helpful response to smashing one's thumb with a hammer, or maybe like teaching. It may very well be impossible. How many words for people? How many for place? How many for the encircling world that shines, or dulls, or reddens the eyes that tie us daily to each other? How many for those things for which there are no words, unfinished things between us all which are what's really happening? Should yearbooks note the wounds we inflict upon each other, depict the transfer of history's hang-ups to the future? Or should they rather celebrate only those magic moments when we are surprised by joy? Should they record only the taste of victory, the A's and B's and party faces, teachers chewing learned pipes and fondling promiscous books? Who speaks for the dying in class and corridor? Who has words for the healers, young and old? How incredibly careless we are of each other. How casually we maim and fracture our minds and spirits. How unimaginatively we arrange a space for learning and reflection. No time to know each other, too many faces without names, too many names without faces. Lives too different to stand so close so often without ritual combat and justification. Minds slam shut on minutia or loll open to spill out discretion. Questions too large to ask. Answers so shrill only dogs can hear. And yet, to use the current jargon, this is where it's at , this is tell- ing it like it is. This is what the world, what life is like in our time- crowded, abrasive, incoherent, threatened by relatives, challenged by un- familiar authenticities, confused by monumental fictions, sustained by outrageosly beautiful hopes. So day by day we stand forth upon the balance beam, teetering out an order over the abyss fashioning new creation for tomorrow. Thus I exhaust and go beyond my 200 words in an impression of leaving an impression. Yet perhaps the energy and whirl of so much life, like viewing the sun, requires a dark glass to be perceived at all. R. S. WICKS 1 I