Oakwood School - Quercus Yearbook (Poughkeepsie, NY)

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1932 T DRUS l1932 ested in. I like just living. The thing I want more than anything else is to find something which gives me a deep satisfaction which failures and disappointments cannot harm. We all want that, I suppose-so I have yet to find my life work. Ginnie-Well I guess we'll all be far apart twenty years from now, but it's so fascinating it seems hard to wait. But then, life is very full after all: looking back in twenty years to this commencement will probably seem very short. fEnd of first scenel Scene II Scene: room in Boys' Barracks. Time: june IS, I932. As the curtain rises, we discover Jim Reagan, George Kuchler, Walter Ham- mond, Nelson Griggs, Shrimp Shaw, Len Paclgham, Frank Dickerson, Vincent Cochrane, Barton VanVliet and Harold Brown. Nelson: Hot Dog! Get a load of this letter from Oberlin I fReads letterl. Your applicatidn for admission has been considered and accepted. Vincent: What are you going to take up there ? Nelson: Music. Some day I want to conduct an orchestra or even com- pose - but that's a long way off. Anyway, I do want to get enough of a musical education to be able to direct a real orchestra. Len: I think I'll 'leave my music for recreation and go into a more practical field. Take banking for instance. One could do a lot of good helping people with their financial affairs. After all money is rather importantg the lack of it certainly is - George: I like the fight of the business world. The feeling of control- ling hundreds or thousands of other people and working to raise their standards of living. What I really want to do is to try to bridge the gap between capital and labor. Jim: I don't believe that you can bridge class gaps that way-by changing material things. I want to help really close those gaps by educating the members of the various classes so that a fuller understanding may be reached. You don't usually expect the son of a teacher to want to be one, but I guess I'm an exception. Vincent: I don't think that it is possible 'to erase inequalities by any means-not even eugenics. I want to try some phase of psychol- ogy. I don't know how l'll use it, but it looks like an appropriate field. Harold: I'm going to take up psychology too. I think that I'll try teach- ing it. I think that I can be most useful there. Nilzcfvrlz

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1932 -- DRUS -- 1932 it may sound sort of common place-but I feel that there is something very worthwhile in helping people understand the im- portance of right food and clothing. I would like to specialize in dietetics. Frieda-I want to take up Home Ee., too. I feel that learning and teaching other people to run a home efficiently and neatly is one of the biggest things one can do for society. Happy people come from happy, comfortable homes. I think that I would be happier in this line than studying abstract things or working in a business office. I-Iope1The things that Dot said appeals to me greatly in nursing. It seems that helping people keep well and strong and caring for them when they are sick is one of the greatest services one can do for the world. It is rather like-well-being a helper of God. Carrie-I want to be a nurse too-but altho I feel somewhat as Hope does-something else has a stronger pull for me. It seems to me that a nurse has one of the greatest opportunities for an understand- ing of character-of human hearts and desires. Thru this under- standing there is so much help, mental as well as physical, that can come from a nurse. Bee-Ruth, what are you going to do ? Ruth-Oh, I think I should like to study psychology and criminology. I should like to work with prisoners and mental deficients and help them to adjust themselves to society. Dr. Liepman inter- ested me a great deal when she was here. I should like to do somewhat the same sort of thing she is doing. Danie-I'm afraid you'll all laugh when I tell you what I want to be- but the height of my ambition is to be a dress buyer in Lord and Tayl0r's or Bonwit-Teller. To study designing and styles both here and in Paris. It will mean working up from a sales girl- but I think I can do it. Bee-we haven't heard from you. Bee-Well-I think I'll take a secretarial course for a year and go into that field for awhile, but after that I want to go back to school and study something in the line of bacteriology. A scien- tist working with those tiny microscopic bits of life which mean so much to animal and plant life, and most of all to mang it is an ideal I hope I can reach. Ginnie-Helen takes it all in from the corner-come on-what's your ideal ? Helen-I don't know exactly what I want to be. I want to take up literary work, languages, and psychology. It doesn't make much difference to me what I do as long as I find something I am inter- Eiylztvvlz

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1932 -'- DRUS - 1932 Barton: Well, all you teachers, psychologists, musicians, and business men will have to eat and that will be my work to help provide you with food. People sort of look clown on farmers, but I think that if l can be a good farmer l will have satisfied myself. Shrimp : Yes, that's my idea. l want to do something creative, and engineering seems to me to satisfy that. l have chosen the elec- trical side of it, but any field of engineering would do, really. I am just more interested in electricity. Walter: I know you fellows will laugh at my ambition, but l do want to be an aviator, Not one of these stunt flyers, but a regular air-mail pilot. l hope to get my training at one of the Army fields and then try for my transport license. Flying's not being creative, I guess, but it is a great service. fVoice heard in halll: Was that the quarter of ? fSecond Voicel: No, the last. General exit. Shrimp and Harold left alone in room. Harold: 'Goshl All those different careersl l wonder how many of them will get where they want to. It would be fun to look into the future and see what really does become of us. Q End of Second Scenel Scene III Scene: Small restaurant in Rome, N. Y. Time, I952. Characters: Nelson Griggs, Beatrice Merritt, Virginia Taylor, Vincent Cochrane. Characters are seated around a small table with coffee cups in front of them. Nelson: Well, Ginnie, the last thing l thought you would be was a farmer's wife-and lVlickey's at that l Ginnie: You should talk-running a steam piano for Barnum and Bailey! l suppose you compose symphonies as a side line? Bee, are you still in the circus ton? Bee: Yes, but live changed my job. l'm walking the tight rope now. Ginnie: What did you do before? Bee: l was the fat lady but I lost so much weight after I got married to Nelson that l had to quit it. Nelson: What gets me is Mickey being a farmer. K Vincent: Well, l never thought l'd be one, but it's a good life. Ginnie: Remember that last year at Oakwood? Twenty years seemed like a long time then but now that we look back, it's not long at all. I-Iow's the old place getting along now? Twcnfy