Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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THE VOYA GEUR Tl1e Venture by D. HASKELL THE SUN was just rising, in a cloudless sky, as they left the city behind them and headed for an unexplored region north of Lake Payne. They followed a blue ribbon of water, that threaded its way for about twenty miles, through the deep shadowy valleys of the nearby mountains. Then suddenly the car skidded off the road, hitting a tall, stately elm, as it rounded the hairpin turn. The crash, which could be heard for miles, was followed by a ghostly silence. From this silence came a hoarse voice, whis- pering, uHilda darling, are you all right?', No sound was heard from the limp form that he held in his arms. Now, as John passed through the partly open door, he saw a thin, pathetic figure of a once beautiful woman, lying as still as if in some far distant land. She lifted her eyes from the book she was reading and upon seeing her husband a smile broke through the long jagged scars on her white face. ul wish,', said John, MI could find out why you are always so happy and gay, despite such a dreadful handicap. HWell, l'll tell youf' said Hilda, 'cl will never give up the hope of recovering the use of my legs, because it is only when you think you are beaten that you really aref, He had to admire her courage and determination to overcome such a great handicap. Then his mind would involuntarily go back to the stormy night that he and his wife had planned their fateful trip. If he had not seen that open map on the table, all this might have been averted. PHOTOGRAPH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS- Page 18-Green, pp. 20, 23, 26, 27, 30-Perry, pp. 33, 34-T Green, p. 35-Perry, pp. 39, 42+-Green, p. 43-Perry, p. 47- Buddg pp. 52, 53, 54-Perry, p. 55-Budd, pp. 56, 58-Perry. 31

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THE VOYAGEUR Spring Fever by JACK BART1-:R There always seems to come to me When buds break out upon the tree, A kind of restless, longing pain That April sometimes soothes with rain. When the earth once more is green And raindrops, with their brushes, clean Black dirt from elms and maple trees, Who cradle new life on their knees. The pine trees too are freshened by The gentle offerings of the sky, Their green cones mutter all around That life anew her trumpets sound. Up in the sky the birds return With happy notes, new songs they learn, While in the field the patient dog Stalks frightened gopher in a log. When sap is running, snow has gone, When all our future seems to dawn Before our ever-wond'ring eyes, At spring, our nature's Paradise. The Secretarial Stay?--long unsung. Miss V Thompson, Miss M. Richardson, Mrs. E. F. Streeter 30

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THE VOYAGEUR Blackout by JACK BARTER ICHT, BLACK AS THE SHADOWS on the River Styx, drooped a funereal -L pall of ebony over the once-gay streets of London. Gone were the merry cafes, the busy rush of Londoners bent on pleasure, business, or the task of living. The population was decimated. Death was the conqueror in this final blackout. The mighty generators that once had fed their rushing rivers of power to that great city were stilled forever. They rusted silently in their faded housings, copper tarnished, steel monsters covered with dust. For now there was no one to run them, to pride in their roaring efficiency. ln the middle of Trafalgar Square a shattered mound of cement marked the monument to Lord Nelson, the board pavement ripped and torn where a new type nitrol bomb had found its final resting place twenty years before. The buildings in the streets seemed ghosts of their former selves, windowless, dusty, uninhabited save for the bats which looped and spun through the dreary corridors. Now and then a brick, loosened by wind and rain, tumbled from a projecting cornice to fall with a dull crunch of the unyielding cement below. The shrouded moon rose out of a cloudy grave, a rusted signboard, once glittering with neon, creaked dismally in the soft wind. Over the ground a white mist, partially obscuring the ruins of an anti-aircraft gun emplacement, from which the lean slim barrel pointed crazily to the sky, silent now, with no object for its deadly cough. The moonlight crept into a wide doorway, illuminating briefly a skeleton, crushed almost beyond recognition by the detonation and concussion of high explosive shells. The date of construction carved in the cement above the door, nineteen forty one, was half obliterated by a sheet of metal blasted from the roof by continued explosions. A half-wild rabbit scurried across an open space, disappearing into an open doorway. They had nothing to fear now, they were immune to human diseases. An overturned cab lay on the sidewalk, seemingly emblem- atic of the vanity of the human race-they could conquer material things, earth, sea and sky had bowed to their inventive genius, but now that genius had been lost. ln London there still lived men, born amid the shriek of air-raid sirens and the screams of wounded civilians. Death leaned over their shoulders with the first movement of their tiny limbs. They skulked like shadows amid the ruins, satisfied with mere sustenance. Civilization had overstepped itself, and had fallen back a thousand years. Wars had fostered more wars, and man had reduced his vaunted standards to those of the primeval. He would rise again, perhaps to fall once more, perhaps to evolve on a higher plane of understanding, a better, more ef- ficient civilization, for trumpets would blow beyond the stars and man would rise and follow to greater heights, not of mere conquest, but of achievement. The best of life would be rediscovered, and once more man would conquer the vastnesses that lay ahead. 32