Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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Down that coast and through such a fog the ship came, feeling her way close in and looking for the black bell-buoy. An old ship, her schooner hull still graceful but her masts cut off short, she easily rode over and down the languid swells, her muttering Diesel barely giving her way. In her bows, crouching, his elbows on his knees, and staring at his folded hands, was the lookout. His hair held droplets of water and his shirt and pants hung damp about his folded body. Once in a while he would raise his head and gaze into the fog, straining for the loom of the land, and then would turn his head sideways listening for the tolling of the black bell buoy. In the Wheelhouse was the helmsman, his feet wide apart, leaning forward with his weight on the spokes of the wheel. He swayed gently with the even roll of the ship and looked forward at the wet deck, the black wet canvas that covered the hatches, and he quickly studied the symmetrical arcs the tip of the ship's foremast cut in the fog. Then he glanced at the compass, shifted his weight back and gave the wheel a half a turn, let it go and when it had spun back to its -original position, again settled his hands on the spokes. He leaned forward, his eyes rose and fixed themselves on the curved back of the lookout. foreward in the bow. He listened for the melancholy sound of the bell buoy. On the wing of the bridge the mate leaned his elbows on the cracked and blistered paint of the rail. His ears, tuned for the distant note of the bell buoy, heard only the sound of the water close overside and the myriad creakings of the ship's timbers, waxing and waning with the vessel 's measured roll and the mutter of the Diesel. The stowaway sat on the high sill of the cabin door, his knees drawn up under his chin. He looked out at the fog through the bars of the rail, at the patches of foam sliding easily past, and at the indefinable point where the gray fog and gray sea merged. The Captain sat behind the stowaway, in the cabin, and looked at the lad 's back. He took a can of snuff from his pocket, where it had worn a round white ring in the blue cloth, and put a pinch under his lip. Then he put the can back. He listened f-or the melancholy note of the black bell buoy. When he heard it he asked the boy, as if the sound had been a signal, Fan you swim ? The boy turned. Sure, Then the Captain called the mate and when he came the two stood over the boy until the black bell buoy came in sight, heaving its round black bulk farther out of the water to reveal the dark brown dripping barnacles and turning slightly so the three could see the large white number-8- painted on the side of the buoy. The bell clanged dismally and the Captain and the mate held the boy against the rail and one of them stooped and pulled the boys' shoes off and then they picked him up and threw him far out over the rail. When the boy came up in a puddle of foam the captain pointed out into the fog and shouted, Swim, kid, it 's only a couple of hundred yards, for the captain thought he could see the l-oom of the land and hear the mutter of the surf. The boy wiped the wet hair from his eyes and laughed and shook his Seventeen

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Now all must remain in question, but there is a story which cann-ot help but have its point for those of us who taught him. An old and famous professor was asked why for years he had made it a practice to bow humbly before each class before he began his lecture. Because, he replied, almost of a certainly there is someone seated before me who is greater than I . ln final and respectful dedication the following lines are offered. They are taken from a last letter of Mike's to one of his friends at the school: I am just beginning to feel that New York is my home. I walk her streets and ride her subways. Her people in their millions are shoddy, but each is, in himself, a man. ller people are what we arrogantly call the 'little peoplef Well, I have found warmth among them and, for myself, ambition. Their Work is my work from here in, and they are my people. until lljll lhlICHAEI,ll'lOllNT'JOY wo iivsnmfin iviniicls SOVTII ot' the American border, where the finger of Punta Baja thrusts out into the Pacific, the coast of Lower California drops suddenly and steeply down to where the rocks are red and wet, and the long combers that roll four thousand miles across the blue Pacific smash in columns of white and subside in puddles of bubbly foam and froth among the rocks. And all along that desolate and barren coast, the only sounds are the eeaseless rush of the wind and the crash ot' the surf and the cries of the effortless White gulls endlessly cruising the air currents thrown up from the backs of the cresting' waves and the high wind-scoured rocks. Sometimes a little desert fox comes and stands with wind-whipped tail and quivering nose, and regards the alien blue horizon, or trots along a sliver of sand among the rocks, ninibly avoiding the rush and spent backwash of the sea. A moment after he passes, the sea destroys his delicate footprints. And under the sea in a green halt-light world, ten thousand creatures lead fierce and unthinking lives among the pinnacles and chasms of the creamy coral, and the unending motion of the sea makes the sea jungle, the beds of purple and red sponge and the cozy inky kelp oscillate for ever and without rest. llere live the squid and sea bass and grouper, and an occasional venture- some chalk-bellied shark, turning in the shafts of ocean-filtered sunlight, sends them darting. Sometimes the fog rolls in and binds the whole coast in gray and stills the beat ol' the surl' and the tolling ot' the black bell buoy moored oft' the point. Si x lf'f'lI

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fist and shouted back, XVell, thanks for the lift, you old bastard. And then the captain and the mate saw the last of him, as he turned in the water and struck out toward land, past. the black bell buoy. The ship swung away, her Diesel picked up, and the fog closed in on her writhing wake. Five hours later the ship lay anchored in the slanting afternoon sunshine a mile from the fish cannery of Frank Tsuomoto, waiting for the boat to come out. The captain sat in the cabin waiting . . . his head swung abruptly, for he had heard a sound,-the melancholy note of a buoy. He heard it again and went -out on deck and saw a black bellbuoy moving with ease and ponderous grace past the side of his anchored ship. And then the buoy heaved part of its bulk farther out of the sea to reveal dripping barnacles and then a quirk of the current rotated and the captain saw with narrowed and horror-filled eyes the large white number-H. the cracker BULLETIN-Fairy Lake, Ont., BURP Cdelayedb' E-d.itor's Note: Any resembl.anee between the laundry in this article and any other laundry, living or dead, is purely intentional and done with great malice. ' CTING ON A Hoi' TIP from a PU. student I decided to get an exclusive story on Raggs' Laundry for this edition of the QC. Early one Wediiesclayf morning I tied myself in a laundry bag, carried my- self downstairs, checked my name off the list and threw myself on the pile of soiled clothes. Not long afterward the laundry truck driver arrived and began to carry the bags out to the truck. He was a vicious-looking character with a patch over one eye, a scar on one unshaven cheek, and a hook instead of a right hand. NVith this he dragged the bags to the truck and threw them in. I will carry the scar for life. During the rough ride to Orillia, several bags of laundry fell out and were lost forever. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of my inspiration, for I had heard the rumours that the laundry did not bother to take the clothes out of the bag, but washed them bag and all. I had horrible visions of being laundered, boiled, starched and finally ironed. So at Orillia I slipped out of my bag and watched thc unloading from inside Raggs' building. Under this further rough treatment by The Claw Cfor that was the driver's namej several laundry bags were ripped open and their contents fell into the mud of the driveway. The Claw kicked them through an open door. Over this door was the following red neon sign: Citizens of Orillia! Do your children raise hola at home? Tear curtains, rip clothes ap? Send them down to Ra-ggs. We will take care of them and they can rip all the clothes they want. Eighteen