Polytechnic High School - Caerulea Yearbook (Long Beach, CA)

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22 CAERULEA '20 friends, accept defeat tomorrow, and try to appreciate its vast bene- fits. That is all.n The last was pure sarcasm. Imagine Jack Dempsey hitting you a sleep-producer on the chin, and then when you were listening to the sweet little birdies sing, he would softly murmur, liThat is alli' From that moment on, we loved Griggs and influenza in the same way. The old kill-j'oy hadnit leit us a chance to get the team rein- stated. We would have to play Pasaderia with a bunch of rah-rah boys, who oouldnit wrestle a playful puppy. we were going to he stepped on, murdered, and humiliated by our blood-thirsty rivals in order to afford pleasure to a dilapidatexi old sand-crab, who had funny ideas, and used us to practice them on. The entire student body would have gladly led him to the lions: in fact we raved about him all clay and night, and early next morning, or eleven o'clock to be exact. our board 01 strategy met. This strae tegic group consisted of the team, the. coach. and a few oi the leaders in school, and the conversation scorched the wind. It ran like this. iiHere we are with a team that could have knocked the paint off the Pasadena goal posts every quarter, a hunch that could beat iem as easy as falling off Pike's Peak, only easier, because you've gotta climb Pike's Peak heiore you can fall oil. And then to have this bird crab the act! Can you feature it? The team was about to give up the ghost and pass resolutions proclaiming Griggs a second Kaiser, when Walt Daly, the brainy one of the crowd. began to come down with an idea. He began: ilisten fellows! were going to get murdered tomorrow. Ain't you the little fortune teller, moaned Tim Donnoly. You ought to play the races, Walt. Some of you want to quit school, continued Daly, and a few of you want to burn down the gym, but neither will do us any good. Pasadena will beat us just the same. Therefore, I propose that if we must get beat, letis make it so had that nobody will ever forget it.

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Nineteen Twenty a crime to win them. According to Griggs, a genuine fourteen cart sports- man was the fellow who would start in a race and come in a block or two behind carrying the other fellowts hat and coat. Our particular: style of giving the ball to the fulI-back and then shoving him And the pigskin thru the entire opposition, nearly caused this motherly old soot to do the Shimmie from nervous prostration. It made him shudder when we defeated every school in the IeagUEe overwhelming Whittier 69 to O, and getting in great shape for the game with Pasadena. That of course was our big game of the year. and when November wore away, we began to watch our team practice everyr afternoon after school, and then we would dream about them all night. Then when we were sure that Pasadena would come to grief, presto, and the sun went out of our lives. Alexander Griggs had played his trump card, and he had played it well. It wasntt exactly a blow to the team; it was more like the ex- plosion oi a Big Bertha . It was during the football assembly, the day before Thanksgiving, that Griggs begged leave to make a few remarks, and then what did he do but paralyze eighteen hundred students and a whole team of gridiron gladiators. With the following words: ttAs chairman of the committee that passes upon the eligibility 0f your football players, I have decided that the entire team is in- eligible. The reasons may not suit you but they suit me. Young

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LITERARY 23 Let me pick the team. and FM wager my headgear against TEE shoe- string that the Crown City gang won : serpentine from joy alter the game. The coach said he didnlt care: the rest of the gang said Daly or the devil could pick the team, and since his Satanic majesty was busy, Daly was left in charge. He began to plaster the toiwn with placards and hand hills. They read something like this: llA new teamealong With new rules, and an absolutely new style of game will be intro- duced by Long Beach. The famous Griggs' system of footbaIl will be put into practice by the local team, and amazing results are to be expected. It added, that tea would be served between halves, and that the admission would be free. This advertising brought out the largest crowd in the schoolls history. The stand and bleachers were packed, while every avail- able inch of space around the field was taken up by visiting autos. At oneAthirty olclock, one hour before the game was scheduled to start, Griggs took the seat of honor, and he looked pleased as tho he had inst reformed a tribe of South Sea Islanders, and was about to see them devour cooked meat for the first time. At exactly two-twenty, the Red and White team came trotting out on the gridiron. They were certainly a husky bunch, all of them. Our real team, most of whom were seated together in one section of the grandstand, got up and cheered their opponents vigor- ously. Griggs smiled. The dear young chaps were doing marvel- ously well, he thot. Then out team made its appearance, and we stood up and yelled ourselves hoarse. We forgot our hatred for Grlggs, we forgot the dark future, we forgot everything, and then we settled down to en- joy ourselves. Daly had outdone himself in picking that team. First in line, and carrying the ball on a pillow, came Billy Mignon. He's the chap who doesn't dare hang around a soda fountain for fear someone will pick him up by mistake for a lemonade straw. He had on ice