Reading Memorial High School - Pioneer Yearbook (Reading, MA)

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PAGE FOURTEEN THE PIONEER pher, teaching students in the Agora at Athens, and saw Socrates pass by, teaching some friend or pupil of his about his beliefs in after life. Then the scene changed and I saw Pericles, supervising the building of the Long Walls in Athens, just after the war with Sparta. As I watched entranced, the picture was gone, and I saw Greece in its last days. Then Rome took the stage, and Caesar came to view with his great political reforms and institutions. The years passed swiftly on as Rome was conquered by the Gauls and Germans. There was an intermission here, and I -wondered sleepily if this was due to the fact that some books were missing. I must get them I thought. Then I suddenly perceived Ivanhoe and King Richard fighting in the Holy War, and Ivanhoe finally winning the hand of the beautiful Rowena. Then George Washington entered and the battles of the Revoluton were fought again. Next the Civil War, with Lee, Sheridan, and Grant. Soon dark Spaniards and Cubans took their places, and the American army entered led by Dewey and others. I watched the battles and hardships as eagerly as I had read of them. The World War came next and I listened to General Pershing and Field-Marshall Foch as they talked over their plans, and saw ' our boys as they sat around their camp-fires at night. Just as quickly as it had begun, the scene changed back to times of peace and inventions. Breathlessly I watched Franklin, Morse, Fulton, Bell, and Edison working on their experiments. As I bent over Edison’s shoulder, w ' hile he held an electric bulb, he suddenly held it close to my face, and it went off wdth a loud bang! I leaped to my feet and stared at the four walls, lined wdth books, which surrounded me. It was only a falling log that had awak¬ ened me. As I looked around fondly on my book friends, I wondered how anyone could possibly dislike reading. Books had been my companions many a long rainy day, and if I should ever miss their dear, friendly covers and worn pages, I should feel lost indeed. A library, and especially a library haunted by ghost people, as mine is, is the most interesting thing a person can have. L. W. ’30. ATOMS Have you ever stood by a huge building, the Woolworth Building or the Washington Monument? Have you ever walked across any of the New York East River bridges and cal¬ culated how small you are as a unit of the world? To ourselves we are “quite the berries,” but do we matter to the world or even to our small circle of friends? One of the first times this idea was brought to my notice was in New r York. I had gone up to the top of one of the many big buildings. Looking into the street below, I could see a typical example of the city’s rush hour. Cars made their way up town; now and then to be tied in a traffic knot. Swarms of people reminding me of excited ants made their way to stores or restau¬ rants. Each and everyone of them no doubt thought of his own importance. Through Times Square thousands of people pass daily. The Woolworth Building houses enough people to populate Reading. In this great tide of humanity, one is just an atom. The next time I made note of our smallness w y as at the beach. I had walked halfway to the Point from the Coast Guard Station and wanted to get a good view of the place, so I climbed one of the high dunes. This was about fifty feet above the beach ending in a small table-like top. In back the nearest habitation was an author’s small shack ; ahead of me was the point. To the West lay the great marshes and to the East the Atlantic stretched to France. No one was within miles of me ; the only sound was the booming of a huge surf. Then I

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THE PIONEER PAGE THIRTEEN if I could do as good service.” “Umbrella Sam.” D. B. ’28. And from that day he was called A COLD BATH BEFORE BREAKFAST It was a crisp, cold morning in Jan¬ uary. As I jumped from my bed, I felt unusually ambitious. “Guess I’ll take a cold dip,” I said half-aloud, and followed my words by opening wide the cold water faucet. The water flowed in torrents, and a drop splashed on me. Ooh, how cold it felt. I shivered, and my arms were all gooseflesh. “A little drop of innocent water shall not prevent me from my bath,” I said to myself. The tub was full. Now I would show how heroic I was. I put one foot over the edge of the tub and paused before dropping it into the water. Apprehen¬ sive chills crept up my back, but ignor¬ ing them I made a desperate attempt, and succeeded in putting one toe into the icy water. The toes of the other foot now were in the water. Slowly, hesitantly, my feet went deeper and deeper, and oh, how they ached! I could never take a dip in that icy water. I had decided to take it though, so I did. Holding my breath and gathering my courage I made ready to plunge in, when suddenly I slipped. Straight into the tub I went. I got out quicker than I went in. One cold dip in the winter would suffice for a lifetime. D. G. ’28. CLOCKS Have you ever been alone at night, and suddenly become conscious of the incessant ticking of the clock? It may have had a cheering effect on your lonesome spirit, or it may have jarred your nerves and made you want to heave the clock through the window. It is interesting to note the many different tones and moods the clocks and their varied tickings may show. The friendly Big Ben in the kitchen ticks away the long hours of the day, his black face shining in the sunlight. At night he stands guard, and gleams through the darkness with an eerie greenish light. The little ivory bedroom clock is a quiet sentinel, and, unnoticed because he lacks the magic power of giving light in darkness, ticks softly, yet reck¬ lessly, as the precious hours of sleep fly by. His face, when seen in the daylight, is a wee bit awry, because of a careless workman’s neglect. But it gives him a happy-go-lucky air, and makes him pleasant to look at, a relief from the monotonous straight¬ ness of the features of other clocks. In addition to these, there is the school electric clock, whose tick is dully mechanical, and dreadfully slow. The office clock is another slow clock, drearily ticking off the hours of work. But all ticks change sometimes, and even these guardians of the working hours hurry a little, and life goes along with a hop, skip, and jump. Then, when the time for work is over, and we leave to do pleasanter things, the clocks must go on ticking. Just imagine staying in one place, with but one thing to do, day after day and night after night, just tick, tick, tick! E. M. ’28. HAUNTED LIBRARIES I wandered into my library one day, and as I sat in my deep armchair by the fire, I looked around at the shelves filled with my friends, the books. Whether I dozed or not I do not re¬ member, but suddenly the room seemed peopled with characters of long ago. I saw Plato, the great Greek philoso-

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THE PIONEER PAGE FIFTEEN began to realize that small as I was compared to man built things, I was less than an atom to nature. I got a different feeling, though, I felt it was good to be even an atom and be able to see this world. Lately I’ve begun to wonder whether we, little we, make any difference in the world? When I boil down my thoughts on this it brings me to the idea : I am here, so I must be here for something. That is the prime motive to start religion, the desire to find what we are here for. I think, and history bears proof, that all we are here for is to make the world better in some way. Ghungis Khan and Alexander the Great are on a par as conquerors. We do not hear much of Ghungis Khan but we shall always hear of Alex¬ ander. Why? Because the former did nothing to help the world, but the latter did. Small as we are comparatively, we shall not have lived in vain if we do something to help the universe. T. F. ’30. WHY KEEP A CAT? No. 1929 (Johnson) Saturday, November 12, 1712. Cave felem domesticum cum unglibus acribus (Beware of the cat with sharp claws). One of the Magi. If thou shouldst ask me why one shouldst keep a cat, I might answer thee thus: A cat is not of much use, methinks, but they surely can drink milk. Me¬ thinks most cats need a cow of their own. The cat that I owneth is about six years old. He hath been with us since a kit. I boughteth him from a boy, who used to sit beside me in the elementary school, for a little more than a shilling (25c). Although now’ me wondereth where he excelleth the cat that thou canst buy for nothing. He neither drinketh w r ater, nor eateth vegetables. He wilst eat meat and fish, but he oft turneth up his nose at such favorite morsels. He loveth sour milk and prefereth it oft to sweet. He loveth to rub one’s legs, when he hath just cometh in out of the rain. If one doth not giveth him attention w’hen ' he wdsheth it, he wfilst biteth one’s leg to attract attention. He is very slow, for it taketh him a full three minutes to go through a doorw r ay when one holdeth the door for him. He also loveth to sit in one’s lap when one carveth the chicken, although he is seldom successful in doing this. I meaneth not to say that all cats are like this. Cats usually like to catch mice, this one doth not. Cats are useful in one respect at least, they killeth the mice which are pests, but oft mistake, perhaps, a bird for a mouse. They are lovable creatures and wilst oft singeth for hours, and allowed one to pat them. But look out for him when he w aggeth his tail. Now after all that above has been thought over, we may ask ourselves the original question, “Why keep a cat?” That may be answered, briefly, (1) To catcheth mice, (2) To drinketh milk, (3) To keepeth one company, (4) To scareth old maids by waltzing upon the piano, and (5) last but not least, to maketh themselves good target for some enraged sleeper, who doest not wisheth to listen to their serenade, entitled, “On the Back Fence in the Moonlight.”