Richmond Hill High School - Archway / Dome Yearbook (Richmond Hill, NY)

Page 17 text:

Psychological Ubscrvations Of An Editor '4IT happens even in the best of families. That is, if the family contains one or more of that superior branch of the human race familiarly called teensters,,' but psychologically termed Hadolescentsf, Reaching the all important teens has always meant for young people the birth of the desire to create, but in grandma's day that creative urge was confined to love lyrics or a simple story in which all of the characters were either very good or very bad. Such a story or attempt at writing would be considered most naive by my modern contemporaries. Let us consider the case records of two would-be genii from the files and consider them carefully. First we have the history fthus farj of H. Ovington Perkins, who kills off his characters for a planned psychological reason. On the other hand, here's the record of H. Ovington's cousin Joe, who just kills off his characters. An outstanding characteristic of this new style of writing is the homicidal trend expressed within its pages. Not since the gory days of Shakespeare have there been so many murders per page as one may find in the efforts of any high school literary prodigy. Such first-class butchers as S. S. Van Dine and Sax Rohmer, whose hair-raising works were avidly consumed by H. Ovington's Big Sister and Brother, had better look to their laurels, for they have serious competition. We will consider H. Ovington principally, for there is really little about Joe, or his writing, to interest us. Joe merely imitates his more neurotically inclined relative and hasn't as yet reached a point where he feels obligated to supply a reason for killing oil practically everyone in- volved in his plots and leaving his poor heroes on the verge of suicide, repenting, too late, a life of sin. This is the type of story which ends rather oddly, and for the creation of which you always search a plausible reason, but somehow you never do satisfy your curiosity about the reason anyone even bothered to transmit such idiotic ideas to paper. But, to return to H. Ovington, what influence has environment played in the formation of such great inspirations? Perhaps we should first con- sider Mrs. Perkins, for there's no use even thinking about Mr. Perkins, he never has anything to say about H. Ovingtonis rearing anyway. Mrs. Per- kins, besides being the sort of woman who would wish the name of H. Oving- ton on a poor defenseless baby, is a club woman. ln H. Ovington's forma- Page 13

Page 16 text:

Gfrfirst Lesson They told me when I met you that my heart was very young, They warned me that my surging soul would certainly be wrung. I laughed and loved you all the more for this profound advice, For I was young, and mad with youth, I thought that youid suffice. You treated me so tenderly, your eyes were clear and blue, You made me feel adult, and my love was all I knew. And then I found that even you had human feet of clay, For tired, and quite embarrassed, you stopped loving me one day. And then I knew, too late, that they had only told the truth, And I was left alone to seek some solace from my youth. But I was young, and time has left faint trace of the pain- I know that I am ready to be fiercely hurt again. Jacqueline Scully, January '39 ,X ' .J ll wk as-X, sh K ivgvif- I - . . 1 , 2-K A , -j' ' . - f..:f-gi: 1-5. V I Y Y 5? K . . Z I: ',.,V::.iI Q ,fs ig. .fi 5 , ..v- , g , Iiiwpjvgxx L A -. - kstl- h L... ., ' 'fs' ' - Q iE05HKlll Page 12

Page 18 text:

tive days clubs were lecturing on the psychology of raising problem children, so H. Ovington has been brought up in a psychological atmosphere as a result of over-zealous and misinformed monthly club lecturers. H. Ovington has spent much of his leisure time in the Perkins library consuming Professor Watt A. Nutt's classics, Why People Are Crazy, Every- one Is Some Sort Of An Idiot, Be Happy Yon're Insane, and Mrs. B. A. Neuroticis famous My Ten Years In A Lunatic Asylum, and How To Go Crazy In Ten Easy Lessons. Naturally, such outstanding literature has had some effect on H. Ovington's creations, so let us stop to study some of his stories. Before we attempt this research, let me remind you that H. Ovington is not a new species of intelligentsia. In the days of bobbed hair and the 'fNew Freedom his predecessors were the daring radicals who talked know- ingly at the advanced age of sixteen about free love and communism, and by twenty were the confirmed and worldly sophisticates of Greenwich Village. H. Ovington, however, has enough of a sense of humor to mock the ideas of lns inunediate predecessors as Hunsound rnob reacHon.n llere again,lns psychologicaltraining reveals nself,for one cannot even have a crazy idea these days Without being classed by H. Ovington as a neurotic, a monomaniac, a victim of claustrophobia, or one of any number of other 'Wcsv and uphobiasv Scientific terminology rolls off the tongue of this sage of seventeen, who is quite certain that he is qualified to write of Life and Love as an experu despihzthe factthatthe only genuine enunnnithat he has experb enced is fear of parental disapproval at report card time. The typical plot of any story invented by H. Ovington runs somewhat along these lines. Hero commits some crime because of a mental quirk, probably inherited from his Great-Uncle Archie. fHow H. Ovington loves to drag family skeletons out of the dusty closet and expose the shortcomings of his herois family treelj After this crime has been accomplished, his hero perpetrates some cowardly deed fusually hocking Mamma's pearlsl which brings in his entire family, and so of course members of the family must either kill each other or themselves because of the blot that the hero has smeared on the family escutcheon. In order to spare his dearly beloved for bitterly despisedj wife or sweetheart the shame of his nefarious deeds, yon hero murders her about the middle of the third page. Aha! At least six corpses to H. Ovington's credit in three pages. Not bad for a rank amateur. All that remains for the fourth page is to have the hero's best friend discover the deadly deed Page 14