Rogers Hall School - Splinters Yearbook (Lowell, MA)

Page 17 text:

K4 , , ,ff fd x f is MQ I hi s THOUGHTS There is a leaf that Clings to a vine outside A Window. The rains spatter it, The wind blows it, The sun warms it, And the frost kills it. Is life like that leaf : Does it cling to a vine With grasping tentacles, Absorbing all it can from The roots until it is forced By the cruel elements of the World to wither and die? Have you seen a leaf tossed around by the Wind ? H-ave you seen a life raked into a heap and Burned with the rest? GINNY BRowN, '57 P1-0uaQAxb

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THREE NIGHTS HAVE I Cloud nights are the gray fog and rain nights. ., . With stinging, curling mists. Unearthly, mystical people and animals dance and cavort, and run with sudden fright- away from the glimmering golden streetlight. Star nights are the crisp, exuberant nights, with sharply defined shadows, and glittering noises, and dancing lights wheeling around the sky, caught for a while as ornaments on the obsidian trees, that crackle in the glacial breeze. Moon nights are the silver nights, when all is filled'with a soft blue light. Ghost people walk through phlox-filled gardens that froth with glistening white petals, ,1 while the-twinkling leaves of white 'f birch trees reflect their silver songs, and the moon swoopsabove the cavorting meadows. STEPHANIE HEALEY, '57

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THE OFT REPEATED DREAM Long before she knew the meanings of the words she spoke, Sarah firmly announced that she wanted to be someone. She wanted to be great- to be applauded and recognized, she wanted her star to shine long after she herself had departed. At the age of seven, she appeared in a short class play, and it Was then and there that she decided her field. She was to be an actress In fact, Sarah already thought that she was, but her task was to prove it to the critics of the nation. Her early years passed normally enough. In outward appearance she went through phases of being passionately interested, and then decidedly uninterested in her chosen profession. To herself, she vowed daily she would be like no one else. She would have no part of being married right after high school or college and devoting the rest of her life to bringing up whiny babies the correct way. That was a waste of time -- a method used by average people to show they had no talent - no greatness, and so they must surrender to the dullness of the common life. At the age of nineteen, life really began for Sarah when she went to try her luck in the vastness of New York with another hopeful to-be actress, Ruth Williams. Although Ruth's career was to be only an interlude before marriage, the two girls got along well and set up a tiny apartment -on the top floor of a rundown boarding housefand began as do so many others - making the rounds of producers' oflices. It was soon obvious that more mo- ney than money from home was going to be necessary to make ends meet, and so the two of them got jobs as waitresses in a fashionable restaurant. It was there that Sarah met Brian, at that time just beginning as a buyer for a small time department store. It is indescribable just what it was that drew the two of them together, for, as a rule, Sarah had nothing to do with those who could not help her in any way. Ruth, on the other hand, was a friend to everyone, and it is probable that Sarah would not have gotten along at all without Ruth's being there to help when the going got rough. Eventually, as it it is with all truly great people, Sarah got her break. Out of the blue she was cast as the lead in Don lMichael's great play Forty- Second Street. When the play closed three and a half years later, Sarah was on top. She had offers pouring in with material written especially for her. Of course, by this time she had moved from her cold water flat and was liv- ing in a swank apartment on Park Avenue. She no longer lived with Ruth. Although still friends, Ruth had had to move out when success moved in on Sarah. But Brian was still around. They quarreled bitterly and constantly over Sarah's attitude on life, yet Brian continued to wait, sincerely be- lieving that the greed of power would one day pass, and they could be together. It was the night after Sarah had been signed to do the lead in Home- ward Angels that Brian asked her to give it all up and marry him. Sarah was shocked. Do you think I have worked and slaved so long and so hard to give it all up and marry you? Don't you realize that if this play is a suc- cess, it just might be possible that I would be awarded the Hadrean Award, an honor going to only the greatest in the world? How could you possibly