Sarah Dix Hamlin School - Epilogue Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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Uur Gund Eridag T was a tense moment at the canteen that awful morning. The boys of the different services, usually so carefree and gay, were all gath- ered around a radio listening sadly and knowingly to the reports of our heavy losses on Iwo Jima. The hostess stood behind the counter with plenty of coffee and doughnuts, which did not seem to be in great demand that morning. Be- tween intervals inthe reports, she could hear remarks which made her shiver made by some of those lads. Guess Fred's about there now -- Yeah, Paul too - Remember, they pulled out together? My brother jim is over there, too - Mother got a letter yesterday saying he was in the vicinity. She noticed one boy standing a little apart from the others. He was a young lad - couldn't have been more than nineteen. He had blond wavy hair and rosy cheeks. His was really a ridiculously boyish face. She saw in this young face a look of calm and thoughtfulness difficult to find even on an older man. After a moment he raised his head and spoke quite softl . 2iY'know, fellas, he said, I've been thinking this thing over, and I've got it all doped out. What we're going through now - this terrible battle we're hearing about and this whole war -is just one long Good Friday. We're paying for our sins now, and some of us will have to die - the Lord knows we're not alone in that. Yes, this is just the Good Friday of the world. But you know what comes after Good Friday, don't you? Yeah, Easter - and Easter will come soon. just you wait and see - The whole canteen was still for a moment. They hadn't heard a speech or a sermon but just the way some kid younger than many of them had the whole thing figured out. And nobody .laughed - nobody laughed. There were many boys there who had never set foot in a church -U but nobody laughed. It was too beautiful and too real. They all felt it too deep down to say anything. V ANNE ST. AUBYN ,47 Thr Qhristmaa Trzz t It stretched its curly wooden 'itoesg It wrinkled up its feathery nose It shook its furry boughs with glee. And made a snowy face at me. NANCIE PATERsoN '4 5

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vines. Farther on we began the real ascent up the side of the mountain, passing occasional Spanish daggers that looked like white fingers pointing to heaven. I reached the summit before the others and gazed at the sea of green through which I had passed. Ahead of me, against the background of a higher mountain, was a water hole around which black objects could be seen moving cautiously. The movement of the waving grass indicated that the direction of the wind was toward us. Instantly all the men leaped off their horses and cocked their rifles. We left our horses, some hobbled, others grounded, and crept forward through the Lmderbrush. Their black backs stood out sharply against the sky. I scarcely breathed for fear one of the hogs would notice me and warn the others. The men stopped when they were about one hundred yards away and fell flat on their faces. just as I landed, there was a series of explosions and angry grunts and squeals as some of the hogs fell and others ran away. Those that were killed were tied and dragged. Then we mounted our horses again and rode over the crest of a hill, several miles away, where we came upon another water hole. This time I leapt off first and led the party through the underbrush, proud of my new-found knowledge. Again we stopped about a hundred yards away, and again there were sounds of shots and squeals. I remember only, for three more hours, a muddle of leaping, creeping, not breathing, sounds of shots and squeals, and then the sun at last climbed gloriously over the mountains. Later, at home, I kissed Mother and fell asleep before the open fire, lulled by the quiet talk of the men as they sipped their red wine and ate their hot enchiladas. ANNE MEEK '4 5 Sunrise The Sun rises, Transforming each drop of dew into a rainbowed pearl, And the sky flames into radiant beauty. A For the rising sun the birds begin their caroling, Bursting their tiny hearts in praise of this new day. Now Chanticleer crows his noisy welcome to the sun, Shattering the silence into blue bits like blades of fine, blue glass. A new day has begun. KAY LocKE ,47 '

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S28 HE SEA. Treacherous, cruel, indomitable. Never has any force of nature had such an effect on men's lives as the sea. As I stand on her white sands staring out to where the gray-green of her swells meets the blue-grey of the sky, I hear a voice like that of a siren in the pounding of her surf, and I am drawn irresistibly towards her as my ancestors were centuries before me. Men grow to hate her for her treachery but once under her spell return again and again, for reasons that they can not define, to ight her and end their lives in her cold green embrace. She is timeless. When the Earth was still young she tossed shells upon her beaches to amuse our predecessors, as one would toss coins to a beggar. The very rocks she breaks upon wear away under the perpetual motion of her tides. Continents disappear and mountains are born from her depths, but only she remains to mock the passing of the ages. In some she fosters love, but none may come to know her. Even while she sleeps, sparkling like a blue diamond under cloudless skies, she claims in her calms her toll of lives of the men who trespass upon her surface. She teases them with salt in her waters, and when she awakens she romps with her ally, the wind, flinging their ships on the rocks like discarded toys. VVherever I go I am conscious of her presence. I turn to her shores blindly, seeking solace in the cold clean winds that whip across the dunes and around the rocks, but all I hear is mockery in her voice and laughter in her waves, I realize that I am but a pawn in the hands of time and my life is but a second in her existence. I remain transfixed once more by the power of this unconquerable being. MARIE BROWN ,45 junglz Shadz , The sun glanced cautiously through the trees. The shade was hot and green, And in that crawling, fetid growth Crouched the foe, unseen. A sharp shot hung on the heavy airg' Then silence closed around. Another precious, unlived life Seeped into the ground. MARIE BROWN '4 5