Scituate High School - Chimes Yearbook (Scituate, MA)

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16 AT THE FOOT OF THE CRAGS Patricia McLean, ' 43 There were days and nights — they seem so far past now — when I could sit by the cold gray stones and dream of peace and beauty. No mat- ter what the hour or the weather, there was love- liness to be found in the vast, illimitable stretch of sea before me. Sparkling and dancing be- neath the early inorning sun; calm and unrippled in the path of silver moon glow; raging like a savage, infuriated beast when the winds hurled foam into the air and the rocks thundered and roared in their teeth — the mood of the sea, mat- tered not, for in each and every change there was indescribable, awesome beauty. That is all a dream now, a dream banished the fatal day the blood of mankind stained the waters red, and the ships of dauntless men went to their haven under the hill, and the air was foul with Death. Now for me there is no more of that breath-taking loveliness I once thrilled to; now I see naught but treachery and cun- ning and murder in every last white cap and wave. The still, shimmering surface, bathed in white moonlight, is but a deadly cover-up for the long, grasping fingers of slaughter, reaching down, down through the inky caverns of water to smash into smithereens young lives and old alike. The tossing, tearing sea is now a mere device to prevent any possible chance of preserv- ing a life clinging to a fragment of board with eager, icy hands. The apparent serenity that comes with a glorious dawn flooded with sunlight is a blind for the previous night ' s insidious dev- iltries. And so I kneel at the foot of the crags and pour out my heart in a prayer for peace. My whispered plea becomes a cry from the depths of a million souls, a cry drowning out the break- ing of the waves and echoing back throughout the hollows in the crags of a joyous, hopeful ring that sings of victory, freedom, and peace! The Most Unforgettable Character I Have Ever Met Howard Tindall, ' 43 Who was that coming at me with the smile on his face? I ' d already had a ten-minute session with some guy whom I couldn ' t place, and here I ' d only gone a couple of blocks and another one was coming on. Perhaps I was mistaken and I didn ' t know him. Not a chance. I got into the Boylston Street gutter to give him every chance to pass, but he waded in after me with hand outstretched. Well! What d ' ya say, Sport? I stammered, voice dripping with false enthusiasm. It was a cinch I was going to have to run through my pronouns, Sport, Chum, Star, Kid and almost anything I could think of at the time. Less every day, Scratch, he laughed. I broke into a sweat. Look, I gotta catch a train. Mosey over to the station with me, will ya? I was only wandering anyway, and so at the end of the second and a half that he allowed me for a reply I was without a reasonable excuse. He waited no longer and, diving into the swarms, took a three-pace lead which I was never to re- cover. I say with all due admiration, he trav- eled like a streak. How ' s the horn comin ' ? he snapped over his shoulder, the volume almost upsetting a poor old lady. OK, we ' ve got a nine-piecer, now, I replied. Had I played with this guy? How are you doin ' ? I yelled, hoping for a lead to his iden- tity . Oh, pretty good on the whole. Say, ya know, I haven ' t seen you since the time we . . . Whip- ping through a narrow gap which closed imme- diately after him, he was lost to me and, when I finally caught up again by taking to the middle of the street and risking the wild taxis, I heard him say, — and so you see, I haven ' t done so badly. I agreed with him heartily as I vaulted over the hood of the car he had managed to beat to the crossing. I recovered my footing just in time to aid an elderly gentleman to his feet after my cyclone friend had knocked his knees out from under him in his effort to duck a dangerous umbrella-spoke of a sun-fearing woman. As we hit the last long stretch and the station rolled into sight, I ran the fifty-odd yard gain he had on me and demanded in restrained tones just when his train was due to leave. Three-thirty-eight, he replied. I glanced briefly at my watch and found to my horror that it read exactly thirty-seven and one-half minutes past three. You have your ticket already, of course, I said nervously, fearing the worst. I heard his reply in the negative from a some- what awkward upside-down position caused by a violent twist to the left which had flung me into a half-turn back soinersault in midair. When I informed him of the time, I couldn ' t see any facial expression of concern, at least from my rather poor view of his bobbing countenance. {Continued on Page 19)

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15 TERRY Anne McKenzie, ' 46 TE H ledhea ERRY was is mother and father were Irish, and he was a typ- ical son of old Erin. He was happy-j; luck) , cr good- natured and frietidly, but like a true Irishman he never backed away from a fight. When he was about two months old. it became neces- sary for him to leave his family and make his home with new but loving parents. At first he was very lone- some and missed his brothers and sisters so much that all night he would keep the en- tire household awake with his cr) ing. But his new par- ents were very understanding and patient with him. When he was just so unhappy that he couldn ' t stand it another minute, they would get him some warm milk. On rare occasions they would even take him into bed with them and talk to him until he was happy and contented again. Terry ' s new mother sang in the village choir, and every Sunday before church when she was rehearsing, Terry and his dad would get into the car and ride out into the country where they would go for long walks in the woods. Terry ' s education in woodlore started very early. His dad taught him everything about trails and paths in the forest. Terry soon learned that although bees were very cute and sounded very funny when they buzzed, they should be left severely alone, because they carried a nastv little dagger that made him cry whenever he felt it. He learned all about the birds in the forest too — that they could disappear in the bushes and no one could find them unless it was a dog just trained to point and scent birds. Many, many hours were spent by Terry and his dad learning just how a little dog would go about the job of pointing birds. And it was really a very good idea, and well worth while because, you see, Terry was a little Irish setter. OUR FLAG Gilbert Patterson, ' 43 In a world of trouble, torment, and tears. There is one thing that may reduce our fears, The thought of our flag — Red, White, and Blue, That stands for democracy and freedom too. It waves on high from coast to coast. Salute it daily, give it a toast. Its sparkling colors shall always be Remembered from the Pacific to Germany. THE WITCH Forbes McLean, ' 46 High on her broomstick she does ride. With the very devil at her side. She spreads destruction far beneath. As she mutters chants between her teeth. Atop the tempest she shrieks her curse, For she is evil at its worst. Her black cat sneers with yellow eyes, As o ' er the paths, the broomstick flies. She thrives on lightning; she hides by fire. And her flames of hate go higher and higher. Her very wish is the voice of doom, As she glides away upon her broom.

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17 A QUESTION ANSWERED John Wilder, ' 43 SINCE I came to America and entered Scituate Hifili School, many people have asked me, is the English school system much different from that of America? Now I ' m going to try to give the answer. The two systems are realh completely differ- ent, so difTerent that it is difficult to know where to start in the explanation. In England we take ten suhjects — English. Latin. French, geography, history, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, art, and chemistry — from the eighth grade through the junior year. At the beginning of the senior year each pupil may decide what eight subjects he wants to take on the School Certificate Exami- nation. The choice, however, isn ' t so wide, be- cause English, British and European history, two maths, either physics or chemistry, and one lan- guage are required, leaving him only two subjects as a choice. I am speaking about an English public school, which is similar to the private school in this country. The public school, though, is the only type which provides any kind of college-prepara- tory education. In the commercial schools there is, of course, a completely different set of sub- jects, of which I know nothing. In further answer to the question I will de- scribe a typical day at The Kings ' School in Ely, which I attended. The day used to start at 7:10 a.m. when the dormitory opened and Jonah would put his head around it to call, Morning, all, ten past seven. With this call, all twenty boys would roll over and reply, ' Morning, ' Jonah. ' After a mad rush for the wash-house, and a quick wash in cold water ( in the winter it often had ice in it), followed by a quick change, everybody would be running down stairs to read the papers before breakfast. At 7:25 a.m. the head-perfect would chant in one long breath, Hurry up down, while he paced through the forty-foot corridor. Hurry up down is short for Hurry down to breakfast, lunch or tea. With this call everybody would literally charge down to the House, a building in the school, to form three lines outside the dining hall doors in waiting for the come-and-get-it bell. As soon as the bell rang, we used to proceed in an orderly manner to our seats (correction, please, forms ) . When breakfast was over, there would be a list of notices to this effect, Attention please, boys; there will be a meeting of the Scientific Club at 4:15 p.m. The Stamp Club will hold a meeting at 4:45 p.m. The Scouts will meet as usual on Tuesday afternoon. That ' s all. After the notices were read, we could walk around the grounds or study in our classrooms until twenty to nine, when it was time to go to the cathedral for a fifteen minute service. Then we went straight to the first class. In the morning we would have four three- quarter-hour classes, with a five minute recess after the second. We used to stop for lunch at 12:20 p.m. and return for the afternoon classes at 1 :45 p.m. All our classes were held in the same room, with the masters coming to us, in- stead of the pupils going to different masters. Incidentally, the English school department had never heard of that amazing innovation, the study period. These were all class periods. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we had only the four morning classes, and after lunch we had compulsory, organized sports. To make the sports, — soccer and badminton in the winter, cricket, tennis, fives, running and track in the summer, — a major activity and interest of the schools, we had four houses or clubs — Ivatt, Ingle, Boultbee, and Burns. These houses used to play house-matches to win soccer or cricket championship cups. To help spread school spirit, we also had two, and some years three, school teams which played many of the surrounding school and college teams. Besides the clubs formerly mentioned we had quite a good dramatic club, which put on from three to five plays in the course of a school year. Speaking of a school-year, we had a much longer one than here. We started on Septem- ber 20, approximately, and went until the end of July. The exams which took place at the end of the summer term lasted a full week. Some of the exams would be two and a half to three hours long. We used to have a type of student governing body, in the sense that there was a group of post- graduates, or sixth-formers, who were called pre- fects, and a second group of seniors who were called sub-prefects. The duties of these boys, about ten in all, were to enforce certain school rules by the donation of detentions to the offend-