Seven Hills High School - Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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Mz'IestOne i W fit IP 5 IN BEHALF OE THE STREET LIGHT When a young man whispers in a low tone: Ah, Light of my life, chances are that he is not talking about a street light. This only goes to show that the average young man doesn't appreciate to the fullest extent the advantages and assets of the street light. Universally, people ignore it, walk by it, completely unobservant of its services to the earth. And who can blame them? Certainly not I, for, as yet, lVl.G.lVl. hasn't produced a film portraying a handsome, poverty-stricken young inventor, in the person of Don Ameche, starving, slaving over his latest invention, the street light! Yes, until that day. the street light will continue to stand unnoticed: and its inventor, be he Greek, Roman. Egyptian, or cave man, will lie unrecognized in the recesses of the earth. As fruitless as this attempt may be, I shall try to point out to the reader some of the contributions which the street light has made toward the safety and beauty of any city, town, or hamlet in which it is employed. The most obvious use of the street light is that of guiding motorists and pedestrians after dark. Sometime during your past, long or short as it may be, you have undoubtedly heard these lines from the old nursery rhyme, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star : Then the traveller in the dark, Thanks you for your little spark: He could not tell which way to go If you did not twinkle so. Well, what would happen to the poor traveller on cloudy nights if it weren't for the street light? This is a rather far-fetched example, but surely you will agree with me that automobiles would be running on the sidewalks, and the late strollers would be falling over fire plugs if they depended entirely upon starlight without any help from the 'AGas and Electric Co. Just for experimentation and the sake of satisfying your curiosity, that is if your mind is temporarily in reverse. try driving a car through Rookwood Subdivision, without the use of headlights, on some night when the street lights are out. If they can't arrange to be out, try using a 'Abee-bee gun. After ending up in someone's fishpond or in the middle of a briar hedge Ctake your choice - it's your carl, page 80

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Milestone High School Essay -First Prize LISTEN Listen? Can you hear it? Listen, not with your ears, but with your whole soul and imagination. Yes, your ears are too small, too inadequate to capture the entire character, the full opulence of personality in the music. Your ears are merely instruments which allow the music to lift you, carry you, to crush and mold you in its many moods. Listen! Open yourself wide. Let this music penetrate into your very veins and nerves, Feel the music, immortal in its opening strains. It floats as if resting on billowy mists that are gently stirred by a breeze. Then it changes to the role of wind and blows the leaves in a swirling game of tag. You can see it. You can feel it. But you are a bystander not for long. You, too, must enter into the game. You are a tiny particle of dust. The music rises away from its opening theme and catches you up with friendly fingers. Up, up you are swept, losing sight of the world and all that is mundane. Your senses are not your own. They belong only to the ethereal bars of music. You are free. The light. yet steady strains throw you about in a sphere studded with gleaming joys and freedom. Worry, sadness, and all unpleasantness is chased away. You are ineffably happy here in the playful, joyous power of music, Listen! lt grows bolder. lt struts, now nonchalant, now diflident, lt trills and ripples like tiny waves chasing themselves down the smooth, sandy stretch, each on millions of tinkling glass feet. It becomes loud suddenly. The ripples are grotesquely transformed into heaving breakers smashing wildly on cutting boulders. ln the turmoil of sound, you are cast from your God-like paradise. Lost, you are pursued by the monster, Faster, down, down you spin, thrilling and yet harassed by fear. Listen! You are once again yourself, The fear and falling are gone. You are suspended in a haven, once again with the world in sight below you and your studded heaven above you, You are overcome by drowsiness and comfort instilled by the music. Love and Beauty sail around you on silvery ships. They take you on board and you drift at random through a sea of sunset. But soon the sea is disturbed by stormy music. Your ships are tossed about and again you fall. The terrific roar of the symphony is almost unbearable, and yet it is awing and inspirational. lt hurls its planet-like weight after you. In its omnipotence you are but a slinking puppy, crouching from your master's rod. You are minute and lost, and in your feeling of weakness, the symphony seems to overpower your tiny form. lt exalts in its own richness and luster, leaping victoriously to its climax. Silence falls, silence like that unheard in the depths of a dense forest, asleep at night. But is the multi-mooded. glorious, and enchanting spell to be broken? No. Listen! You can hear it still. lt is music that lingers., always lingers, beautiful, like the golden resounding of a church bell: powerful, like the roar of a mighty locomotive after it has rounded the bend far clown the tracks. You can always hear it. lt can awe you, thrill you, invigorate and depress you. lt is always there. Listen! LoNsDALE GREEN, 46 page 79

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Milestone I think that everyone will agree that street lights are indispensable as far as guiding someone in the dark goes. Closely connected with the street light's use as a beacon, is the sense of security that it gives to the lone wanderer, After all, adults are just grown children, and the same fear of unknown, unpredictable perils is prevalent in both. Why does a child cry at bedtime? Why does a late caller hesitate to go home? Because the imagination creates images present only in the dark. When in the protective rays of a street light, the traveller assumes his self-confidence once more. No matter what you say, dear reader, even you feel ill at ease alone on a dark street, and you must admit that the frequency of street lights prevents one from arriving at his or her destination with a remarkable supply of ideas for a pip of a nightmare. l shall let you make your own deduction from that, for, unless he is of a definitely morbid character, no one cherishes the memory of a nightmare, and to most people any sort of prevention is welcomed. Therefore, l say that the use of the street light as a haven equals its use as a guide. Quite often street lights have been used as landmarks. Surely, when making inquiry about your way, someone has said to you, Three blocks west and turn left at the second lamp post, or We're the white house with the green street light in front, ' After school when city children gather for a game of hide and seek, they often use a lamp post as home free. And what would the romantic novelist do without a street light for the hero and heroine to meet under? fPerhaps l should say: What would the hero and heroine do? j Think of the usefulness in the lamp post, itself. Mailboxes often are hung on it, as are traflic signs and posters. During conventions and elections one might find flags, streamers, and all sorts of pictures pasted over every free inch of post. The previous items are not the only things that one finds on lamp posts. l-lave you ever noticed the odd collections that gather there on October 3 l P Also, just think of the reckless drivers who would have ended up goodness-knows-where had not a friendly lamp post kindly stopped them. Disregarding the useful side of the street light, for a moment, let us take up its scenic qualities. Have you ever glanced out of the window in midwinter to see the gleam of a near-by street light reflected in the tranquil snow like a million diamonds? Beautiful, isn't it? ln any season one can find beauty in the city through street lights. There is an old-fashioned gas light outside my window, behind which a maple tree has spread its branches throughout the years, so that now they almost envelop the whole lamp. ln the fall there is nothing lovelier than to see the amber glow filtering up through the whole tree. Another fascinating sight is that of the lights of the Parkway, weaving, turning, just as if a huge, luminous serpent were devouring Cincinnati, And on hot, stuffy summer evenings when the front porch feels like the inside of an oven, the cool, clear light of a near-by street light seems to pierce the thickness of the humidity and float gently down on you with each stirring breeze. Although a street light is not something a poet would write sonnets to, it is one of those unrecognized figures which makes a city beautiful. Motu' MAISH, '48 page 81