Seven Hills High School - Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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Milestone your waiting and longing, but still hoping. If you were not lucky, it was different. You were all by yourself on Christmas Eve, because you wanted to be alone with your memories. You went to your desk, or your hope- chest, or wherever you kept his letters, and took them all out, Then you looked at his picture, inscribed, in a beloved hand, To my darling Janie, or To my best girl, Pat. There he was grinning at you in that crazy way of his. Remember how you teased him about that ridiculous lock of hair that was always falling over his left eye? Remember how he sent it to you, in his first letter? Angel, he had said, treasure this lock. I finally persuaded the barber to give it to me, and now the whole camp calls me 'Curlylocksf You did treasure it, and there it was, blond and curly as ever. Remember how you used to flick it back from his face? And how you wondered where the owner was. So this was Christmas? What was so merry about it? Honey, he wrote in another letter, I am now on a tropical island, which would be beautiful, if it weren't for the fox-holes and barbed wire, The ocean is blue, the sun is hot, and the mosquitoes are awful. How I wish I were home! That's what he had wanted most, to come home, And here it was Christmas, and he was never coming home, because he was lying some- where on a South Sea island, under a white wooden cross. I-Ie was dead, and yet they talked about Peace on Earth: Good-will toward Men. Outside, children were singing: God rest you merry, gentlemen: let nothing you dismay. Let nothing you dismay? Johnny was gone, Johnny who loved you: and Tommy - you never met Tommy, but he was in love with somebody, Johnny, and Tommy, and Rodney, and Monty, and Pierre, and Jean, and Juan, and Ivan, and Dmitri: thousands and thousands of them, dead or dying. Was this Christmas: death and sorrow, and loneliness? I-Iis next letter was one you would cherish always. 'Alf anything happens to me, darling, don't worry too hard. Have a good cry, and then go on as if nothing had happened. I know you won't forget me, but just remember me as a guy who stepped into your life for a while, and then stepped out again. Now, don't worry, darling, I don't intend to get killed by some puny little yellow- faced monkey. It's just that we do a lot of thinking out here in our fox- holes, with the bullets whistling past, We are all homesick and when we get together, we bring out our muddy-fingered snap-shots, and talk about our wives and sweethearts and kids, Before I came out here, I didn't expect to come back, but now I know I will. Just wait till the doorbell rings, and you see me standing therel Baby, just remember this: we don't think the job were doing is so big: it's just something that's got to be done. We are going to get it done, quick, for you, Baby, and all the people in the world. Well, he would never ring your doorbell now, He would never laugh with you, or take you to the movies. I-Ie was gone, and yet he wasn't, really. I-Ie had given you the most precious thing he had to give, and he wasn't sorry when he did. He wouldn't ring your doorbell any more, but there were memories. Maybe that was Christmas: a time to blot out sorrows, and keep page 85'

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Milestone g F - waiters that ran at a dog trot. carrying loaded trays high up above their heads on stiflly extended arms, balancing the trays on three fingers. The furniture was of bamboo, the lights were rosy colored, and the vines and jungle plants extended from the ceiling. We couldn't even guess what the Chinese dishes were when we read the menu and so we asked the smiling waiter in the coolie coat to choose for us. We had a fine chicken soup in little cup-like bowls, a meat dish with green bean sprouts and rice, no bread of any kind, no extras. - the sauce was of mush- rooms. Our desert was almond cookies and tea, fragrant golden tea served in little handleless cups. This time there was no hamburger. We enjoyed our excursion in foreign lands, taking our tour in gastronomics in Chicago. ANNE MCTNTYRE, '47 'Ss Q X X W - High School Essay-Honorable Mention WHAT CHRISTMAS IS Christmas is many things. To little children, it is stockings and Santa Claus. lt is Christmas trees and candy canes and presents. lt is excitement and happiness. Little eyes sparkle, little hands clap, little feet dance up and down. lt is learning about Joseph and Mary and little Jesus: it is singing Away in a Manger. lt is playing with new trains and putting tired dollies to bed. lt is putting on new snow-suits and trying out new sleds. lt is joy and gladness. lt is Christmas. To the grown-ups, Christmas is different. Last year it was different from this year. Last year, like this, overseas packages were mailed by October fifteenth: but then you waited two or three months to learn if they had, or had not arrived. You sent Johnny a flashlight Cif you could get onej, or a pen, and, especially, lots of photographs. On Christmas Eve, you wrote him a long letter, telling him how everything was at home, saying you hoped he had received your packages, and thanking him for the bracelet he mailed from Paris, or the ridiculous grass skirt from the South Seas, You told him how you missed him, and how you hoped he would be back soon: you were crying as you wrote, but you mustn't let the tears splash on the paper, that thin air-mail sheet, which took longer than V-Mail to reach him, but it was something of yours that went to him - maybe. If you were lucky, that was what you did. That was Christmas to page 84

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Milestone the pleasant memories. That's what he wanted you to do, and that's what you would do. For you, Christmas was a time of memories, of happiness, a time to be happy, and to make others happy, a time for giving, a time for love, for singing, and visiting, and going to church. That was Christmas. This year is different. The guns are stilled - we hope, forever. Thousands of boys have come home: and for those who will never come home, the longing is no longer so aching, but wistful, sad, perhaps a little philosophical. The war is over. The little things you missed are here: you laugh now over what once seemed so colossal. Gas rationing is over: meat rationing is over: shoe rationing is over. Soon you can buy nylons, radios, and cars. I-low important they were, when you couldn't get them? You wonder why you thought so much of little things that didn't matter! Maybe you are one of the lucky ones who didn't lose somebody dear to you. NVe hope you are, but you must be one of a few. Those of us who have suffered will, in time, forget the bitterness and horror of what is past, and do our best to make this world a better one, You are not going to wait till New Year's to write your resolutions: you are going to make them now. For you, Christmas is a time of peace and good will, and of resolve to help your fellow man. So you want to be a philanthropist? Well, that's fine, if you stick to it. Doesn't seem to be much wrong now, does there? The war's over, life is almost normal again. Really, there isn't much to do. You can sit down to a Christmas table heaped with turkey, sauces, vegetables, fruits salads, and nuts, and top off dessert with a glass of champagne. But, wait a minute: if you really want to be benevolent, here are some facts that might help your There is probably not one little boy or girl in France today who has ever tasted ice-cream. Few of them have ever seen an ice cube. The only chocolate they know is what the Americans have given them. But that's only the beginning. Maybe you live down South, and you don't realize how cold it can be. Maybe you live in Maine, or Massachusetts, or Minnesota, or Ohio, and you need all your winter clothes. But do you really need them? The wind blows cold in Paris, Brussels, Oslo, Moscow. The snow falls fast in the Pyrenees and the Carpathians. Food is scarce. Paris children gather twigs from the Bois de Boulogne, to feed their tiny fires. Berlin children crawl through the rubbish of Unter den Linden, looking for food that is not there. Freezing, starving Poles and Czechs shiver in drafty railway stations, waiting for trains that may, or may not, come. Little Jewish skeletons sip their meagre bowls of porridge, nibble at the single hunk of black bread, that it may last longer. They are starving, They are freezing. They are dying. This is Christmas. Christmas, they teach us as children, means peace and love, understanding and giving. You who have so much, give to those who have so little, Stretch out your plenteous hands across the sea toward the broken, fragile, scrawny souls and bodies. Give them your hearts, your hands, your love. For love is God, and God is Christmas, and we were made in God's image to love one another. CAMERON DILL, 146 page 86