Shaker Heights High School - Gristmill Yearbook (Shaker Heights, OH)

Page 22 text:

STUDENT LIFE High school is the twilight of that over-analyzed stage of life, adolescence, and it is the dawn of reality. It is a peculiar combina- tion of an end and a beginning. Here the un- complicated but cloudy world of childhood meets its end and emerges as a world begin- ning to assume the dimensions of adulthood. There are three years for this transition; and each of the three has a particular personality and attitude. The sophomore year is exuberant and expectant; the junior, happy and enthusias- tic; and the senior, filled with satisfaction, antic- ipation, and perhaps a bit of reminiscence. Three years of time have brought a change. And when they fall into perspective, there is a bit of regret for things undone and a bit of hap- piness for the things accomplished and the fun that came along. An individual develops in accordance with the dimensions of his life; and time is the fourth and most significant dimension. It does not seem to pass evenly: there are those endless days which drag on forever, and there are those hours which change from the future to the past with almost no sensation of a present. Its effect is constant, though, for there is a change in each person as time carries on his life and is spent as high school years.

Page 21 text:

FAIR SHAKER ... IN HER FRAME OF GREEN. THIS is how we shall remember our school. We shall remember the sundrenched beauty of quiet afternoons when we lounged under the protective trees that line the oval green where Shaker stands. We shall remember the great show the fat grey squirrels used to put on just outside the first floor class- room windows, running and flaunting their tails and hiding nuts. We shall remember that here we pursued academic perfection, that ever receding dimension. Here we tried to gain variety of experience through par- ticipation in clubs and activities. We made our greatest achievements in our last year, as seniors. Especially as sen- iors, but throughout our high school years, we were deeply concerned with time, the fourth dimension of life. We did not confine our education to the high school, but tried to extend our knowledge by going out into the homes and shops of the Shaker community. Our education was a life process measurably influenced by the people around us — both teachers and students. They caused us to change our ideas, thoughts, and, sometimes, our ways of behavior. Our relations with them changed our perspectives. We saw quiet tragedy in a dark corner, and we learned that life is hard. We saw some of the individual nobility which man has attained, and we learned that life is good. We shall remember Shaker as a place of beauty where the individ- ual spirit could grow. 17 )H ' f ' rr- TY

Page 23 text:

.,» ,V». «W«»v««|! »s m ' . H ' 9 I