Siskiyou Union High School - White and Gold Yearbook (Weed, CA)

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had the world's first L line, opened in 1868, with small steam locomotives as power. The earliest successful electric lines were put in service in 1888. Work started on the world,s Hrst subway, in London, England, in 1853. It was not ready for service until ten years later. The supremacy of the railroad, as the common carrier, is today being challenged by the automobile, the motor bus, truck, airplane, and sea-going ships which are taking freight through the Panama Canal at cheaper rates than the railroads can offer. Busses and trucks are public carriers in cities and between cities across the continent. GORDON TRUAX '50, Butte Valley High School. SILVER LIGHTNING Don West stopped as usual on his way home from school to gaze through the window of the secondhand store. , Yes, it's still therelv he said aloud and gave a long sigh of relief. Each day he almost dreaded to look for fear Silver Lightningf' as he called the bicycle to himself, would be gone. It certainly was a handsome bike and obviously it had been used very little. The tires were scarcely worn at allg the leather seat had a smart looking cover of blue and orange plaid material. Even the headlight still worked. The price of the bike was very reasonable, considering its condition. Don would have bought it weeks before if he had had enough money. The trouble was he couldn't buy it until he got a job, and he couldn't get the job he had in mind until he got the bike. Don promised to pay Mr. Blake from his earnings the first week, but Mr. Blake had declined to sell except for cash. No, Don, not that I don't trust you, but you see that sign-it says 'cashf and I have to treat my customers all alike in order to be fair. Once in awhile I do let an article go out for half cash-you could pay the rest later. Mr. Blake's offer did not help, because he did not have that much money. Across the street he saw John and Bill riding past on their bikes. Wouldn't I like to be going with them on 'Silver Lightningf thought Don. Then he remembered he and John were not on speaking terms. For years, almost all their lives, in fact, Don and John had been the best of friends. In a way it was Johnls bike that had caused their trouble. Whenever they went anywhere they would walk because Don did not have a bike. Then when Bill moved into the neigh- borhood, Don found himself left out of practically everything. Bill had a fine bike and naturally enough John and Bill liked to ride together to the more distant places. One Saturday, some weeks earlier, the three boys had planned a trip to the lake. John and Bill had ridden on ahead with lunches for all three. Don had furnished the sandwiches, and the others, the fruit and cookies. Walking, Don was to join them as soon as he could. When he reached the lake John and Bill were nowhere in sight. After waiting for some time, Don decided they were playing a trick on him and did not want him along, so he trudged the long way home, hungry and tired. John had come over in the late afternoon demanding to know why Don didn't go on to Indian Back, as they had asked him to in the note they had left on a rock near the lake. I didn't see any note, said Don, stiffly. I don't think you left one. Of course this remark started the real quarrel. They had glared at each other and had said many unkind things, with the result that they were no longer friends. 25

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A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN TRANSPORTATION SECOND PLACE ESSAY In the beginning, man was his own beast of burden. It was the woman, though, who did most of the actual burden bearing, as it is still customary among primitive peoples. Simple devices were invented to enable a person to carry greater loads, such as yokes to suspend weights from the shoulders, tumplines around the forehead or chest to help sup- port che load, and crude sledges for dragging loads along the ground. Man had tamed the ox and the donkey and taught them to carry loads and to draw the wagon, we find records of their use in Egypt as far back as 2700 B.C. The horse did not appear until later, and then it was used chiefly in war. The camel became the ship of the desert in very ancient times. The elephant was trained for riding and to carry or draw heavy loads in the Far East. The llama became the pack animal of South America, the yak, of Tibet, the water buffalo or carabao, of the Malay Peninsula and the Philip- pine Islands. Dogs were used by the Plains Indians of North America to drag their tent poles. Eskimo dog trains and reindeer still do the carrying in the Arctic regions. The ox cart and the prairie schooner, drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, enabled white men to occupy the interior of North America. But long before men had invented the wheel, or had tamed animals, they discovered that a hollowed tree trunk or the inflated skin of an animal could be easily pushed through the water by a flat piece of wood. For over a hundred years, the means of transportation in the American colonies were few and simple. Since the highways at first were the streams and the Indian trails, the colonists used boats or walked. They at once adopted the birch- bark canoe of the Indians as well as the dugout It did not take them long to improve on the hollowed log. They built flat boats, heavy rectangular craft with straight sides about four feet above the waterline, and larger ships fitted with sails. The development of means of transportation is an important part of the story of civi- lization. The backward peoples are the isolated peoples, who have not the means of coming into contact with others. It is by waterways that Europe has expanded to the far corners of the earth. It is the waterways, which, more than any other geographic factor, have determined the direction and the character of significant historic movements. In America, roads developed slowly, because the large towns were on or near the sea- coast, and coastwise ships furnished transportation between them. Trails were considered good enough for postriders and farmers who traveled by land. The first improvements were blazing the trails by slashing patches of bark from trees with an ax to mark the wav, and clearing out stumps to make a path wide enough for a wagon. Work of this kind marked the start of the Common Road between Boston and Providence in 1654, and other noted colonial roads. Stage coaches did not come in until 1774, when the first stage coach service was begun between Boston and New York. From 1830 to 1860 was the golden age of travel on the Mississippi River. Log rafts, flatboats, and keeled boats floated down the river, loaded with manufactures for the inland and with the farmers' pork and grain for the great export market at New Orleans. The modern industrial era passed into its second phase with the introduction of the steam railroad and the steamboat in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Up to 1850 there were only about nine thousand miles of railway lines in the United States. Between the Middle West and the Pacific, travel was by foot, horse or ox team. The first street cars were run in 1832 in New York City. They were pulled by horses. Railroad lines also were given a right-of-way on elevated lines or subways. New York 24

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Don really didn't like to think about the quarrel, so he started thinking about the bike. There ought to be a way to manage, thought Don. Maybe Mr. Jones would let him work a week or two without a bike. He went into the Jones newspaper oHice and found him busy at his desk. Oh, hello, Don. Did you get the bike? No, I haven't yet, Mr. Jones. Couldn't I distribute the papers by foot for a week? suggested Don. Then I'd have enough money to pay down on it. No, I'm sorry, Don. You' couldn't get the papers delivered fast enough, walking. By the time you got to the last few houses it would be late and I'd have too many com- plaints. I'11 tell you what I'll do-today is Wednesday. I'1l hold the job for you until Sat- urday, then if you can't get a bike I'll have to hire a boy that has one. O.K., Mr. Jones. I'11 see what I can dof' That evening from Don's window he could see John and Bill talking on the porch of John's home next door. He supposed they were planning an excursion, and sure enough, next he saw them riding their bikes toward the lake. Don had several errands to do after school, so it. was growing late when he reached home. His mother called to him from the kitchen window, I see that Mrs. Young is hav- ing trouble with the chimney. Won't you run over and see if you can help her? Ordinarily Don would have responded immediately, but it was different now. If he helped Mrs. Young he would be doing John's work, and he didn't want to do anything for John. Before he had time to explain, he heard a slight commotion.. Then he saw John riding into the yard. i'John's there now, he answered his mother, he can fix the chimney. Their ladder is broken,', said his mother. John is trying to repair it but I heard his mother say they hadn't any suitable nails. Without any further comment, Don ran to the garage and got the ladder his father had made. With the aid of the good ladder, the two boys soon had the chimney repaired. As Don started home with the ladder, John said, Come over after supper. I have something to show you. It's pretty importantf' Working on the roof with John had brought them together. It seemed to Don that nothing was wrong between them. Note or no note, he still liked John, who had stood by his side from kindergarten days to his sophomore year. When supper was over he went over to John's house. Don waited for him to show him whatever it was that was so important, but as John didn't bring anything out, he soon forgot about it, and they visited as of old over a pan of popcorn. Don soon found himself telling John about the job he could get if he had a bike. Gosh, said John, do you mean if you had a bike for just a week you could get the job? And buy 'Silver Lightningf too? Yep, that's rightf' Well, holy smoke, you can use my bike next weekf' I Don gasped, I couldn't do that, John! You wouldn't want to spare your bike for an hour and a half each day for a whole week, would you? Oh, yes, I would! I'd do anything to help you get your bike AND the job. Iill go with you the first thing in the morning to see Mr. Blake and Mr. Jones,', John promised. As Don was leaving, his friend took from his pocket a paper, damp and soiled. This is the note we wrote you that Saturday. I guess it didn't show up much. The rock was almost the color of the paper, and the weight was also the same color, but we thought you'd find it. I shouldn't have doubted your word, anyway, said Don. 'Tm terribly sorry. John escorted his friend to the door and said goodnight. A week passed and Don had his bike, thanks to John. Now they are the best of friends again and since they both have bikes, they are planning far distant trips together, and Bill is included in some of their plans, too. ' ALICE CARTER 'S 1, Butte Valley High School. 26