South Side High School - Optimist Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

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SENIOR OPTIMIST TRADITION UNDRESSED To talk about tradition is O. K. It's got everything when you just talk,- fwith color,j with glamour and rah-rah,-the stuff that makes you cry in your suds. But to me what's seen it made, it's just another bottle of liniment to be corked and put back on the shelf. I've been trainer at this diploma factory, Christian U., a long time. Tradition at this school goes back to 1921 when it just got out of the cor- respondence school class and got a football stadium. The first year we had a team, it was like leading the lamb to slaughter. We were the lamb. Our major troub'le was that we hired a coach that could take the Gettysburg Ad- dress and spiel it like the Tiger Rag-with variations. He sure could get sad after each game and he sure had cause to. After each game, he'd tell me, with a little tradition for him to work on, heid get the boys to commit legalized murder. We were in a very sad way. It comes that we have only two more games to play, we haven't scored all season and it looks like soon the coach will walk the lonesome road. This was bad because no other man in his right mind would take the job. If we have no coach, then no football. No football, then we lose our nice new stadium for welshing on our second, not so easy, payment. And worst of all, the school goes back to peddling mail order culture. The day set for the next-to-the-last game rolls around. It's a bum day with rain, sleet, snow and what have you. About all that shows up for the game are the players and the officials. It is so bad that the S.P.C.A. refuses to let the mascots out in the wet. In the first half, our right guard gets hep and passes some remark that donlt sit so well on some husky. By chance it happens this husky is what they call hyper-sensitive and is easily inspired to greater things. He sets to work performing mayhem on any bric-a-brac that can be found about,-bric being our Right Guard from the back, brac from the front. The coach senses what is happening so every time the Right Guard gets pinked, he unwraps a sub to warm up and down the side lines. This meatball's name is Gustav Wind. He is a dumbell what would need a collection plate to gather a thought, and the only thing fast about him is his name. The Guard lasts the half, and Wind is in a heavy sweat. In the second half the prima donna ballerina doesn't show up and the Guard, being older and wiser, passes cracks at no one but himself. You can see he is hard pressed toward slipping himself a fast answer by the way the oppostion is waltzing through him. But Heaven is with us and has sent the rain which keeps the score down, anyway. Gustav, back on the bench, surprised at being asked to warm up, forgets to slip back into his jacket so by the end of the game he is walking a fever. He is that slow. Sunday, I spend cleaning the uniforms and listening to the coach moan for tradition. To hear him talk, you'd think all he needed was tradition to get the Sing Sing team a bid to the Rose Bowl. I could almost believe him. The door opens and in comes Gustav Wind. His usually bright gait is patterned Page Twelve

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JANUARY 1939 OUTCCAST It was a cold, grey afternoon. The countryside was bleak and barren. The onlygsign of life was a slowly moving figure which trudged wearily along the narrow winding road. His coat was well worn and he shivered pitifully as the wind chilled him to the bone. He had travelled far that day. He travelled far every day, wandering aimlessly about the country, no home, no place to go. After while, he came to a broken-down house. It was a home,-someoneis home. Maybe they would help him. He passed through the broken gate, up to the house, without noticing the For Sale sign in front. There was no answer, and he turned, slowly retracing his steps to the road. Weary, he travelled on, and presently came upon a little girl with her mother. He raised his head eagerly as the child came toward him, but a sharp word from the woman brought the child back to her mother's side. He kept on and on till the darkness of night crept over the world. Then, his remaining strength spent, he collapsed in a heap at the side of the road. Bk wk Ik Pk HK wk The sun rose, disclosing a white-clad earth. The sun's rays gleamed on the snow which had fallen during the night. In the distance was heard the jingle of bells and a horse-drawn sleigh came into view. A little girl was in the sleigh with her father. At a cry from the child, the man stopped the sleigh and got out. There on the ground, covered with snow, lay a still, cold figure. As the man lifted the frozen form in his arms, the child exclaimed, Oh Daddy, the poor dog is dead! -Betty N ester REVERTE LOST-Sixty precious moments, each set with sixty diamond seconds. No reward offered, for they are gone forever. Time, what is it? How is it measured? The ticking of the clock, the passing of day into night, the changing of the seasons? We bow down to it as if it were a god, it rules us as no king or dictator would. Our every moment is motivated by this force. It is fleeting at our happiest moments, it is at a standstill at our moments of despair. It speeds like a train, it crawls like a turtle. If it is lost, it can never be regained. Time is more precious than gold, more fickle than a young maid. We are regulated by an uncontrollable tyrant. At one o'clock we must do this, at two, we must do that. Even the exactitude of science is dominated by this uncontrollable force. How can we hope to work in harmony with something which is here and not here simultaneously, some force which is friend and foe. -Florence Brtwermtzn Page Eleven

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JANUARY 1939 after the funeral march but today he walks as though if he puts a foot in the wrong place, it's curtains. S'matter Gus ? I ask him. Then I wait for my answer. You always have to wait for Gus. I claim it's because he's looking for a hidden meaning. I'm sick. Sick ? fPausej- Yeah, I'm sick. What seems to be the trouble, Gus ? fLaterj - I still got that fever from the game - The coach breaks in here. What, he yodels, you got a fever at the game? Following a long intermission comes a, Yeah. The coach's mouth drops open just like he was offered a ten-year con- tract. He walks up to Wind and puts his hand on his shoulder like he was going to decorate him. Gus, he announces, you've done this for the school. Gus is stumped and ain't sayin' nothing. The coach knows he is the strong very silent type, so he answers for him. First he c'lears his throat. Gus, he begins on a low, even, earnest pitch, you're a hero. You are only a sub but you gave your all. And what an all and you gave unquestioningly, fHere he rises an octavej and unselfishly! What a noble gesture! The solid basis upon which all tradition is built. From the great base rises the great edifice. Let us ring down the curtain with the coach looking dreamily at Gus as if he sees the dawn of a new day. SIHIHIHIHIHK It is now Tuesday. What has happened since Sunday, I can't believe. Gus- tav Wind is now installed in the infirmary flanked by doctors who havenit shaved since Taft, cute nurses and flowers that smell like a funeral. Outside on the campus is the whole student body singing our school song- Onward Christian Soldiers to the tune of America the Beautifulf' Following which the coach renders his I have come to bury Caesar with variations. The stu- dent body is quite moved and you can almost see the tradition growing on the trees. By Friday, Gus is feeling as well as he ever did, but the coach keeps him in the infirmary. Also he spreads the word that Gus is declining. So again the school gathers on the inflrmary lawn to chant a chorus for tradition, the news reels, and maybe for Gus. Saturday breaks clear and the stadium fills early. The coach has the team in the dressing room early. He starts right in on Gus. You know the line. Up there in the infirmary lies a man who didn't think twice about giving his all for the school. A man who put the school before himself. He asks for nothing. He gave all. All he says is, 'Tell them to win this one for me.' just then somebody runs past the club yelling Fire, I beat everybody to the window and right off I see that the Corn State Normal junior College's four opponenfsj club house is on fire. Right away, I beat it out of the dressing Page Thirteen