St Johns High School - Torch Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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SECOND PRIZE THE WANDERLUST Who of us has not sat bored and dreaming in a class room, without turning his eyes to¬ wards a map on the wall and feeling that un¬ controllable urge to jump up and run and run and run, until he comes to those far places with their fascinating, foreign allure. Their very distance makes them only the more tantalizing. We can only yearn hopelessly over their beauty and our own impotence. And as we gaze at the map we inevitably decide where we would go, and what we would see if we had the time or the money or the op- tunity. Let us cross the Atlantic, then be off to London on a foggy day, to visit the Tower of London and hear the tolling of Big Ben. We see the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and take a tour through Hampton Court. We see the English countryside and all the quaint inns and cottages that have become so beloved. Then we hasten across a wind-tossed channel to Calais and from there to the idol of every traveller’s heart—Paris, the queen of cities, forever young and forever beckoning to old and young alike. We are awed by all the old, old places, the noly beauty of Notre Dame and the soaring primness of the Eiffel Tower. At Versailles, where a triumphant monarch raised an undying monument to his own incredible vanity, we catch glimpses of the ghosts who have lived and breathed in its overpowering splendor. What memories are revived! The names marked on railroad stations are names that have adorned French history for ages. They trip so lightly on our tongues, Orleans, Toulouse. Perpignan, Avignon, Carcassonne. We can see all the ancient glory of France in these ancient Chateaux and cathedrals with their proud beauty softened by the dust of centuries. We can see Spain, hot, dazzling, and Gibraltar, ban¬ ner of an empire in the south. Across the rim of Africa loom Tangier, Oran, Algiers. Our romantic dreams, born, of the Arabian Nights, gain their first fulfillment here. But there is so much to see, so much we can never hope to understand! Ancient lands, barely crusted with the veneer of modernism brought by the New World. Old lands, where there are yet people whose manner of living has not changed in centuries. Persia, Turkey, India, the far, far, ever-mystic East. Our fascinated eyes gaze at it spellbound. What could be more romantic than the beauty of its minarets, temples and gardens? Suddenly somewhere we hear a bell ring. The sound of moving feet rises to our ears. We stumble, our minds dazed, out of a class room, leaving behind us a map that still hangs on a wall, to us the essence of romance in our own prosaic world. Ruby R. Freedman, XI-38. HP’ Page Seventy-nine

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LITERARY FIRST PRIZE THE ORDEAL He showed great courage that time. It was the kind of courage somebmes displayed by the front line soldier. But, then again, perhaps it wasn’t courage. Perhaps it was fear. One cannot be certain in such a case. It all began the first week in December, when he was given that small, seemingly innocent, slip of paper. THEY had given it to him. THEY, who had already tormented him more than enough, and still were nidt satisfied. When he had first seen it, he had been overcome by its devastating possibilities and could merely stare at it vaguely. Then, ponderously, his benumbed brain had begun to work. If only he could destroy it! If only-—-No, that was what they were waiting for. Some foolish mistake and they would fall on him like vultures on their prey. One week passed, a week of forgetful days and fearful nights. Meanwhile THEY were becoming impatient. THEY would soon issue an ultimatum and he would be forced to act. Suddenly, he realized that there was only one sure solution to his dilemma. He picked up the scrap of paper, already disfigured by incessant twisting, and walked, like a condemned man, out of the room. Eventually, he reached the back parlor, darkened by early winter gloom. His father was sitting there, little imagining what he was soon to witness. He walked up to his father’s chair and stood there. Then, im¬ patiently, he thrust the paper onto the arm of the chair. It remained there, while his father, somewhat startled, stared at the boy’s pain-ridden features. Then, abruptly becoming aware of the paper, he picked it up. Almost immediately a per¬ plexed scowl darkened his face. His voice broke the tension in the room. “We’ll have to do something about this,” he said slowly, with great effort. He had just seen his son’s report card. Tom Peterson, X—31. Page Seventy-eight

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THIRD PRIZE THE DARK AGES A saying that gains truth as time passes is that “Movies killed vaudeville.” Anyone who has seen a modem film agrees that it is plain murder all right (and they don’t doubt it has homicidal antecedents). There was a time when the shadowy heroine went the full ten reels without so much as a scratch. Today though, the gentleman playing the hero thinks nothing of nestling a right hook to the heroine’s jaw, and then gently slapping her mascara from one side of her face to the other with, a sock that would conk out a bull elephant. This continues until the heroine is so panicky that she starts saying crazy things like, “If you want anything, whistle.” The director calls the match in the seventh reel, the hero is declared champion, and the extras roll up their sleeves preparatory to giving the battered leading lady a badly needed blood transfusion. Of course, there must be an excuse for all this because people don’t usually go around in¬ discriminately separating their girl-friends from their teeth. The excuse commonly known as a plot is so negligible that professional movie goers seldom bother about it and neither shall we. A professional movie-goer is possessed with few physical assets which single him (or her) out from the rabble. One of these is a well- padded, well-trained posterior. Another is a muscle-bound neck which receives its exercise bent at angles of 45°, 60° or 90° depending on what length of insanity the lady in front has gone in choosing the thing on her head. One of his more useful powers is that of split vision. He can watch the picture with one eye and enjoy himself by looking with the other at the couple two rows and five seats to the right of him. He is probably the only person who goes to a double bill and watches two shows at the same time. Double features are “come-ons” for movie enthusiasts, one of whom is born every minute. They always consist of an A picture, and a B picture. The difference between the two is that the A picture puts you to sleep immediately, whereas in the B picture sounds of falling Red¬ wood trees, old mill wheels cornin’ closer and closer, screeching brakes, and diving airplanes keep you awake. This naturally lessens the value of the B picture. Of course no bill is complete without up-to-the-minute-news-of- public-interest which includes cuties in $15,000 fur capes, and the Venezuelean Ambassador arriving for talks on the saltpetre situation, and a $38,000,000,000 reconversion scheme whereby Great American Inventive Genius turns Liberty ships into toothpaste tubes. Following this are trailers which tell us that the attraction coming next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, is so colossal and magnificent that we have practi¬ cally wasted our money by being here now, when next week this stupendous picture will be shown. As we have already paid our cash to the lady imprisoned in the glass, cage in the lobby, and to avoid this “I-am-a-Moron-feeling” we usually choose this time to let our thirst get the better of us and we slouch quietly up the aisle for a drink of water. Theatre aisles are testing grounds for char¬ acter. There is no feeling quite like that of walking alone down a theatre aisle. You feel every eye upon you. You feel like a bubble dancer at a convention of pea-shooter manufac¬ turers. Your knees feel polite. They take off their caps to each other and you sprint stum¬ bling to the nearest seat where you fall ex¬ hausted, in a state of nervous collapse. You wonder at its strange comfort for a few mo¬ ments, in which the lady underneath regains her wind, and reminds you that after all, she hardly knows you and she would like to see the picture. After mumbling apologies you begin the quaint game of “Oops sorry!” The object of the game is to walk a six-inch path, in a dark theatre, between the toes of the other contestants and the steel-backed chairs directly in front of said toes. If you step off the path you receive as a penalty either a broken toe or a punch on the nose. The punch on the nose can be for¬ feited if you can say “Oops, sorry!” in one-half a second, the time it takes for a hand to travel from side to probiscis. After you are perfectly comfortable you dis¬ cover to your horror that you have forgotten to take off your overcoat. You immediately begin to sweat and fret. Taking off an overcoat in a theatre seat approximately two feet across and two feet high is a trick that calls for the combined talents of gymnast, magician and Indian rubber man. You pull one arm, it doesn’t move. You pull at the other. It won’t budge. At this point you lose your head. Of course this solves the problem. With no top-piece you simply pull the coat over your shoulders and fold it in your lap. It’s too bad that things had to come to a head, though. Norm Hill. Page Eighty