Saint Marks School - Lion Yearbook (Southborough, MA)

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half, until Dr. Parkman chanced by and let him out, demanding an explanation. I was a owl, Tim sobbed incohercntly. No, said Dr. Parkman, who thought he detected a Cockney accent, you aren't a bit funnyf, Ours was never an athletic form, though we have produced some pretty fair ping-pong players. We remember, with good-hnmored annoyance, the Third Thayer football team: the one that al- ways lost 43-0, and the interminable baseball games where we went round and round the batting order and it was per- fectly possible for the same player to make three outs in one inning. It is not to be supposed that We have improved much since then, either. . .A miscellane- ous detail before we pass on. In those days the School offered a course called Life, one of the more mysterious items of the present curriculum. Pat, who was always interested in such matters, while possessing an incompleteunderstanding of the principles involved, demanded brightly: Does it or does it noi hurt a hen to lay an egg? IV It may be that we were growing more sophisticated by the beginning of our Third Form year. Maily in Dorm Cf Grease-spot, for instance, and Ilamfat -fhad crystal sets. There was a penalty of 12 marks for getting caught listening to one. The penalty was largely theo- retieal, because it required the most intense activity and about four miles of aerial to get even a faint clicking out of the set. One night Livy shouted excitedly: I've got Italy! We listened intently for a few moments, Nonsense, said Grease-spot, who had crawled out of his sleeping-bag to see what was up. It's only VVBZ. Still, WBZ was an ac- complishment. , .This year llam, Sid, llallett, Uuiji, and Kitten arrived. Two of t.hem have now left again. We won two Groton games. . .a thing for which the year is chiefly remarkable. Then someone CWillie doubtlessj discovered that Yitalis, if lighted with a match, burns like gaso- line, though with a mauve-colored flame. We had tremendous bon-fires in the mid- dlc of Dorm C., and Twibber came out of his lair in the middle of one and said calmly: It is conceivable that you will set the School on fire.,'. . .The characters in Dorm D were less imaginative, con- tenting themselves with throwing a chair and table out of the window. QVVe didn't like it, Hank observed. The chair wobbled. j Each and every person in the Dorm was immediately given 300 marks, besides being forced to pay for the chair. But eventually it turned out that the chair didn't belong to the school anyway, and the sentences were com- muted. . .lVIuscles iMac, Nlonster, etc.l who subsequently left us, developed a hideous trick of dropping knives be- tween his toes from a height of five feet. Une night, with eight dollars in bets hanging on the results, he missed. . .

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Head Monitor's was painted bluel and made as much noise as a small bombing. There are few now at school who have undergone the real thing. Our sympathy is with the member of our form-we forget just whom-who, having gone up and down the line six or seven times, collapsed on the floor with the words: Enough is enough! He got more, how- ever. Those of us who were here that year Cthere aren't manyl remember certain inspiring incidents. .I.B. with his face neatly and thoroughly blacked with shoe-polish, asking in the middle of the night: Please, mayn't I take a bath, even if it is after lights--or at least wash my face?',. . .Hank explaining the principle of romantic love to us novices and showing us his carefully catalogued and cross-indexed notebook on the sub- ject: Points for the estimation of female beauty. . . .The wonderful Hallowe'en party where Foggy Moore won the baby bottle-sucking contest and was presented with diapers, a safety-pin, and six nipples. All in all, it was quite a ycarg there have been few like it since. III The Second Form year there were more of us. We received, among others, that noble creature who has since become our Head Monitor. CThere are those who say that he was elected Head Mo, five years later, chieHy because of his startling and unnerving resemblance, when angry, to the St. Mark's Lion-the one out by the chapel with the pine trees around it.j Even then Gil spent a large part of his time going around shutting people up with a loud Shhhhhhhhhh! often fol- lowed by an angry: For Petessakeff' There were also, that year, two legendary characters named Morri and Schwartz, who left the day after they came. They apparently decided that what they had seen of the School by candlelight- this was in the middle of the hurricane. by the way-did not merit their con- tinued sojourn. There were some won- derful nights when all of Dorm B., ex- cept Suzie, who wouldnit play, went out the fire escape into the dim enchantment of the night. Then one evening Dave Chefty then as nowj got stuck in the window and hollered for help. The pre- fects came down and released him, though with difficulty, and so the whole plot was discovered. Marks and marks were given. . .Grease-spot bought a fe- male flying-squirrel and carried her around in his coat, completely ignoring the fact that she bit him, rather like thc fox belonging to the Boy of Sparta. CIf you will pardon a classical digression, his name was Laodemetesj. . .Hank, the dapper one of the pin-stripe suit, became much impressed with the prose of Caesar,s Commentaries and, instead of asking direct how old anyone was, would euphe- mise: How many winter camps do you have? . . .The bright boys in Group 2 Qand that is an anachronism for Group 2 hadn't been invented thenl locked Tim in the out-door owl-cage, where he screamed profanity for two hours and a

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V When we got to the Upper School and Fuzzy came, we were definitely horrible little monsters, like gremlins. Woofy, acting from motives of boredom and try- ing to satisfy' an unsuspected desire to kill someone, no matter whom, hiked over to the Worcester Turnpike and dropped twenty-pound rocks on trucks, shrieking with glee, until finally he smashed the windshield of a truck-driver named Pulaski. Pulaski gave chase and caught Woofy near Fayville. You'd be from the School, no doubt, said Pulaski, who appeared to know the type. The whole matter was referred to Dr. Park- man, who immediately made a school rule against dropping rocks on trucks. It is still Qwe supposel in effect. The bridge became known as Woofy's Bridge, and it is still a source of pleasure to go over and stand on it and imagine rocks hurt- ling at Sunoco trucks. . .The year was dramatic, in that it involved conflict, both inner and outer. J.M., who may or may not have been nuts, stole the famous Blue Beetle pamphlets from the Biology lab-subversive papers on a slightly bawdy biological subject. They were widely circulated, and on the basis of this incident our friend Tuck parted company with the Form: a calamity, perhaps. In those days the Form was divided, broadly, into two camps. One of them was in Dorm E, where Hank QChairman of all he observesb kept gallons and gal- lons of bottled beverages. The other section lived in North 3 and spent much time beating down doors. There was al- ways a notice on the door of Room U, inhabited by Hans and Henry, that started od: PENALTY OF TWENTY C205 MARKS. This room is OFF BOUNDSV' But as the door of Room U was customarily off its hinges and leaning against the wall at the other end of the corridor, the notice had little effect. In Dorm E Willie, Dave, Sid, and Geoff spent a great deal of time making im- mense conga chains and dancing, lightly clad, into the Blue Beetle's private bath- room, where they performed a sacrifice, prayed to the Great Spirit of Dorm E, and retreated. The Blue Beetle's only comment was: Where is everyone going? Meanwhile Deadpan sat quietly in his alcove and chewed on immense peppermints that his aunt in Hoosic Falls continually sent him. I Am got up on the alcove walls and paraded around shouting: The Blue Beetle is the Neme- sis of Crime. Everything was undeniably festive. There was a law against swearing, and Dave went around hollering glee- fully: There is a penalty of four marks for swearing, DAMM1T! Chairman finally got twenty CQOJ for having bottled beverages- one Pepsi-Cola-in his al- cove: and later that year everyone bought Manitoba apple-juice in cans. . . Effie got into one of his wild rages and threw a petrified tree at Willie: and if he hadnlt missed, it would have been too bad. Sid spent most of his time glowering at everyone from under a terrific mass of yellow hair until a master asked him if he had taken the Twenty Year Vow and gave him fifty cents. Towards the end of the year, there was an immense battle which started with Geoff's throwing a shoe-brush and grew to tremendous proportions, until finally Willie heaved a mattress and bureau into Sid's alcove. The Blue Beetle said it was unneces- sary. It probably was, too. There were other hilarious events that year. The I.B.T. was going at a merry pace, exploding every two weeks like a bomb and making everyone Cincluding the editorsj feel highly uncomfortable. Hank fthe other Hankj was editor, theo-