Saint Marks School - Lion Yearbook (Southborough, MA)

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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-

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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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retically, at least, and VV.T.G. tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to keep the organization out of trouble. Have you talked to Dr. Parkman about this? he would ask, trying to discourage a fiery editorial. It was our general policy never to talk anything over with Dr. Parkman. Or W.T.G. would say: This cannot be printedf' Our general policy-we can let W.T.G. in on the secret now-was to print it anyway. The formula was suc- cessful, up to a point of diminishing re- turns. One week we printed a horrifyingly indecent statement: What the Dra- matic Cllub needs is more smut. Dr. Parkman was appalled, and made us all go down to the art room and paint out the offending words with India ink. Not that anyone who wanted to, couldn't read right through the ink anyway. The Civics Club had a thriving mem- bership that year. An organization known as the Left VVing was started, and every- body fonght like tigers in the Old Gym. Ah, the elections, and oh, the impeach- ments! Eight of the fifteen members of the flub belonged to the Left Wing, headed by Kidder, l,ivy, and l,over. The object of the VVing was to block all legislation: on every measure the vote was eight to seven. The best thing the Wing ever did was to elect Brooksie secretary, so that he couldn't vote, or even talk, but only make voluminous notes which were later burned. W.T.G. supplied coke for the whole organization: that was certainly' its big attraction. But the Club as a whole accomplished a lot: one of its important measures was its decision to send a vote of confidence to President Roosevelt. The President didn't answer it, and neither did Mrs. Roosevelt. There was a vile scandal toward the end of the year, and perhaps wc'd better leave it out of this record of the innocence of adolescent school-boys in Southbor- ough, but. . .lt involved Ham tnot lieanj and a girl named Peggy. Pretty soon the news got out: and W.'l'.G. called a form meeting and said that llam had not been kicked out for smoking: it was something infinitely worsef' The whole thing was inordinately thrilling. lm- mediately before his expulsion young Ham had written an editorial for the l.B.T. in which he had extolled the virtues of the Godly life. Ah, well. . .This Ham, also, before his expulsion, went around cutting off people's ties with the words: You donft want that awful thing around your neck. He tried it on Grease-spot, and Grease-spot burst into tears and said he was going back to the South, yes, suh, and he was taking his squirrel with him. Of course, he and the squirrel didn't go right away: but they didn't turn up the following fall, either. And Dead-pan fthe St. Mark's Training Uorpsej failed to turn up the next fall, too. The end of our Fourth Form year was a time of minor losses, and we never did get an- other squirrel. But the next fall there were fewer but better Fifth Formers.