Saint Marks School - Lion Yearbook (Southborough, MA)

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YI The next year was placid: dull, almost. In New Corridor, W.T.G. was yelling his head off, to very little purpose. Clt seems to us, in retrospect, that he spent most of his time in fruitless yelling at us.j A character named Rene turned up, speak- ing English with an accent horribly reminiscent of Claudette Colbert in Under Two Flags. Zis place, it. . .how you say?. . .stinks. I shall be vairy ,eppy 'eref' No one will ever forget his vivid flights of oratory on the subject of fallen France: Ah, France! She is daifeated: ze laight of her glory is gone oot. Ze Franchmans are all daid: zousands and zousands of zem. . . In those happy days we first began to take trips to Marlboro, an unfortunate habit which has since become our only vice. Cl.aughter and boos.D Everyone had radios right and left: it was wonderful. Toward the end of the year. there were the wonderful politi- cal scandals about Cai who was to be Head Monitor, and fbi who was to be represented on the Student Council. Two idioms were added to the language: upper crust Cwhich means just that and is a vile thing to say about anyonej and lower crust Qwhich was a fluctuating term meaning anyone you wanted to associate with: or, roughly speaking, the entire Form :D Dave's attempts to climb from the lower crust to the upper crust, and, later, his attempts to climb back again, were a source of constant amuse- ment. Gil won the Head Mo fight from Kitten, while Ouiji as dark-horse candi- date went into the longest and most pain- ful sulk the Form has yet seen. And since then we have found out that no one is ever represented on the Student Coun- cil except the members thereof. But the graft-fights of our Fifth Form year were Wonderful to behold. This year, also, Geoff started to write a play: his idea was to present it in the Old Gym to raise money for the Red Cross. He and Willie finished the first act and then Dr. Parkman got hold of the script and said it eouldn't possibly be presented. Why?', said Geoff. Whom does it of'fend?,' Everyone, said Dr. Parkman, in the entire school. Well, spee1fieally?', said Geoff. Me,', said Dr. Parkman, principally. Dr. Parkman, by the way, left at the end of the year to go in the Air Force. Bishop Sherrill. in a voice like Doom, announced the news. There was an air of improbability about the whole thing, like being told that the President was dead. The year ended with Dr. Parkman holding everyonc's undivided attention. VII Herbie, the Theological Student, turned up in the fall of 1949 with theinews that religion was for all men. There was im- mediately started a lavish campaign to convert Herbie to complete and utter atheism. It may or may not have failed

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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.

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completely. Herbie had his own ideas about social behavior, patterned largely after the Ten Commandments and totally different from the normal Sixth Form ideas of ethics. There are too many graven images being made around here,', he once remarked cryptically, among other things. The idea appealed to us. Do you know,', he said to us one day, that there are three persons in this form who are wicked? He didn't say whom, but he left us in no doubt as to what he meant by wicked. . . . Everyone -notably Silver Doeller-cooked in West Corridor, and one night eight fuses were blown in the corridor. A. J. gradually conceived the idea that the smell of hot- dogs and pancakes do not really belong in West Corridor. 'Tm sorry, he said. I'm awfully sorry, but I cannot allow you to establish an emporium in West Corridor? Chairman, almost overnight conceived the noble idea that the School was really his, all his, and it was up to him to run it properly. He approached Brooksie and said: I, as it so happens, run this School, and I do not like your attitude. 0h? said Brooksie. Well, it so happens that I run the Vindex and everything else, too. They had a mighty battle on the Sixth Form room floor, to prove who ran the School. It might be best not to say who Won. Later, Brooksie tried to make up to Hank. I'm sorry, he said peni- tently. I've decided that, as a matter of fact, you do run this School. Thanks, said Hank, with perfect equanimity. I'm glad you've come around to my way of thinkingf' The Head-Mogul, in a very noble moment, unbent a little from his stately dignity and issued a statement: I per- sonally do not care what anybody in this Form does. It's just that I represent the Headmaster. After a moment's thought, he added: And I ,III pretty well fed up with the job, too.', And Goober began going around with an ashen look on his face and saying: Want to catch a quickie with me? Brazen-larynxed Mr. Coe started his devilish body-building program in the gym, a development everyone viewed with mixed emotions, mostly unfavor- able. Before the end of the year, Foggy had been picked up and thrown against the back wall of the gym because he failed to understand the principle of the thing. You haven't the intelligence to do exercises, said Coe. There is no hope for your bodyf, After a moment's thought, he added: Mind either. Yes, sir,', said Foggy. Or, rather, no, sir. Dave four Davej turned up after a week end speaking fluent Hawaiian and telling us, in that difiicult language,