St Marys High School - Purple and Gold Yearbook (St Marys, WV)

Page 25 text:

CLASS PROPHECY record-breaking non-stop flight from Eureka to Belmont, W. Va. Millionaire sportsmen Carl Watson was pictured returning from his world cruise in the course of which he swam the English Channel, climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and made a determined but futile effort to find the spot where Berlin had once stood. Next we were treated to a rousing campaign speech from Whig Presidential Candidate Cyrus Hoy, followed by a reply from his opponent in the forthcoming election of 1960, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gallantly running for an eighth term. Following the newsreel came a cartoon concerning the adventures of Dopey Duck, Leo the Lion, and Gerry the Goat. The sound effects were made by those three experts at the art of animal imitations, Ralph Hernen, Bob Harper and Tom Burns. All this merely led up to the feature of the evening, which was a public appearance of Helen Carpenter and her all-girl orchestra. The tall and stately Miss Carpenter swept onto the stage and proceeded to direct a smashing per- formance of Tschaikowsky's Marche Slave. From there she went on into that gentleman's E Minor Symphony. After this, however, even she was slightly exhausted, and she collapsed into a chair off stage to get her breath. While Miss Carpenter was recovering from the effects of her strenuous directing, the audience was entertained with Emma and Her Magic Violin -Emma being Emma Fell, and her solo being a performance of a number of intricate variations on Mairzy Doats. Next the conductor's sister, Miss Barbara Carpenter, favored her admiring public with a simultaneous performance of a lovely tenor saxophone solo and her celebrated Dance of Spring. Then Miss Helen Carpenter returned to the stage, and to show that the Carpenter family was as versatile as accom- plished, concluded her program with a heart-rending recitation of Bryant's Thanatopsis. The theater thundered with applause, and the final touch was added when several huge sprays ofl flowers were presented to the performers with the com- pliments of florist Richard Hall. After having seen so many old acquaintances in the space of a few short hours, I was too excited to go home. With the evening off to such a good start, one was almost afraid to think what the night would bring. Van and I decided to do the town, and the 76 Club seemed a likely place to begin. Entering the door we thought for a moment that the Revolution had come back, for from inside came the noise of women screaming and shrieking. Van and I drew back in astonishment, but Doorman Bill Roden assured us that it was only the female patrons greeting swooner-crooner I-larry Shingleton, the Frank Sinatra of 1960. We were just in time to hear him give a soul-rending version of Home on the Range. The third note of every measure was regularly accented with great drawn-out sighs and screams, and when he finished with a particularly nostalgic touch it was too much for his ardent admirers. With a final sigh nearly a half dozen women at the front table collapsed in a heap of fainting glory. Everyone rushed to the scene, and the head-waiter, Sam Jones, asked if there was a doctor present. There was not a doctor, but three nurses hurried to the rescue. It did not take anyone long to recognize them, for they were Phyllis Mitchell, Blanche Buch- anan, and Ruth Knight, the celebrated angels of mercy, who had just returned from Timbuctoo, where they had been ministering to the needs of underfed cannibals. I was surprised to see them, and even more surprised to discover that the fainters were Virginia Roberts, Betty Ruckman, Edith and Irene DeLong, Anna Mary Weekley, and Betty Ruth Coss. Van and I were shown to a table, and I soon discovered that the reports were true concerning the celebrated people who frequented the club. I was to find that it was also true that bartender Harry Morgan's omelettes could float by themselves. My attention was focused on a couple seated at a table across the floor. The lady was deeply engrossed in reading a book, while her escort was slouched in his chair opposite her looking very bored. While I was watching she finished her book, without a moment's hesitation picked up another from a stack which surrounded her, and began madly to tear through it. She was the

Page 24 text:

CLASS PROPI-IECY They had assured us that our plan would work, but when Van and I found out how simple it was going to be, both he and I were a bit perplexed. We looked at each other and said, This is almost too good to be true! and we crossed our fingers and held our breath and decided to wait and see how our first meetings would come off before we committed ourselves definitely. Our negotiations had been a bit complex, but when we had made it quite clear what we intended to do and that we meant to be very, very discreet, we had experienced no further difficulties. We had merely let it be known that all we wished was to meet our high school acquaintances again, and once that had been assured, we had never even been asked for any kind of guarantee that we would live up to our promises. The whole thing had begun several weeks before when I had been in one of my morbid and depressed moods, and had fallen, quite naturally, to thinking about youth and school days and all that. Van, my best friend, had noticed my morose condition and had asked about it. I tried to explain as best I could Haven't you ever gotten to the place, Van, I asked him, where you begin to look back over your life and wonder what has become of all those youthful aspirations, whether your schoolmates have grown old just like yourself, without having accomplished anything very important? Probably it's merely natural for everyone of our age to look back and wonder about it all. For Van and I had reached the time where we not only lied about our age, but had forgotten what we had told people it was. Van had merely looked up from his work and had said that if I wanted ot learn what had happened to the people I had known in school for me to go ahead and find out. I had patiently answered that the people I was interested in had been scattered all over the globe for the past two decades, but Van would not be daunted. If you want to meet those people again there's nothing to stop you, he said. It's really very simple, and he began outlining his idea to me. At first l was too amazed to speak, but as Van progressed the idea began to take on probability, and my amazement turned to delight. Before the night was over our plans were laid. The next day we made the necessary contacts, and it was arranged that I was to learn about all the people with whom I had gone to school, although it was to be in a most ordinary manner, and they were to have no idea that our meetings had been prearranged. Now, you will ask, how in the name of heaven did we get in contact with these people, some of whom had been scattered all over the world for the past twenty years? Of that I hope to tell you some other time. It was really very simple, but for the moment it must remain our secret. Probably it will sound highly fantastic, but please consider the very original types of people involved, for, as Van and I observed, with the Class of 1944 anything was possible. The more or less supernatural powers with whom we had been hob-nobbing had instructed us to be not in the least conscious of what was to happen, but to go on in our unenlightened way, and the meetings would be disclosed to us in the course of our everyday lives. Accordingly, Van and I went to the theater that first night. We arrived in the middle of a newsreel of which Bert Cummings was com- mentator. All the noteworthy events of the day were displayed before us, and as each succeeding scene played across the screen I became speechless for once in my life, because with few exceptions all the people shown were former members of the Class of 1944. Although our contract to see these people again had been most solemn and binding, I had hardly expected such prompt service, and I could only nudge Van and whisper in an excited voice: Why, I know all these peoplel A recent ship launching was being described by Commentator Cummings, and on the screen were shown Grace and Della Kidder gaily swinging the bottle of champagne that would christen the vessel. Happily looking on was Chester Bills, still apparently unable to make up his mind which of the girls he liked the better. Also present were the ship's designer, Blaine Eddy, and the captain, Bob Core. Pilot Jim Riggs was shown alighting from his plane following his

Page 26 text:

CLASS PROPHECY eminent literary critic, Elsie Sweeney, and her companion was master architect Myron Cunningham. All eyes suddenly went to the door, where a gorgeous creature was entering, exquisitely dressed, and with a hair-do that could only be described as remark- able. The gorgeous creature, hair-do and all, was Margie Winters. Closely following her came Geraldine Parson and her sixth husband, whom, it one was to believe the rumors currently making the rounds, she was about to divorce. It was late when we left the club, and as Van and I walked along in search of a taxi I received the final shock which topped off everything else that had happened that night. For coming down Broadway on her bicycle was Maxine Howard, delivering the morning edition of the New York Times. When we arose about noon the next day, we found some very interesting mail waiting for us. There was an invitation to one of Mary Bill's celebrated parties, to be held on board her submarine, anchored for the moment in her Long Island swimming pool. Then there was a package from the Book-of-the-Month Club containing the month's selection and the current book dividend. The dividend book was the selected works of Glenna Waugh jtwo volumes, neatly boxed, suitable for throwing purposesl. Volume 1 was poetry and contained some of the choicest nuggets from Miss Waugh's golden treasury. The volume ot prose contained the complete manuscript of her sensational best seller, l7,835,6'12 Ways to Commit Suicide. The month's selection was the gay and witty autobiograph of that sophosti- cated woman of the world, Carol Green. I spent the day reading this book, and it was not long before I realized that my receiving it had a definite purpose, for undoubtedly the powers with whom Van and I had been bargaining had sent it to me as part of our contract. I remembered then that they had not said I would actually meet all my fellow class members, but would merely learn of their whereabouts. And Miss Green's book soon showed me that they were about, some of them in a great big way. In her wise and witty volume, deftly entitled Present Imperfect, the author walks right up to such subjects as Human Nature, Fame, Character, Marriage, Politics, and Opportunities. A rather large order, you might say, but it leaves the lady with unturned hair. Successively, she knocks down and drags out each topic. And this isn't all. Through the pages of Present Imperfect walk the great, for Miss Green has been everywhere and seen everyone. I don't say that she actually permits us to rub elbows with them ourselves, but she willingly shows us her own elbow, which has been, so to say, honed on the mighty. She discusses the merits of iambic pentameter, hexameter, tetrameter, and alliteration with the poet, Charles Hayhurst. Through her eyes we watch Larry Brown making oxygen and performing intricate experiments with napthalene jmothballs to the unscientitic readerj. We hear the author discuss Blackstone with the famous woman judge, Alice Wells, who has just handed down the world- shaking decision that the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was unconstitutional. We listen as she talks about punt formations with the Hnuts Rockne of Raven Rock Tech, Joe Reynolds, and we learn of how she lost a fender from her Rolls Royce convertible when OPA Director Archie Coy Cantwell, Jr., collided with her. All these diverting characters, and more, I found wandering through Miss Green's prolific pages. I was to learn several more items about fellow class members before I put the book down. It was charmingly illustrated, I noticed, with drawings by Evelyn Dotson, and had been published by the Argus Press, which I knew to be owned by George Hall and Pansy Rea. We had previously planned to go to a house party in Connecticut for the week-end. While we had given it up at first, after we had made arrangements for our meetings, we decided the next day that there was no reason why we should not go since we seemed to meet old acquaintances wherever we went. As we left the city, Van turned on the radio just in time to hear the regular morning broadcast of New York City's Home Demonstration Agent, Elizabeth Dinnin. Immediately following came a broadcast by gossip columnist Lorena Kelly. Speeding along through the' Connecticut countryside we got the lowdown