St Thomas More High School - Utopian Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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After struggling with them in a terrific conflict in which he kills 8, wounds 3, and knocks out 13, he outsmarts the others and escapes. Next, he rides into town and organizes a posse. The posse handcuffs all the badies except the boss, who deserts his accomplices in a vain attempt to escape the long arm of the law. Our hero alone spies him and pursues assiduously. This is known as the chase, the dramatic climax. Gradually our hero, thanks to Old Paint's superior speed, overtakes the badie-boss as they are cresting a ridge. Leaping from his horse, Dan unhorses Slade. Together they roll 150 yards downhill amidst clouds of dust. Some- what dizzy, they regain their feet and begin to whale the daylight out of each other. QSome- times this melee follows five minutes of gunplay in which the hero ducks all the bullets, then throws away his own revolver in order to fight it out man to man, with bare knucklesj. The badie, natuarally, is no match for the goodie, a clean liver. So, Dan picks up what is left of Slade and tells him: You're gonna swing for this, Slade! Slade retorts, O.K., but not alone! The real boss is-- Two shots ring out, Slade slumps, slain. Dan wheels around, seizes two more guns from Old Paint's saddle holster and blazes away. Even Old Paint's eager to get in on this one. The real boss turns out to bef Tch! Tch! Shamelj Black Bart, the town's respected sheriff. That reminds Dan of several other bits of un- finished business in the next county, so before anybody gets ideas of making him sheriff, he rides off silently into the West, stopping at Nell's ranch long enough to say he'll be back someday, if she'll wait for him. But don't get the idea that this play-actin' business is as easy as it sounds. No, sir! Mere ability to ride a horse backwards counts for little. To star, one needs the uncanny skill of finding short cuts over strange territory, and must be able to split a card sideways with one shot at fifty paces, and fire 17 times from a six-shooter without stopping to reload. Deadpan Dan, of the present feature, for instance, proved his right to play the part by tossing a deck of cards into the air, whipping out his -gun, and without even looking, shot a hole clean through the middle of the ace of spades! And the cards weren't marked either. These are but a few of the reasons why fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and kiddies would rather miss their supper than the 6:03 edition of Guns a-spittin' Lead! The public appreciates quality, but as for ME, don't carry ME back to the lone prairie! IH!!!!lll!!l!nt!! N THE OUTSKIRTS of Nagasaki, japan, there was located the Mac Arthur Hospital, a mercy base originally built in 1945, shortly after the Allied occupation. The hospital, under the supervision of the U.S. Army, was con- structed primarily to care for those poor sur- viving victims of the atomic blast, but just re- cently it had been turned into a regular armed service hospital so as to insure expert medical THE U TOPIAN . BY THOMAS MENTZER, '51 treatment for the wounded evacuees of the Ko- rean battlefields. The hospital was divided into four major wards, one of which was set aside for those crit- ically wounded and still in danger of death. It is in this last mentioned ward that two men stand conversing in low tones at the bedside of one of the patients. The man in khaki spoke. .67

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six nights a week? The Saga of the West, the Modern Epic, the Western Film! Count the evenings misspent which fail to produce its quota of cattle-rustlin', insist the devotees of horse opera. For it matters not that the usual Western is no Academy Award contender, or its stars candidates for Oscars. A loyal following finds enjoyment enough in the simple plots and simpler plotters of derring-do. Tell them that Westerns are customarily leveled at the eight-year-old-mind, and people blithely answer: Who's caring? They're fun! So, we suffer from the cult of Hopalong Cassidy. Now, the typical dramatic fare linds its open- ing in an aura of peace and contentment. To the accompaniment of guitar music, the Good Guy of the silver screen makes his entrance on horse- back, either singing or humming for maybe whistlingj something about little doagiesf' His beautiful horse is geared down to three miles per hour, so that its clopclop will keep the singer in tempo. Whatever else his qualifications, the goodie must be a smooth-looking cookie. If he can be a United States Marshall, so much the better, though he may have to conceal that fact through six and a half reels, in order to ally himself with the local gang. Generally he will ride into town accompanied by a reputation for marksmanship, stage robberies, and the ability to carry more likker than his ten gallon hat. Such evidences of lawlessness seldom fail to win him the undying respect of those on whom he must eventually get the goods. See? As the star approaches the closing bars of They'l1 Dangle at Dawn, especially composed for the picture by Sammy QSwing and Swayj Kay, a shower of lead greets him. Whereupon our hero, disconcerted by such an interruption, fear- lessly gallops in the direction of the shots. The picture has been miserably directed if, in more than seven seconds, the hero fails to reach the wounded side of old Bill Stebbins, lying beside his busted-down buckboard breathing his last nineteen breaths. Having propped the dying man's head by removing his own coat, and rolling it under the snowy hair, he whispers softly: What's it all about, Old Timer? Touched by this tenderness, the Old Timer stops bleeding long enough to cough and splutter the entire account of his life-long en- 66. counter with the varmin. Trouble started the very day Slinky Slade came to town. Slinky, of course, is the badieg or, in this picture, the 112 badieg the first, the real brains of the mob, is usually the town's leading citizen, the banker, or the local saloon proprietor. For the present we won't say which. But back to the close-up of the goodie. Holding the Old Timer, as aforementioned, he proceeds to sympathize: Yeh, I know how it is! Since the world is round, nuthin is on the levell The tragic tale continues to unwind, with the victim's pleading with our star to look after his only daughter's interests, at least until she can manage to put her ranch on its pre-Slade, money- making basis. Here it is thought advisable for the hero to reveal his true identity. Thus assured, the Old Timer resumes his bleeding, rolls off the lap of his comforter, and, in a state of ecstasy, expires with the words: Atta boy, son. Go get the dirty dogs. Embittered, and muttering imprecations of revenge, our goodie rides gallantly into town with the body of the dead rancher slung limply over Old Paint, his ever-dependable steed. To impress the badies, he carries the corpse into the saloon, lays it on the bar, and snaps: Did anyone here lose a dead man up the road a-spell? Further to remove all suspicion of his ultimate purpose, our star whips out an illus- trated poster, proving that he is wanted for several murders and such, in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and numerous States. The gang unanimously accepts him into its fold. He smiles. Several days later, convinced that he is now above suspicion, he decides that after breakfast he will ride out to the dead rancher's shack to visit the daughter. He hopes she is purty. She is. Approaching the shack, by the way, he dis- covers gold on the ranch. Provided now with a motive, he devises the perfect plan for rounding up the whole gang, including the leader. But wait- a vacationing member of the mob, chancing to ride by, sees what is going on, and returns to town to astonish his cohorts with the announcement: He's no bad guy. That's Dead- pan Dan the Lawman, the most feared marshall this side of the border. He's greased lightnin' with a shootin' iron. . THE UTOPIAN

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How are his chances, Doc? A little less than fifty-Hfty, Father. That's not too bad. No, agreed the doctor, that's not too bad, but there is one thing that particularly disturbs me. What's that? Well, he arrived here a little more than a week ago, and I've been attending him person- ally ever since. And even within that short period of time he's given me the idea that he doesn't give a hoot whether he lives or not. The chaplain, meditated on the doctor's words a few moments, and then asked, How did he receive those wounds? I didn't get the complete story, but from what I heard it seems that his platoon's advance was being bogged down by a Red machine gun that was set up on a ridge just outside of Seoul. They tried three times to rush it, but each time the buzzards withstood the charge and knocked off a couple of marines. The Leatherneck Sergeant was seething mad and completely at a dead-end on what to do when Keenan here crawls up to him and says he'll get the nest if they manage to distract the Reds for a while. The sergeant told him it was suicide to try, but, realizing there wasn't any alternative, gave him the go-ahead sig- nal. With the other marines covering, he man- aged to sneak up to within about twenty yards of the Commie gunners before they saw him. Jumping up, he started to run toward them with a grenade in each hand. They told me that the machine-gun bursts brought him down twice, but that each time he got up and continued stum- bling on until he was within nine yards of the nest. Here he unleashed both -grenades, killing the gunners and demolishing the machine-gun. The chaplain, who had been listening atten- tively, didn't make any response, and the doctor went on. And, you know, I was also told that this reck- less, I-don't-give-a-damn bravely has been char- acteristic of Keenan ever since he landed in Korea. Smilingly, he added, He's a typical leatherneck, don't you think, Father? The question seemed to awaken the greying chaplain from some far-off reveiie. Uh . . .Oh . . . Yes, he stammered in reply. Staring down at the wounded marine, whose hand was swathed in bandages, he asked the 68. doctor, You say he's a Catholic? That's what his tags say. Turning to the doctor, he said, Call me, Doc, before you take him to the operating room. I'm going to see if I can get some more information on this lad. Whereupon the eyelids of the marine about whom the two men had been conversing flut- tered open. A cynical smile crossed his lips as he turned over in his mind the words of the doctor and the chaplain. What was it the doctor had said of him? Reckless bravery. Yeh, that was it. Reckless bravery . . . a typical leather- neck. Some jokel He, Private Matthew J. Keenan, U.S.M.C., a hero. What was the matter with those goons? Were they crazy? They didn't realize he was just getting even with a few people, that he was paying off a grudge that he had nursed for two years now. Was it against the Reds? No, of course not. They just happened to be the ones he had to fight against. And that chaplain asking if he was a Catholic. Sure he was a Catholic . . . or at least he had been until two years ago. That guy was probably going to ask him to go to confession. He'd tell him. Yeh, he'd tell him that he hadn't been there for two years. To be exact, since january 13, 1949, and he was never going to confession again. January 13, 1949. That date he'll remember as long as he lives. The chaplain had wanted no know more about him. Well, he'd never know, and neither would anybody else ever know. No, nobody would ever know anything about his past except himself. And the reason that nobody would ever know is because of what happened on january 13, 1949. Like a red beacon light on a pitch-black night, every detail remained vividly Hxed in his mind. He had picked up joan at 8:30 P.M., and they had gone to the Stanton to see All the King's Men. Even as he thought of her his heart seemed to beat faster. Joan Jennings, Hve-feet- two, chestnut brown hair, a real sharper and Matt Keenan's girl. My girl. And the thought stabbed at him so that the pain of his wounds seemed a mild ache. He forced his mind to go on. They had stopped in at Mac's Diner for a quick snack be- fore midnight, and, noticing that she was only toying with her hamburger, he had asked her if anything was wrong. It was then that she told . THE UTOPIAN