Standish High School - Crimson Rambler Yearbook (Standish, ME)

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SEVENTEIN This age so well portrayed by Booth Tarhington comes in everywhere for a laugh, but let us consider the victim himselfg here is no laughing matter. It is a period of adjustment when the guiding ties of parents are cast off, and the youngster sets out on his course through life with buffeting disillusions and dragging temptations to ttrow his career on the rocks. In many cases substitutions are made in hitherto accepted standards of right and wrong to permit more speed by cutting corners about dangerous practices. All goes well if the youth has sufficiently absorbed the fundamental principles of navigating in troubled waters, if he has a strong and properly trained conscience and an ability to detect false argument, if he has a proper conception of the rel, ative values of his honor, his hapfiness and his accumulation of the world's goods. The average high school student does not probe thus deeply into dry details. He follows the line of least resistance. He imitates his elders. To him honesty is the b1st policy, only if he finds the majority about him practicing strict strairbt forwardness. Thus we have ourselves to thank if a youth pat- terns his like after some grown-up who has made good by self- ishness and deceit. As hard lines pour upon us like a testing acid, we find how many are really a benefit to the community. How many are willing, when the past has been kind enough to grant then the ownership of a business or an influential political standing, to share their profits with their help, as well as to under- take contracts with slight personal gain for the sake of help- ing those neighbors who are dependent upon the work thus supp- lied? Among the causes of the present business collapse may be cited the fact that certain of our leaders were not sufficiently trained in their seventeens to withstand the pinch, rather than to pass the buck to their less fortunate fellowmen. Many of those who are thoroughly unselfish are igno ant in these tin , of where and how to cut expenses. Such men as believe they are being truly generous when as presidents of a cone-rn they out salaries the same percent they cut their help, forgetful of the fact that the help are already out to a scanty living wage, while the president and his staff of salaries depart- mental heads could live on a much greater percent reduction than the wage earner. Men do not yet know the true value of a dollar through having to support a family of five in a rent on a dollar and a half a day part time. It is at this plastic age of Seventeen, that our lead- ers have chosen such ethics as have lei them to save them- selves and let the Devil take the hindmost or to help his neighbors with some thing more substantial than smiles, prom- ises and assurances.

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A WALK THROUGH NATURE Awakening earlier than usual one morning, I was seized with a desire to go for a walk in the woods, and having always been an ardent admirer of nature, I quickly decided favorably on the clan. I dressed hastily, and then after eating a lunch and storing some more away in my oocket, I sei camera and started forth. R zed my new kodak The grass was a glistening carpet of silver, and as I had nothing thick on my feet, they were soon Wet t birds were all striving to out do each other, and wild notes seemed to strike deeo into my soul, cause feelings of which only the beauty of nature I took my first picture when a robin oerc began to search for worms. He was a beautiful tn me like a flower in a barren land. to the picture seemed to oortray sti solendor of nature. I was aroused f by a whir of wings, and glancing up, weaving his way among the stately tr as quickly as he had anveared. rom this s sa? a part ees. He d The Ull ll more, the unna hrough. The the sweet, as well as to is canable. hed fe on a limb llow and seemed or which he added tchable silent awe acefully ed almost ate of idge gr isaooear t r The bushes now having dried somewhat, I left the path and began to follow a brook which I knew would lest me to Bear Serin This was a great stanning rrcuni for the wood folk, and I hoped to get some good nictures there The brook se ted to be full of trout and I stooned often to watch them dart and glide about in the clear blue water. They seemed like children slaying as they would rush quickly in one direction, and then as ruickly change it. And now as I was nearing my destination, more caution, hoping to take so e of the littl I oroceeded with e folk by sur- prise. I crept to the edge, barted the bushes with care, and there about a hundred feet from me, stood the most-hunted being df nature, a-beautiful buck deer. His stately head was held aloft and he seemed to be surveying the land with haughty dis- dain. Suddenly his body seemed to stiffen, and with a snort. he bounded away, but not until I had taken a oioture of him, for it was the Click of The camera thot had startled him. I returned home well satisfied with myself and quickly de- cided that there is nothing so beautiful as drama enacted by the denizens of the forest. Roland Lewis '33. QS

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In order to insure the stability of a reconstructed economic and social balance, let us recognize and assume our duty to these students in life. Let us teach them practical citiienship and fellowship by our own example. Let us strive to give the next generation a better world ani life than has been our lot. As a means to this end, let ue be a bit more faithful to our private and public obligations, more alert in our attention to public trends and policies. Lct us teach that the possessor of riches is not inevitably happier than thc possessor of kindness, optimism, a humble home and the knowledge that he is of true service to his country men. I Minot Pitts '55 Frogs' Winter Quarters Frogs are just as industrious frost dodgers as are birds, but while the birds travel thouands of miles to winter quarters, the frog migrates but a feet, and that straight down. The frog is a cold-blooded animal, Clike some of our big magnatesl and has no power to rise his body temperature above that of surrounding water or air. He can stand quite a bit of chilly weather, and can even survive after being partially frozen for a short time, but the smart frog avoids the frost, At the first sign of ice forming on his favrite pond, the frog empties all the air from his lungs and dives ' into the water, burying himself in the soft mud at the bottom. The ice may freeze solidly over the surface of the pond or lake, but the frog selects a place deep cn- ough so that there will always be some unfrozen water above his mud bed. He thus gets enough oxygen through his skin to keep him alive, although he seems to be dead. With the ice gone in spring, a couple of warm days are usually enough to wake him up.