Thomas Dale High School - Reflector Yearbook (Chester, VA)

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As the sun mounts into the heavens, I decide to drop into the United Men’s Club where gossip usually falls thick and heavy. As I listen, I hear that Pres- ton Holmes who spent twenty-four years at Annapolis is now captain of the Staten Island Ferry. Jean Atkinson chases runs at the Cosy Hosiery Company and Lu- cille Brewer is the tracer of lost soles at a shoe factory. Lawrence Klebert is a salesman selling bathing suits to Eskimos. Jane Houchins fills droopy bags with feathers for Arabs who ride double-humped camels. I next hear that Elmer Burnham nearly starved to death winning a six-day motorcycle race when his mechanic, Richard Douglas, jammed the motor and it wouldn’t stop. Marion Grantham runs a salted peanut stand in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Lottie Curtis has written a book entitled “How to Remove Ink Spots From Blotters” and Rebecca Applewhite is the author of a new comic book creation “Banana Man.” Mr. and Mrs. Vernelle Curtis, Jr., are having their second honeymoon; the first one didn’t take I guess. I meander to the lounge where I hear more news of my successful classmates. Edith Wilson tests elevated shoes for people who want to walk on air with their heads in the clouds. Playboy Jimmy Vaughan’s hat was found floating out of the deserted tunnel of love in which he has been missing for thirty years. His former crony, Billy Walker, is safety supervisor on a firing squad and Frances Elliot is a recreational supervisor at a home for disabled silkworms. Armaine Clarke operates a button crusher at the Squish, Squash Laundry. Violet ‘Thom- ason is an interior decorator for bees; her slogan is ‘“‘a beautiful hive in which to strive.” Katherine James is a tatoo artist; her masterpiece is a knot hole on a baseball park fence. I hear that Fred Foster, a missionary to Borneo, is still try- ing to make the cannibals vegetarians but the fire is getting hotter. Lucille Long- mire is now a pig bristle plucker at the Merry Molar Toothbrush Company and Ales Jackson is a mermaid, the Belle of Davy Jones’ Locker no less. Grace Mc- Kay used to assort nuts for Planter’s Peanuts but now she assorts nuts for the in- sane asylum. Someone mentioned that William Petway lost a lot of money bet- ting on the turtle race. Realizing I’ll never find that ounce of ZIMZOCODINE by just. sitting around, I walk down the street again. I pass the school that absent-minded architect Russell Jordan designed upside down. I also see the flea circus run by Ruth Martin at the corner of Einswine and Vine. In a bakery I see Jean Walters filling creampuffs with a grease gun and she tells me that Beatrice Langster works for the Post Office Department creating new flavors for the glue on stamps. Frances Fischer is a dietician at the Washington Zoo in the snake division and Doris Parham tends the water fountain at the airport. Jacquelyn Jones teaches slang at Chester University and Eula Osborne plays the electric Jew’s Harp for the Paris Symphony. But where is that doctor I’m looking for? At a tobacco store I find that Elizabeth Spiers is the chief pipe fitter. Frances Vaughan is hostess of the Tin Canteen while I find that Roy Thomas just got his wings as a high altitude elevator operator. He just soloed with oxygen at the TPE eflector 24

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CLASS PROPHECY What year is this? What is my name? Where am I? Mumpbling these questions to startled passers-by, I stumble my way along the crowded sidewalk of a strange city. I’m not crazy. I haven't got that vacant look in my eye—don’t stare at me like that. All of a sudden my left foot and a discarded banana peel, one of nature’s deadliest booby traps, meet and I am soon in a violent back flip which isn’t quite completed. The pavement is hard, but my head is harder. I fall flat, but rise again with one sprain- ed eyebrow. As soon as my head stops spinning, I realize my memory has come back, or at least partially. It is the year 1974 and this is the metropolis of Chester, center of the uni- verse. A torn slip of paper in my pocket states my predicament. I have the deadliest of all diseases of the memory—MAMOCO-on-the-CACOCO. ‘There is only one medicine that can cure me. It is the last remaining ounce of ZIMZO- CODINE, owned by a great physician, whose name I’ve forgotten. My only clue is a letter in my pocket that hints that he or she used to be a fellow classmate of mine thirty years ago. Being a man of action and in a desperate situation, I im- mediately set about locating such a fellow intellect of former years. Who is it? This question haunts me night and day. I must find him. I’m too young to spend the rest of my life as a man with forgotten memories. Ah! But don’t feel sorry for me, I know [I shall find him. It is 9 o’clock in the morning as I start out on my search. I start at this time because I am a firm believer in punctuality and thus, with my toothbrush and a 1944 Reflector, my crusade is launched. I hardly take five or twenty steps when I decide to buy a newspaper. I sit down on the curb and leaf through the contents of the paper. A familiar name soon catches my eye and I discover it is that of Ken Broehm, our new ambassador to North Carolina. I remember how Ken always was interested in world affairs. On the financial page I see that Betty Lou Carnahan, that cute dish who owned the China Shop, went broke. The Nobel prize has been awarded to Penelope Lingan for taking the wrinkles out of prunes. I next notice that Harry Dunbar is now a corporal. He joined the army thirty years ago to release a Wac on the home front. Putting the paper in my vest pocket I stroll down the sidewalk. In a fur- niture store window I see Clyde Carter asleep on a bed. He is a mattress tester now. A large sign board says that Jean Pickhardt and Ruby Williams, lady wrestlers, are having a bout tonight at Chester Square Gardens. “hex Reflector 23

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25 hundredth floor of one of Chester’s skyscrapers. Harriet Bush is now head of the complaint department in Sing Sing and Eleanor Cochran is head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics on a guinea pig farm. I next see Bettie Lyttle modeling Webster cigars. Eddie Goyne is a big railroad man now. He is a track polisher. In a drug store a lovely aroma greets me and I find it is a per- created by Beverley McLeod and Sarah ’ fume called “Violets and Limberger’ Hanchey. Pausing at the fashionabhle Waldorf-Castoria I notice that Lena Smith tends a hot dog grill in its lobby. There I hear that Senator Donald Fuller keeps in practice for his filibusters by having a part time job as glassblower. As the sun sinks below the horizon and I wend my way wearily home, I see Doris Wilkerson, a soup ladler, setting up business at the Automat. In a store window I notice some suspenders designed by Arline Wray. She designed them for snakes because a snake’s belt slips since it has no hips. As I approach my apartment, I hear music. It is Dickie Quaill, a swoon crooner on the Salvation Army Glee Club. Discouraged and tired in the solitude of my room I turn on the radio. I hear Mildred Critcher as “John’s Other Wife” and Bob Bacon has taken Raymond’s place on Inner Sanctum. ‘The Super Suds Choir now con- sists of Connie Curtis, Ann Hatcher, and Mildred Dance. ‘Tonight’s expert on “It Pays to be Ignorant” is Corine Boller. As darkness settles, I see Marie Williams replacing burnt out light bulbs in the city streets and I ease back in my chair. I now realize I have seen everyone of my former classmates, busy and happy, and in the brief span of—of—let’s see— I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten everything. I don’t even know what I have been looking for. Thus with my mind a total blank, Iam content and happy and settle back and wait for eternity. MRes HIDE.” The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of its author or any living mortal and therefore no one is totally responsible. Any similarity to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental. Bos MILLER. mer eflector