Turlock High School - Alert Yearbook (Turlock, CA)

Page 19 text:

i' ' I 'f 'f T 1 ?! ?'?'f1'c'4 1 my feelings temporarilyg but as soon as my brain could be commun- icated with Qwhich was rather soonj my temperature rose to about seven thousand, live hundred, sixty-seven degrees centigrade. I marshalled my army of slang and poured out my vials of wrath upon the stolid door, upon the alarm clock and upon the alarm clock's owner. My eloquence on that occasion surprises me when I come to think of it in my calmer moods. Meanwhile the alarm ramped joy- ously on to the tune of my aunt's snores. My father, in the other room next to mine, was asleep. I knew that he was asleep, because I heard him saying things that I positively knew he would not repeat were he awake and in his right senses. Yet, as I listened to his mental peregrinations in the world of dreams, I wondered what he could have encountered so to disturb his mental equilibrium, and as I listened, my wonder gave way to admiration. I learned a great many words that morning which are not to be found in the dictionary. In a short time my father choked as if overcome and his golden eloquence trailed off into a few incoherent mutterings, Thus I was brought back to stern reality. The clock was not overcome. Nay! Nay! Far from it! The vitality of the thing absolutely amazed me. I began to suspect that there had been a mistake in assembling the clock, and that the eight-day time spring had been put in the place of the five minute alarm spring and vice versa. Desperate to a point where I threw all caution and my better instincts to the four winds, I entered my aunt's room without knocking. . - For a soul-tearing moment, I blinked in the white light of a mazda, and then I made out the shadowy figure of my aunt in the far corner of the room. She became clearer and clearer as my 'eyes became used to the light. It was she who first broke the silence. VVhat do you mean, you young renegade? Can't a person secure a small amount of privacy in one's own room P In the meantime the alarm was hitting it off on all sixteen cylin- ders, the muffler wide open, the spark advanced, and the accelerator as open as the last notch could make it. That was just what I was going to inquire about, -I remarked as sarcastically as possible, You see, the vibrations from your dang alarm clock have penetrated into the privacy of my bedroom and dis- turbed the sanctity of my dreams. I am going to turn it off before it wakens Dad. He might kill some one were he to waken in his present state of mind. I made a determined advance upon the alarm. - Don't, shrieked my aunt. Don't turn it off! I am going to let it run down. It hurts the spring to leave it wound up. Really ? I remarked. And what was the matter with putting it 13

Page 18 text:

at third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on, indefinitely. My aunt and my cousin were both hard sleepers. My cousin had, in her zeal, set the clotk for the inhuman hour of three. If you have ever been awakened from your peaceful slumbers because of the bungling idiocy of a spoiled cousin, you may be able to sympathize with me. It had been definitely settled the night before that I, and I only-not my cousin nor any one else-was to rise first: and that the hour of awakening was to be four, not three. But my aunt and cousin, being of a breed who even doubt that they themselves doubt, had doubted the reliability of myself and my alarm. They did not doubt the reliability of their alarm Qneither do IJ nor of themselves. Consequently the alarm was set. The night was dark and clear. The light of the shining stars and sputtering arc lights strayed through my north window and played upon my innocent face. Suddenly, from the room next to mine.there burst a frightful racket, not unlike a fire alarm in its vigorous and all- arousing enthusiasm. A slight frown gathered on my forehead. I stirred uneasily in my sleep, then woke with a start. The demon in yon room raved on. I looked at my clock between the first and second warnings and found,.to my horror and rising heat, that it was only three o'clock! The demon, strengthened by his short rest, had recom- menced his happy chant with an added vigor which would have been admirable in a more worthy cause-a gas attack or an air raid, for instance. However, this was no gas attack, neither was it an air raid. but judging from the sound, the clock seemed entirely unaware of this. The fog had not yet begun to form, so I patiently regarded the Stars with a fishy stare while I gritted my teeth and waited for some one to turn off the noise. A full minute, full of noise, passed, during which the clock sustained the honor of the house of Big Ben with an unrestrained fury. I could, or thought that I could hear my aunt's snores intermingled with the barbaric din. I could stand it no longer, my nerves were jangled to rawness, Hey, there! I cried. No response, save from the clock. Say, I shouted, close the mufflerg you are disturbing the neigh- bors' parrot. No reply except the harsh, insistent, metallic demand for attention. For the love of the white hairs in George VVashington's best wig, kindly put that young devil under your pillow! I intensified this last by dealing the door of communication a fetching crack with my closed fist. I wish to take time, for the world's welfare, hereby to state that it is entirely unproductive of results, and quite worthy of a permanent resident in an insane asylum to smite a wooden door with the closed fist. It is not to be thought of. I relieved 12

Page 20 text:

under your pillow while it was running down, so that no one else would be disturbed even if you did get up at three? Or I suppose that you forgot that there are other people in this vicinity besides yourself? Get out of here, you wretch, I have had enough of your impu- dence. I got out fast enough after I had informed my aunt that 1 had had enough of her alarm which, for lack of something else to do, had run down. ' The object in telling this incident is to show in what a bad humor we all were when we set off on our wonderful trip, and as a sort of forecast of what happened later on. The start was accomplished in almost absolute silence, and with perfect smoothness. The silence may account for the serenity, and it was agreeably surprising, considering the number of the female sex present. I have pondered long and deeply on this phenomenon, and I have at last come to the conclusion that the women folk were too sleepy to talk. I find this the only logical answer to the problem. It is particularly noticeable that wherever there are women pres- ent, a person is likely to find himself in a perfect maelstrom of con- glomerate triviality in the form of petty conversation. I have not been able to decide whether women talk to keep themselves from crying or to keep themselves from thinking seriously, but I have a very decided suspicion that they annoy any sane minded person with small talk just to keep from annoying said persons immeasurably worse with tearsg and this I think very considerate of them. It is so considerate that I am half inclined to believe myself wrong. VVhen we passed the city limits, the heat of the engine had so warmed every one that conversation began to revive except on my part. Now, when I get mad, I Wait until I have a good reason to be mad: and then I get mad and stay mad. With women it's different Cas it always isj. They get mad at any little thing, but forget it the next minute. Not that it does me any good to get mad and stay mad, but all the same I think that it is saner and more human to do as I do. However, as the conversationalistic temperature rose, my nerves. usually quite steady, 'failed me, I placed my foot on the accelerator, thus causing a simultaneous rise in- the temperature of the radiator. The conversation lanquished not a bitg but I did not listen for I was too busy trying to keep the car from skidding, hence I obtained relief. just before disaster overtook us, I happened to hear my aunt say, My! isn't this Fine? and then she saw the speedometer: whereupon she relieved herself of an electrifying screamg then she placed herself athwart the steering wheel a position from which I experienced some considerable difficulty in dislodging her. Meanwhile. the old car was acting as though the signals had gotten mixed. To all the extremes 14