Turlock High School - Alert Yearbook (Turlock, CA)

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-,'j -V-3... '- ff - I ' mm did she go. Now she was on one earg now on her hind wheels trying to manufacture a figure five on the wet pavement. I will say of that incident, that, if I could re-perform it and live through it, I would make several barrels of money. I think, however, that I should choose some one else besides my aunt to hang on to my arm. The women folks kept still for so long after this incident that I began to wonder. They were not crying, to my knowledge, and so, inconceivable as it may seem, they must have been thinking seriously fprobably about my close proximity to profane language so short a time beforej. Under these auspicious circumstances I was able to maintain a speed of almost twenty miles an hour. My peace and joy did not last long. My father, swayed by the flamboyantly boastful English of a pink poster, had purchased, much against my will, a very, very good bargain in the form of a very, very cheap tire, which now inhabited the left rear wheel of our auto. Of a sudden it saw Ht to blow out Qhalf the inner tubej. My anger at this juncture was almost as un- reasonable as that of the female species in that it embraced everything and everybody. By a terrific effort, I placed the hand brake in the last notch to the rear, at the same time I allowed the assembled muscle of my good right leg to force the foot brake within a pa,per's width of the floor. The natural result was that the car should have come to a sudden and abrupt stop, but nothing of the sort happened, Instead, we continued on the slimy surface of the wet pavement as though nothing had happened. I realized that we were skidding, and so I turned the front wheels toward the gravel at the side of the road. VVe skidded alarmingly for a moment, but the car righted and cogntinuerl toward the gravel. ' When the hind wheels left the gravel, the delayed action functioned with great rapidity. The car stopped. However, that did not stop us. VVe continued with varying fortunes. I tried my luck against the rigid steering wheel, and let me say that a soft, pliable abdomen is not to be placed with impunity against an unyielding steering wheel. My aunt endeavored to pass through the wind shield, but unsuccess- fully. Had we been going much faster, Dad would have had a new piece of plate glass to buy. As might be expected, I was unmercifully keel-hauled and raked over the coals by all present. But I was deaf to their polite impreca- tions although the hidden venom in their words must have made Captain Kidd turn over in his grave a half dozen times. I was not particularly keen about changing a nice damp tire in a nice damp fogg but it had to be done, as the man said when he tied the fat lady's shoe string in a hard knot. I was making it nicely when the awful cousin had to interfere . In a boastful effort to instruct the H 15

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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

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girl friend in the art of driving an auto, she released the hand brake, whereupon the left hind fender handed me quite a fetching crack in the eye, so disturbing my equilibrium in the operation that I sat down with considerable force in the goo of the wet pavement. What I said would have burned up a desert cactus but my cousin remained unmoved, and to make matters worse, my aunt gave me a lecture upon i'manners which interested me about as much as, X is to y, as z is to q: find the value of r, When we arrived at our destination, it was well on toward sig: o'clock and most of the choicest fishing had been missed. Needless to say, I was not in the best of tempers, but the women were jabbering away like magpies. VVonderful! Grand! and Ohl were the most commonly used words. Indeed, I do not believe that I heard much else. It.quite annoyed me. I was for fishing and nothing but fishing, We had come to fish, so let us fish. As the women couldn't see my reasoning, and as they insisted on sightseeing instead of fishing, I left them and started out to find a good comfortable bench from which to operate. In about an hour the stragglers straggled up, still exclaiming with large Ah's! and Oh's! They had not missed me yet. I had two lines out, a halibut line, which is one having the ordinary sinker, hooks and bait: the other, the snag line, consisting of a number of shiny hooks and a shiny sinker, The fish are attracted to this line by one's jerking the line up and down in the water. No bait is used and they are quite convenient, provided one does not hook a pile or a crab, if one does, then fifty cents to the bad. My cousin spotted me first, Why, there is Bruce! she cried. I had had fairly good luck and best of all, I had been removed from the distracting conversation of my aunt's coterie, hence I was in almost a good humor. , Why, hello! I said, holding up a two-pound halibut that I had landed, What do you think of this? That is all well and good, spat my aunt, but if we had missed you, what should we have done? I declare, you have absolutely no consideration for others at all, But you did not miss me, I replied. Are you going to fish here P she veered. Why, I expect so, unless you are, I answered. VVell, we are not. VVe are going out to the end of the pier, where all the decent people are. ' At this juncture a rather large fish, judging from the pull of him, began to nibble at my line. My attention was immediately diverted from my aunt as I began to play him off. I was so absorbed that I 16