United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

Page 30 text:

Skinny and Steam. They stormed our ranks in vain for the long list that forms their annual tribute, for but three succumbed. Now we weighed the Line and the Engineer corps in the balance, and meditated on Pay vs. Rate. The result was that thirteen were lured by the siren dance of the engines, and became knights of the oakleaf. The remain- ing thirty-three entered the lists in a mad rush for stripes. Some were sur- prisingly successful, while others contented themselves with the gaudy birds. The first and second classes were together given a taste of Bancroft life, in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, which saith, “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.” But the Bancroft was in reality for the Engineers, and they indulged in the luxuries that the Monongahela’s cruise would not allow. Some museless bard even went so far in his efforts to eulogize the corps as to make “engineer rhyme with “beer, although his cause was groundless, surely. The Line won their honors on the historic old wooden ship, and succeeded in handling her in a manner truly masterful. But it's all over now. The cruise, with its ambitions, its successes and its “busts,” is a blessed memory. On our return we were greeted with a new administration; and if that homely adage, “A new broom sweeps clean, ever impressed itself on us, it was then. But we can accustom ourselves to almost anything, and the appear- ance of this little book finds us about to wind up our accounts as slaves of academic discipline. That our record is unsullied is conceded, and we point with pride to a group of twenty-one second class buzzards of which not one was disrated, and with the same sweeping gesture we hope to include our stripers and buzzards of the final year. In passing we must mention the little struggle at foot ball in the Fall of ’94. We were the inter-class champions after humbling the “ Lion ” in all his righteous wrath, and affixed our name to the foot ball banner with not a little triumphant glee. Now we are at peace with all the world; our brows are bound with victorious wreaths, and we turn the deck over to ’96 with every assurance that she will with competency and distinction stand her watch. May her run through first-class waters be as free from shoals and shallows as has been ours. 22

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The plebe year passed swiftly, and before we could realize it. w e were on the threshold of youngsterdom, with its coveted joys and “rate.’’ How we had looked forward to its changes, and to that promotion in June, that should transform us from unknown, belittled, despised and long-suffering plebes to gaily, conceited and pompous youngsters. What pen can fully describe the tumultuous, feverish, maddening joy that seizes a cadet at this sudden step? He is no longer a nonentity in the little world of academic life; he is an absolute and existing feature in it. (And in justice let it be said, he feels it.) But alas! every rose must have its thorn, and while we went up a round, some of our well-beloved left us. and the sanguine band of ’86 was sadly reduced in numbers. The names of many of our cherished ones were in the lists of those found wanting. Our youngster cruise wras made on the old Constellation, during which we visited New London and Newport. There, as usual, we vied with the envious “ Cit in social matters, and began to “spoon” with youngsters' characteristic zest. We learned a thing or two on that cruise, and went home in September with the satisfaction of knowing what difference exists between a Turk’s head and a Granny knot. It was on this leave that we sported our uniforms—a thing we could not have been bribed to do on the two succeeding leaves. We returned to be quartered in stribling row. far from the madding crowd, and to bone Trig and Stereo, with Skinny and Conics in the dim future. We had not yet reached the time when the struggle for stripes and buzzards worried us. and all went merry as the proverbial marriage bell. We sailed between the Scylla of Skinny and the Charybdis of Conics, but sacrificed a few more of the grand old class. But the second class Summer was the dearest period of our career. Twas then we would creep out oft in the stilly night and bring apples from the government farm, or go canoeing on the silent Severn; twas then the tragic episode was enacted in which “ Flop-ity-flop told the story of a love-lorn youth’s sad fate, and we thought to ourselves. “How are the mighty fallen.” Then eight weeks of joyous leave:—but this was the calm before the storm: it was over all too soon, and we returned to battle with the three arch-fiends—Math, 21

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 We step down and out. feeling that we have little to regret and much to look back upon with pride. Of our mistakes we are cognizant.—may they be of as much use as a warning to succeeding classes as we hope our suc- cesses will as a stimulus. With the Jap we bid you sayonara. 23