With Apologies to VirgilBILL
REED was peregrinating through a dark forest one warm evening in June.
At regular and uniform periods he urged his antiquated Ford to a higher
frequency of spasmodic movements. In the conveyance were several of his
more beloved classmates, including Ruth Brooks, Mildred Abrams, Evelyn
Cole, Art Wright and Max Bukstel.
Annie, as Bill had lovingly dubbed the vehicle, was painfully ascending a
steep incline. (Probably the Hill of Difficulty.) Her motivity was aspirate,
uncertain and variegated. She seemed to be saying, "I guess—I won't; I
hope— I do; I won't—I can't; I wonnn—I—I—I guess—I will; I did—I did, I
did, I did, I made it."
The party was on the downward path and Annie, like the most of us, found
travel in that direction comparatively smooth going.
Traveling with a velocity of twenty-four miles an hour, and an acceleration
of two miles an hour per second, Detroit's declared supreme product proceeded down the proclivity.
Ahead loomed a large portentious arch bedecked in the dirge color. Beside
it stood a mournful man whom Ruth immediately recognized as Jacob Waldman.
"Hello, Jake," she flung at him as the car flashed into the foreboding shadow
beneath the arch.
Quite inanely he responded in a morose tone, "Abandon all hope, ye who
enter here." His remark was lost in the hurry of the moment, and Bill
and the rest continued into the beyond.
Soon
their eyes became accustomed to the comparative darkness. To the right
were beautiful trees and flowers; to the left was a precipitous
precipice.
As they progressed, the flowers became more beautiful and the chasm
deeper, the light lessened, and their velocity increased.
By
this time, quite alarmed, the girls were murmuring "Mother, mother,
mother, etc." The boys were applying their interests and efforts to the
problem of bringing Annie to a standstill. The wheels continued to
revolve although the brakes were against them. Art deduced "that the
contending forces not being equal, equilibrium could not exist."
Locomotion, finally though gradually, ceased. A grayish pallor hung
everywhere and an ominous stench pervaded the atmosphere. "Why," exclaimed Evelyn, "the River Styx!"
"We know it," replied Max, "but we can't help it."
There were multitudes crowded on the banks waiting to cross the slimy
stream. Among those present were discerned Elizabeth Hill, Mary
Gurtcheff, Minerva Green, Ed Stepler, Leon Zawisza, Dominick Vittori and Leo
Piccioni. Brothers Perks, Smires, Ott and Merkle were doing guard duty
along the bank and were ably superintended by a huge giant, Gordon
Lowden, who was often seen spitting sparks and giving orders to the men.
An old, old man with flowing beard and hair, that must have been Bob
Geverd, was reading Milton's Poems. Quite disgrunted at this interruption,
he sourly gazed at the amazed sextet. "Well," he inquired in the voice disconsolate, "are you ready to go over?"
'We're ready for anything," said Bill, "but is there room in Hades for my
car?".
"Yes, special provision has been made for such machines as yours,"
laconically remarked the ferryman.
They embarked, Annie and all, and as they approached the opposite shore
they saw a monstrous three-headed dog with vicious and brutal faces that
resembled Ralph Carr's, Frank Halpin's and Walter Higgins'. (Cerebrus.) He
was chained to a large rock, and thus rendered much less dangerous than he
appeared.
Bob Harris was denied the privilege of crossing when a saxophone was
discovered about his person, that might have passed for a meerschaum pipe.
To one side of the broad highway was a pit in which students were
laboriously doing problems in Darrow, answering questions flicked at them
by four familiar physics teachers, and drawing generators, motors and the
like with great mental exertion. Thomas Sink, Ruth Robinson, Thomas
Hughes, Charlotte Tomkins, Ruth Connor, Helen Pratt, Ronald Dennis and
Benjamin Kasten had chosen this as punishment to atone for the sin ( ?)
of making disparaging remarks about their teachers in, high school.
In
still another pit had been relegated Marie Aharon, Carlin Wentzell,
Avis Anderson, Beatrice Beideman, Joe Tomaselli, Beatrice Marcus,
Sidney Freedman, and Gertrude Koeller for insulting old folks and
taking candy from babies. Frank Russo, Louise Scott and Bertha Blatt,
whose greatest fault on earth was their inability to stop talking, had
been bound and gagged and were forced to listen to lectures given by
Sylvia Harris and Alex Stoyco.
Jimmy Smith, Clif Toye, Sam Wyatt, Irvin Nittinger, John Benton, Al
Lustgarten, Walter Duffield, Ed Gallob, bluffers extraordinaire, were suffering
intolerable throes of agony, inflicted by the Avenging Furies, Mary Blair,
Frank Dovi, Eleanor McLean, Frances Morris, Albert Fields, Jennie Lawyer,
George Sparrow and Herman Nussbaum.
Bill Andrews, Bob Hunt, Harry Schwab, Conrad Ahrens, Jack Dougherty,
Chic Blom— the conceited "eggs"— were made to wear incommodious
orthopedic necessities, the excruciating pangs of which convulsed
their self-panegyrized profiles.
Such
eulogized and generally esteemed people as Dottie Pancoast, Bob
Banyard, Ethel Garwood and Betty Johnson, Sammy McDermott, Betty Paul,
Dot Fox, Jane Huhn, Dorothy Pendexter, Connie Fish and Charles
Stevenson were bereft of names, recognizance, traits; and, where their
mentalities warranted it, reason. They were labeled with odd numbers in
the upper thousands to obviate the possibility of memoranda of the
digits, and consigned to oblivion.
George
Hood, Sylvia Weinstein, Helen Crombie, Gordon Jacobs, Reba Stein,
Althea Yeager, William Heine, Gertrude Koehler, Alex Price and Bertha
Kunkel (the Honor Students) were conspicuous by their absence, having
taken their places among the gods, demigods, tingods and
demagogues.
Ed Snow, Carl Carlson, Phil Rehmus, Lorence Blomquist, Ed Eggart, Harry
Schard, Kuk Zaleski and Earle Mooney, those superlative athletes, cavorted
on Elysian Fields.
Annie
and her contents were greatly flabbergasted to see the sour expressions
on the countenances of the sweet Marie Shaefer, Emilia Troni, Anna
Petersen, Edythe Greenberg, Marguerite Cummings, Edith Wenz, Marie
Weiss and Daisy Rittenhouse who were demurely plucking daisies to
ornate the heads of forgotten lovers, neighbors, classmates, teachers,
tax
collectors and such whom we have at various times assigned to perdition.
Crash, bang, smack, plooie, piffle, bing—(a blank period).
And then it dawned upon them. Annie, completely demolished, lay a
bruised and broken thing. Bill, with Ruth on one arm and a stray differential
on the other, revived sufficiently long enough to moan, "Where am I?"
Evelyn Cole, who was gracefully draped over the cross-arm, languidly
deciphered the markings of the sign which supported her.
-Three miles to Marlton!—
ROBERT
GEVERD
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June Class of 1931
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Aceto, Albert
Ackerman, Kenneth
Adam, Louise
Akermann, Dorothy
Allen, Frances
Altshuler, Daisy
Anderson, Lillian
Andress, Anne
Antisdel, Ruth
Azoff, Freda
Barag, Milton
Barton, Laura
Bauer, John
Baxter, David
Bennett, Reba
Bernhoff, Eleanor
Berry, Edward
Bibighaus, Mary
Bishop, Blossom
Blair, Albert
Blaker, Selma
Block, Fannie
Bold, Clara
Bowman, Joseph
Brager, Rebecca
Brand, Hyman
Bratten, James
Buchanan, Frank
Butcher, Lillian
Carmelia, George
Caya, Vincent
Clark, Thelma
Cohen, Alexander
Cohen, Morris
Cole, Lillian
Comerford, Helen
Cone, Edith
Connor, Walter |
Cooper, Jack
Cooperman, Leah
Costanzo, Joseph
Crane, Leon
Curry, Ruth
Dahlquist, Nels
Daniels, Etta
Deckert, Jack
DeFulio, Carmen
Dellerson, Ruth
Demby, Edith
Deputy, Norman
Dinerman, Myer
Doto, Francis
Dovi, Benedetta
Dworkin, Harry
Easton, Laurie
Eckhardt, Mildred
Edelman, Abraham
Engel, Eileen
Faber, Eva
Falkinburg, Catherine
Fisher, Elizabeth
Fluke, Elizabeth
Foster, Baird
Foulkes, Catherine
Frambes, Ruth
Freitick, Frances
Friedenberg, Sylvia
Fusco, Lucy
Gamburg, Sylvia
Gass, Constance
Geedy, Thelma
Gerber, Edith
Giordano, Dominic
Githens, Frances
Gondolf, Helen
Gottlieb, Eugenia |
Goukler, Julius
Grabowski, Cecelia
Grear, Anna
Gresh, Theodore
Gruccio, Madeline
Hedden, Clara
Hendrickson, Harold
Herbert, William
Hirst, Dora
Hollingsworth, Paul
Holmes, Lucille
Horner, Margaret
Horwitz, Sylvia
Hudson, Joseph
Huff, Fannie
Hughes, Joseph
Hunt, Claude
Hyman, Lillian
Ingram, Frances
Ivory, Ella
Jensen, Hilda
Johnson, Margaret
Kaminski, Felicia
Keese, Henry
Keiser, Helen
Kelchner, Pearl
Kerns, Esther
Kessler, Jack
Knauf, Anna
Krug, Charles
Kulczynski, Wanda
Kyler, Martha
Lear, William
Leewer, Gladys
Leiner, Marie
Lippincott, Dorothy
Lutz, Anne
Macke, Alvin |
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Sixty-one
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MacKnight, George
MacLauchlan, Helen
Malinowski, Walter
Malkus, Nelson
Manning, William
Markowitz, Rebecca
Massaro, Carolyn
Matthews, Ethel
Mattison, Leah
McCall, Yvonne
McClelland, Paul
Mehaffey, James
Mevoli, Dominic
Miller, Kenneth
Moore, Clement
Mumford, Laura
Myers, Edith
Natal, Roswell
Nicholls, Eleanor
Olsen, Ruth
O'Neill, Jack
Osborn, Edward
Paera, Evelyn
Palese, William
Pancoast, Garfield Sieber
Pastorius, Berkeley
Paul, Marian
Pearce, Isabelle
Pearl, Rosalie
Peech, Eleanor Jane
Perrigo, Olive
Pestritto, Thomas
Peterson, Charles
Pidatella, Angelo
Piotrowski, Alexander
Plasket, Howard
Polato, Amelia
Poore, Catharine |
Presser, Walter Stanley
Price, John
Proscheck, Elsie
Proud, Anna
Quillin, John Albert
Ragone, Louis
Reiff, Roslyn
Rein, Mae
Revallo, John
Reynolds, Hubert
Richardell, Thomas
Riegraf, Mildred
Ristine, Beatrice
Rose, Anna
Rosenberg, Daniel
Rosenberg, Jacob
Ross, Milton
Rothamel, Mary
Ruttenberg, Joseph
Salit, Joseph
Sandier, Katie
Scanlon, Jeanette
Schaal, Charles
Schaefer, Henry
Schemanski, Henry
Scotton. Eugene
Sharp, Harry
Shaw, Helen
Shivers, George
Siewicz, Leona
Smaldore, Patrick
Smith, Donald
Smith, Ruth
Sochacki, Grace
Sochacki, Helen
Speier, Mildred
Spencer, Helen
Spiegel, Sylvia
Springer, Miriam |
Stackhouse, Esther
Stackhouse, Virginia
Starke, Lillian
Stefanski, Anthony
Steinberg, Louis
Stepanek, Anna
Stepler, Margaret
Stonaker, Horace
Swain, Thurber
Taffoni. Enis
Talmon, Anita
Taylor, Grace
Teitelman, Saul
Thompson, Charles
Thompson, Lewis
Tietze, Alfred
Tomlinson, Edgar
Toms, William
Townsend, Ruth
Trensch, Franklyn
Tyler, James
Ulak, Bruno
Van Syckel, Delmar
Wachstein, Pearl
Ward, Alice
Warke, Mary
Weber, William
Weldin, Thelma
Wells, Joseph
West, Evelyn
Whitecar, Alten
Wiest. Georgia Rutfi
Willett, Harris
Williams, Lloyd
Williams, Miriam
Wingate, Leon
Wolf, Ava
Zanetich, John
Zondler, Leonard |
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Sixty-two |
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