"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
There was Jonas, the slot man, a dour veteran who sat inside the horseshoe and handed us the stories when the city editor was done. Three of us, the rim men, copy-edited and toiled over headlines. If a head sagged rather than sang, Jonas would growl, thrusting it back for another try. If it was OK, he'd just grunt. Then he'd lift his chin to bark: "Send that mother down!"
There was Chuck, the bespectacled wire editor, who used his metal ruler to tear stories off the endless sheet that stuttered from the Associated Press machine. Turning to come back to his desk, the world's news ribboning out behind him, he'd whack the fire extinguisher with the ruler. Clang! We'd jump in our seats as Chuck sang out, "Ring of truth! Ring of truth!"
And there was Jack, the assistant city editor, collar unbuttoned, necktie askew, belly swollen at his cluttered desk like a mountain looming over a village of scrap paper. I think his job was to finalize page make-up and send the dummies over to composing. Jack hummed as he worked, but every once in a while, apropos of nothing, he'd look up, pause, and say, "But, in a larger sense." A fragment from the Gettysburg Address. Sometimes he'd continue: ". . . we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow . . . .," and then stop. Usually, though, he'd flourish just the one phrase, "But in a larger sense," then go back to humming.
The Roman Catholic Boys for Art (Ivy League Division) hope it is not too late to raise a walrus-tusk-stirred toast of New England rum to Dartmouth's hidden Hovey Murals.
The Indian princesses evoke the Police Gazette as much as Pocahontas.
It is perhaps not too surprising they were eventually draped. But the Dartmouth Review has made the murals' restoration a cause.
Then there's the matter of the Hovey murals. Painted in the 1930's, they're illustrations of ''Eleazar Wheelock,'' a song by Richard Hovey, class of 1885: Oh, Eleazar Wheelock was a very pious man, He went into the wilderness to teach the Indian, With a Gradus ad Parnassum, a Bible, and a drum, And five hundred gallons of New England rum.
The style of the murals resembles Maxfield Parrish's illustration of ''Old King Cole'' for the bar at the St. Regis. All the remarkably similar Indian maidens are sweetly pretty and wide-eyed. They are wearing, at most, tattered wisps of loincloths. One brave is a perfectly muscled Frank Merriwell, with a large D on his chest. The others are slightly sinister, including the one about to lap up the overflowing rum at Eleazar's feet.
In any case, with Eleazar Wheelock; the Sachem of the Wah-hoo-wahs; and St. Tammany, we say, fill the bowl up!
"Immortal Tammany of Indian race, Great in the field, and foremost in the chase! no puny saint was he with fasting pale; He climbed the mountain, and he swept the vale, Rushed through the torrent with unequaled might; Caught the swift boar, and swifter deer with ease, And worked a thousand miracles like these, To public views he added private ends, And loved his country most, and next his friends, With courage long he strove to ward the blow (Courage, we all respect, even in a foe), And when each effort he in vain had tried, Kindled the flame in which he bravely died, To Tammany, let the full horn go round, His fame let every honest tongue resound, with him let every gen'rous patriot vie, To live in freedom, or with honor die."
I'm partial to the violets. Amy does justice to the forsythia.
The bun appears to be the same from last year, only bigger. He has the same look about the eyes. He's waiting for the vegetable garden to be planted, i.e., for the salad bar to open.
The annual baseball parade through town this weekend opened the Little League season. The Single-A Astros played their first game, against the Cubs. Our Astro proudly wears No. 4, Bobby Orr's number.
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