MEMORY LANE

     For the average Laneite, graduation from high school marks the end of a formal educational career. During the greater part of his life, he has been attending schools, learning things that will help him to become a liner, abler individual, better qualified to take his place in modern society. Not only did the traditional academic subjects give him this knowledge, but the social activities that the school sponsors - athletics, clubs, and dances - teaching community cooperation and responsibility. These are the things that will remain valuable about our stay at Lane.
     Imagine it's June, 1978. You're sitting alone by a window - nobody's home to disturb you. Through the window you see children playing, maybe your own, highschoolers gossiping in little groups-and it's the month of graduation. You're reminiscing-what did you do in 1953, the year of your graduation from Lane? Well, there was...

THE G. 0. ELECTION

     Of course you knew all about elections - posters, speeches, voting - but somehow, it was quite a new kind of thrill, nationalistic, you might call it, to see your own school host to the ballyhoo of a real election campaign. Such craning of necks toward the ceding to read the gaily dancing signs - "Joey 4 Pres.," "Elaine for Veep," and then crossing of eyes in order to read the posters on both sides of the hall at once. And then, the speeches - and the promises - yes, you can smoke in school, there will be a clock in the tower, girls, you will get new bathing suits (just like the old ones, they forgot to mention), there must be a jukebox in the cafeteria, it's good for the digestion - etc., etc., etc. Funny thing - one of the promises did come true -the bathing suits . . . they were bought before the election!!

THE SWIMMING POOL

     Remember our first swimming class? How frightened we were of that seemingly bottomless chlorinated green ocean! - until somebody pushed us in and we discovered that it was possible to stand up (in the four-foot end, of course!). After being marshaled into straight lines on the sides of the pool we "learned" how to breathe - head under, bubble, up, under, bubble . . . just like the fish that a few terms of swimming were supposed to turn us into. And what a picture we must have made, staggering out with hair soaking wet, and stringier and straighter than we knew it could be!

THE CAFETERIA

     "Gosh - you can hardly see from one end of it to the other!" A typical gasp from a Lane freshman - you probably said it yourself once. The cafeteria was the unofficial haven for all Laneites suffering from hunger, fatigue, school fever, or just a case of having to get next period's homework done before the bell rang. What rivalry to get on the front of the line - and then the "lucky" one who did was charged with a half a dozen other orders from everybody else sitting at his table! And the teachers on guard duty watched with such gimlit eyes to see that the crumbs were cleaned up and nobody threw milk into the wastebasket!

THE P.A. SYSTEM

     Sitting in the official room, a little awed by your new status as a HIGH SCHOOL student, you stared at your stiff, new S.S. card and chewed the remains of your finger­nails, trying to figure out how to get from one room to another, when ... DONG, DING, DONG. You jerked to attention and pricked up your ears wondering who had had the nerve to tune in NBC. "Attention, attention everybody please," sonorously in­toned a voice from an indeterminate direction. Somebody whispered excitedly, "that must be the public address system. Look at the box in the front of the room. Just like a railroad station!" Humble before the superior knowledge of another neophyte, you listened in reverence to special announcements, much more important than anything else in the world, and to welcoming speeches by the school's faculty and administrative staff. And at his desk, the teacher grinned so indulgently at you, knowing everything you were thinking, and not believing a word of it!