Our Entire World Was at Peace Althea Andelin Roberts '45 The day was one of those "longed for" days. The Ogden sky with its remarkable blue and lazy August sun just rolled down the mountain past Malan's Peak and then slid into Cold Water Canyon. Ann Taylor and I had been on campus planning something or other. When finished, we hopped on our bicycles and took the well-worn route up the hill and across the bench. We flew down past El Monte and coasted by Rainbow Gardens. Of course, it was not Rainbow Gardens at all then; it was just a swimming pool beside the river. Occasion- ally we went there to swim with service men we hardly knew. But this day we parked our bikes on the ridge above the river and sat on the cement abutment of the bridge. We didn't talk much. We just watched the water, and each of us knew that we held in our hands a brief and shining, unsurpassable moment. Today was a different day. It was a day when we were sitting beside, and inside, and alongside a world that had been drenched in war. We knew some of those who did not survive. We had lived without Coke and gum, candy bars and nylon stockings. With a ration stamp we bought cardboard-soled shoes. We had danced with soldiers, written to sailors, and had watched the troops come through the Union Station in droves. We had flirted with them, met some of them, and laughed with many We had visited Brigham City's bulging Bushnell Hospital and ached with the men there. But this day, this bountiful day, was one when Kilroy, who was attached to every letter, was smiling, and the irony of "that business we were going to finish" was finished. Ships in the South Pacific were not moving in armadas, and the kamikazes were not diving into the deck of some forsaken troopship. B-17's had landed, and no one was flying over the hump. Utah Beach and Omaha Beach had become history, and the Battle of the Bulge was won. MacArthur had returned, and the deadly bomb had been dropped. Both Willie and Joe would be joking about the whole thing in the Saturday Evening Post. Ann and I were reverently aware of this day but only vaguely guessed at its significance. In my lifetime I would never see another like it. It was August 15, 1945. The big guns fired by my brother Lee were still. He would be home. Ensign Williamson and Dil Young would not. Fall Quarter at Weber College was about to begin, and the entire school would rejoice. Roland Parry was still to lead us in singing "Navy Men of the Skyway" with the cadets. All these formed fantastic and monumental memories, but none to compare with this particular day that I experienced with Ann, a day in August, a wonderful, genuine, glorious autumn day when our entire world was at peace. A B-17 on D-Day On the Rack Althea Andelin Roberts '45 Walking up the ramp from the ground floor of the gym building to the second floor and the girls' locker room was absolute torture from day two. Day one was the day we innocently walked with anticipation into Mae Welling's modern dance class. Little did we know that we were in for torture. We learned soon enough that the class was meant to stretch every muscle, every single muscle hiding behind every single ligament and attached to every single bone from our heads' tops to our toes' tips. And stretch we did. We might as well have been put on the rack. On day one, after a cordial welcome from Mae, we were told to sit down on the floor and begin to do the stretches, touching our toes with our hands and then with both hands held together. We flapped our legs on the floor to help them relax so we wouldn't get charley horses in bed that night, which we did anyway. We did endless sit-ups until we turned purple all around our sit-downs. We stood up and did the "clap your hands over our heads" and then down to "slap the side" routine; and the one where the hips turned one direction, while extended arms and shoulders were flung the other direction. This was supposed to be excellent for the waist. 32 Then down to the floor again to do push-ups, for those who could, and the awful anguish of trying to hold our legs together and raise them. We had to hold them to the count of four or six or eight. I cannot remember the exact count, but it might as well have been ten. Then again one at a time while our bodies shook and tried to stay down. From the position of being down on our backs, we pushed up our torso with feet and hands still touching the floor. We exercised every muscle, big and little, in our legs, in our arms upper and lower, in our hands, in our neck and shoulders and even our gluteus maximus. Knees that were constructed to last with ordinary wear only about 65 years were taxed to the hilt as we learned to slide down onto the floor from the standing position extending our arms out from our heads in order to save us from knocking ourselves out, and then we had to get up without a hitch as smooth as silk. We had pictures of learning to do some exotic contortions which we would perform to "The Ritual Fire Dance" or "Moonlight Sonata," but Mae assured us that we couldn't learn the contortions until our muscles were ready to learn them. Our groans only caused her to comfort us by instructing that we would get it over only with more exercise, which we did. We did it and complained plenty. We all ached and griped and secretly hoped we would come out of it with 10 pounds gone and gorgeous figures, which we didn't accomplish either. Mae Welling was a lovely lady, thin, pretty, and single. She taught not only modem dance but the physical education classes; she was head of the Associated Women Students and the Women's Athletic Association. She directed our assemblies, and we all liked her. We just had a hard time doing the things she required. Dantzel McCann was assigned to dance with Elaine Spencer and me for our final grade. We were to select a piece of music and out of the dense blue of our minds invent something to fit the music. We selected "Bolero," which was a fast and fiery piece that we thought would fit our personalities. Dantzel had long fingernails painted red. She never seemed to break them, and the polish never seemed to chip. She was waiting for Clifford Johnson to come home from the war, and she swore she would not cut her fingernails until he got here. It seemed those nails had grown a good inch beyond her fingertips. We three worked on this dance in our spare time until we thought we had something marvelous to fill the bill. The dance was fairly hard because we were so darned stiff, but we attempted some whirling and some running and some falling onto the floor. The great day arrived for us to perform our masterpiece and earn our grade. We did not get very far when one of us made a whopper and went down while the other two whirled. Although we were supposed to be doing a serious thing, we began to laugh. The class laughed with us. As the dance ended, we were all three on the floor in a sort of worship posture with our heads down and our hands outstretched in front of us, perhaps like we were in adoration of the king. Well, we ended with all of us jiggling our tortured bodies with laughter. When the final strains of the music came, Dantzel put out her hands with those long red fingernails tap tap tapping dramatically on the floor in front of her. Drama or comedy, our fatal finale was greeted by a house full of laughter and enjoyed by all, even Mae Welling. Modern dance class 33