AT Ease By Naval Cadet James R. Lewis Air cadets sit on a bench And while the hours away; Fifteen minutes to spend at will After a busy day. Fifteen minutes to sit and nap He dreams, or merely thinks. Or stretches out upon the bench For forty extra winks. His leisure time is very scarce And quite a priceless thing, For Time, as He has always been, Is ever on the wing. "You too can win your wings of gold," The Navy poster read, And what he thought would be a game He found was work instead. At Prep School he had many studies And he soon discovered why. It takes education, plus common sense, To meander in the sky. He planned to use time between classes To talk with the coeds and laugh, But their classes changed on the hour While his changed on the half. He learned the regulations And tried to keep them straight, But sometimes forgot to read a page And discovered the rule too late. He fusses about his schedule And complains of the lack of sleep, And he frets about P. T. and marching. His sentiments run quite deep. He's proud of the flag he's under And the suit of blue he wears And down inside he's happy. He has no time for cares. He can talk about all of his troubles And speak with sarcastic mirth, But down in his heart he's certain His Navy's the best on this earth. page four Wolfgang A Familiar Essay by James Engle First of all you must understand that Wolfgang is not the plain old common run-of-the-mill ordinary dog which is of the order Canus Barkus, but of the special order Quartus Oculis, which may have something to do with the fact that he has four eyes. Now this doesn't make my pet a freak, because, like any other dog, he has but two eyes in his head. Of course, he has two heads. If he had four eyes in one head, wouldn't that look queer? As to Wolfgang's breeding I saw myself that his mother was a true blue, blue-blooded Heinz, and his father a Spitzbergen Spitz, the latter accounting for his one head that chews tobacco and spits. This feat alone is remarkable as it is this head which is completely devoid of teeth. He left them one day in the gas man. And it was this clever act that inspired my idea of putting a Bunsen burner cigarette lighter near every easy chair in our forty-four room bungalow. We should worry, no gas bill. Wolfgang is really a sight to see, bounding down the nearest alley playfully scaring little children to death. He has a rare distinction among the quadrupeds in our block: he is the only dog that can zestfully purloin the contents of two garbage cans on opposite sides of the alley simultaneously. The regular feeding of this brute is getting to be quite a problem, his toothy head demands fresh meat whilst the other is a vegetarian. I might add that the vegetarian head, which naturally has to gum all of its food, does go high-brow once a year on December 14. On that date it devours a number ten can of Clapp's Baby Food enriched with five parts grain alcohol, for the purpose of commemorating the death of George Washington. Now this canine quiz kid reasons that if Washington chopped down a cherry tree, he is guilty of desecrating dogdom's greatest symbol, the tree; therefore, his death should be celebrated. Presently he worries for fear Henry J. Kaiser might go into the lumber business. With regard to Wolfgang's hunting prowess, he hunts mostly in the culinary line. One day while prowling the gutter and admiring the fire hydrants, he espied a butcher shop across the sidewalk. He stopped, sniffed, sniffed again to let the other head in on the secret, and went in the open door. There he saw three housewives on the butcher's lap acting amorously toward the popular fellow who kept saying to himself, "No points, huh." He plunged into the meatcase without even breaking his nose on the iron bars constructed there. Before the butcher could disentangle himself from the pointless hussies, Wolfgang made off with a sawdust pork roast and a pint of blood the butcher was saving for the Red Cross. But it was upon the opening of the pheasant season, February 29, that Wolfgang proved his ability to flush the wily Japanese Goosenecked Pheasant. This type of pheasant differs slightly from the common Chinese Ringnecked Pheasant who by some odd coincidence has a white ring around his Adam's apple. The difference is explained by the absence of the farmer on the day Mother Nature laid off from Lockheed to spray paint on his esophagus. It seems these wayward pheasants were taking the day off as F.D.R. had moved Thanksgiving up to Labor Day to add another work day for his relatives. And the birds thought they might as well make a short jaunt, say eighty-thousand miles; and that if they were lucky, they might even see Eleanor in the swamps of Afghanistan. But I musn't forget Wolfgang; it was his big day. The whole week before he had been sharpening his scent with Kreml and he was ready for action. He was rather hungry that morning, I guess, for after I asked him to shake hands, all that remained was a bloody stump below my collar bone. Away we went to the hunt. I gazed appreciatively at Wolfgang, as he carefully crossed Highway 30 watching the traffic from four directions at once. Maybe I didn't tell you he was also cross-eyed, and still my brave dog gets his tail amputated by some patriot riding on his rims. We hunted steadily for eleven hours, killing ninety-eight and a half pheasant hens, two cows, and a gin bottle which was thrown lustily by a toper who swore off drink upon seeing Wolfgang. But, alas, Wolfgang is serving a great cause now. Upon hearing about Dogs for Defense he promptly enlisted in the Wags, army reserve. After a short training period of fifty-eight hours, already knowing more than the Second Lieutenant training him, he left for the front. He served continuously for 1348 hours, was given the Silver Dog Star and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the K-9 Corps. One head is a Lieutenant, the other a Colonel. And now the news strikes me that Wolfgang is in line for the Red Heart. To think that I used to feed him Purina. UNMENTIONABLES An Essay by John Dixon, A.S. To begin, I might say that I am a man. I even have hair on my chest. But I work as a shoe salesman in a ladies' store, and thereby hangs a tale. This particular Saturday was a slow one in the shoe department, so I stepped behind one of the ready-to-wear counters and sold a sweater to a "sweet young thing" who had been waiting for a clerk for quite some time. Radiant with this success, I turned to leave this foreign department. As I about-faced I noticed another young lady waiting at my newly adopted post. I stepped up to her and said in my best voice, "Could I be of any assistance?" "Well, you might be," she answered in an odd tone of voice. "What did you want?" I asked. "A Dansette," she replied. "What was that?" I asked, thinking that I had not heard aright. "A Dansette," she replied. Not wishing to appear uninformed, I meekly ventured: "With a high or low heel, madam?" Whereupon she turned, fixed me with an icy stare and fairly shouted: "Listen, mister, a Dansette is a black lace panty and brassiere outfit." Fairly and squarely beaten, I crept back to my own cosy nook in the shoe department. page five