Operation Paramecium Excitedly bending over the tube, I peered through the eye piece. By RICHARD SHORTEN After a thorough briefing, which included charts depicting the artist's conception of an actual Paramecium, in three colors, and the instructor's assurance that the animal actually existed, we took seats in front of our instruments. The gleaming black microscopes reeked of precision, incarnation of the scientific attitude. If anything could prove the existence of the Paramecium, I thoroughly believed the imposing instrument in front of me could. I held out a glass rectangle called a slide on which a laboratory assistant placed a drop of turbid green liquid. I examined the liquid and could see nothing. Carefully I placed the slide beneath the tube of the microscope and focused light from a small mirror on it. Excitedly bending over the tube, I peered through the eye piece. What I saw looked like white bath tile, but I was quite sure it couldn't be. I lowered the tube and still it looked like bath tile. I raised the tube and it resembled bath tile more than ever. Becoming slightly panicky I raised and lowered the tube, still straining my eyes and imagination to see the Paramecium. The instructor went about the room gazing in different microscopes, giving nods of approval to those gifted people who met with success. Almost everyone could see the elusive animal but me. Finally the instructor examined my white bath tile and informed me that I had been studying nothing but glass slide; the liquid was out of my field of vision. I attempted a weak laugh, adjusted the slide, and looked thrugh the tube again. As I manipulated the tube, the bath tile took on definite liquid characteristics; my specimen now looked like milk. The instructor again examined my slide, and, after giving me a look which seemed to question my intelligence, focused the tube on what he claimed to be a Paramecium. Gazing expectantly into the tube, I announced that the specimen looked like a chunk of coal sitting in a stagnant pool. He said he wished he could see a Paramecium for me, but because that was impossible I would have to do my best. Several more unsuccessful attempts to find the elusive little creature followed and by this time the liquid, supposedly crawling with the animals, became so dry that any creatures left would certainly be emaciated. Resigned to defeat, I gazed with admiration at the Paramecium depicted on the chart, in three colors. page fourteen Have We? A pair of love birds Billing and cooing, Nothing disturbed Their passionate wooing. Until without warning, He pecked her nose; Unruffled but firmly She stepped on his toes. Then-blue feathers, green ones, The air was quite dense Over some little trifle. They should have more sense -Joyce Mitcheu His and Mine By JACK SMITH What kind of dean of men was this jasper anyhow! Raleigh U's most outspoken crusader jumped to his feet and blurted, "Listen, Spud, you're nuttier than a Christmas salad." The dean looked startled, wondering who this offspring of a jackass was. Said he, "I still maintain that anyone who doesn't stick in college long enough to receive his doctor's is a spineless, gutless. ..." "Hold on thar, podner." This from a freckled youth from Wyoming. The foregoing took place during the winter quarter at Raleigh U in Dean Snavely's orientation class. Snavely no doubt had eaten that sack of potatoes that he used to harp on day in and day out. It is quite probable that his roommate had died of T. B. Perhaps, too, he did not stretch it a bit when he claimed that fifteen hours of sleep a week was all he managed to grab. Gutless or not, J. Smith was having a helluva time trying to get through Raleigh. Perhaps with a little luck he could make it out of that honored institution in eight years. It was something to look forward to . . .to hope for. Bogged down with lessons throughout the quarter the onetime writer of the socialist dominated weekly school paper looked around, decided to take stock of himself, hoped to find a remedy to climb out of this mess. First: He had to fork out fifty-five bucks a month on a car. Of course it was true that it was new and was necessary to get back and forth to work ... to pay for the damn thing. Second: Eighteen credit hours. His adviser had him listed for twenty some-odd, but Smith didn't plan to pass part of that anyhow. But the eighteen had to be packed around the campus for twelve weeks. Third: A little girl who was in her final year at the Aggies, beckoned, whispered, "Darlin,' come when ya can." The old Plymouth rolled up 12,000 miles in five months. Well, wasn't much to take stock of . . . facts are facts. Perhaps old Spud was right . . . Jack Smith'll give it another buzz but it appears that they might have to build a new college to haul Smith out of English III. page fifteen