DOOMSDAY

This is not, as are so many others, just one of those days. Came Friday and at the same time came the thirteenth of the month; the cue is for lightning flashes, thunder spurts, and a darkened stage. Today finds sable felines at a premium, unbreakable mirrors going up, and ladders being trusted only when in a horizontal position. And the headline writers clap hands in glee as they realize that Mrs. Snyder's demise will coincide with the most ominous of days.

For the origins of the popular fear concerning Friday the thirteenth one would probably be forced to delve into the Sanskrit or worse. Suffice to say that it is doubtless the most prevalent example of universal phobia in the world. Even minds otherwise destitute of primitive prejudices based on fears are tinged with an irrational suspicion of the day and demonstrate strange stubborness in hesitating to take up any task with such an inauspicious beginning. It is a quite elemental but quite human emotion.

The undergraduate is possibly less subject to the complex than are his elders: to him Friday usually means fish and the beginning of a weekend. But even he is likely to become uneasy on gazing at the current date-line. Even he cannot throw off the accumulated weight of ages: the most unlucky of days, coincidental with the most unlucky of numbers--one's callow self-confidence wavers.