CREATING A RIPPLE

This is in the nature of a valeflictory appearance. It is hard to decide whether this is the beginning of the end--or the end of the beginning! Once again there is an atmosphere of impending doom managing low over Briggs Hall and this time it ain't kiddin'! No paltry little Saturday exam hangs negligibly over our evell-crammed heads. No warm-up session with Ensign Rosalie Jensen, the successor of the noble J. A. Hancock, not yet with Quactham, the inconsequential c-4-D Storekeeper, has us in our present state of nerves this time it's the real thing, and we're not fooling either. By the time this goes to press some of us will know where the powers-that-be have seen fit to distribute our various talents. We will have cancelled plane reservations, or made new ones; some will be stocking up on bathing suits (that lucky gal who gets Miami!) while others will be scanning railroad maps carefully with an eye towards finding out how many hundreds of miles from a city of 100,000 their particular little haven is located. Yes, the WAVES are off to sea--or a reasonably exact facsimile thereof!

Everyone seems determined to see us off in a blaze of glory. Or maybe they know where we're going, and feel sorry for us! The Business School gave a bang-up dance for the WAVES this past Saturday night. It was very gay with much music, much punch, and much men! It was interesting to note that gray suits are being worn this season--we had almost forgotten! But the boys are a lot more self-conscious about their civilian suits than we are. We know they're doing what they were ordered to do. The most often heard crack of the evening was the one about the boys going in the Army-soon in order to relieve the WAACs for active duty! Another cynical member of the QMC remarked that this was a funny world--there was a war on and here were all the women in uniform and the men in mufti! . . . It was kinds funny, at that.

Briggs Hall was honored by the presence of Captain and Mrs. McIntosh at dinner last. Thursday evening., Libby Tyson, ace cartoonist of PIPTIDE, the WAVES' newspaper, executed some amusing place-cards for the occasion. After dinner the girls had the opportunity of meeting their guests informally in the living-room. Ruth Finke, Kitty Reumann, Elsie Koeliner, Jane Staiger and your columnist performed some songs written to order by your columnist. Betty Etrachan was the accompanist. One in particular was rendered with deep feeling:

"Some day we'll go places, New stations and faces, The day we quit marching to class; The future looks pleasant But at present We wish the time would only pass.

We all wanna do jobs, We're looking for new jobs, How long is this war gonna last? The Navy can guide us

But inside us We wish the waiting all was past!

And--California here we come Boston is the place we're from.

Out beyond the hills of Idaho There'll be a station for a WAVE D. O.

We'll take the Chattanooga choo-choo 'bout a quarter to four, End up with an Admiral who's stationed ashore . . .

The eyes of Texas are upon us all the livelong day, We will settle for the Gulf coast any place along the way.

Still--Georgia, Georgia, no place we find, Milledgeville's the spot Takes Georgia out of mind.

So--dream of the White House You may get a lighthouse And wave to the men on the shore. The future looks pleasant But at present We'd like to know a little more!"

After some numbers had been performed by Ruth Finke, Betty Strachan, Kitty Roumann and Dorethea Camphell, the real piece de resistance of the eveing was brought forth when Captain Me Intosh was persuaded to sing several see chanties. He did, delightfully, and had his audience hanging on his every word through many stanzas, one better then the other. Mrs. McIntosh read an inspiring poem she has written on women in the services. A very happy evening broke up after group singing by all the assembled WAVES.

And so we come to the parting of the ways, It will not be an easy farewell we say to Radcliffe and to Cambridge. We have had a memorable two and a half months which none of us will over forget. We'll be a long time out of the Navy before we forget the girl who slept in the bunk beneath us, or our company commander with the pleasant smile, or the platoon leader who even said "Hup" with a southern accent, or the gal who played all the practical jokes and then had to have her ribs taped up when she played ball just a little too vigorously. We'll long remember the ten-to-eleven hour in the living, room the manufactured senttlebutt-always better than the real thing--the coming home after dates on Saturday nights, the comparing of noies, the trips to the Navy Yard, and all the things we never got to see.

And if this sounds sentimental, pardon an old salt as she sheds a few anticipatory tears