Why No Marker?
In all the political furor to restore the beauty and wild youth to America's countryside, we often forget or remain unaware of the smaller remnants of America's not so distant frontier past.
KU has such an historical landmark down the hill south of new Blake Hall which is historically and traditionally referred to as Prairie Acre. According to legend this piece of earth holds the original sod, untouched and unampered. Supposedly it has never been turned.
On this sod grows a stand of the prairie grass that covered this area prior to settlement by men. It is surrounded by a gravity wall. No mortar holds the stones in place.
MOST MEMBERS OF the KU community are unaware of its existence. It is no fault of theirs. Busy schedules cause many would-be
adventurers from stumbling upon it. It is only slightly marked.
A new sidewalk has recently been built passing the acre. Why not place some sort of marker or plaque on or near the sidewalk explaining the area to passers-by? It is a shame for such an unusual phenomenon to remain relatively unknown.
When looking at the virgin soil one feels drawn to that which has remained virgin in the hands of our progressive society. It calls to mind the words of Robert Frost,
"May something go always unharvested! May much stay out of our stated plan. Apples or something forgotten and left. So smelling their sweetness would be
o smelling their sweetness would be no theft."
— Janet Hamilton
'Breaking in' Begins
Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of articles reporting on life at Parris Island, S.C., in U.S. Marine Corps basic training by a 1964 KU graduate.
Bv Pvt. Charlie Corcoran
The journey from Kansas City to Parris Island had been long—from 10 a.m. May ninth to 3 a.m. the tenth—but not nearly long enough. In the stillness of the southern morn I was deposited at Recruit Receiving.
I had travelled alone, and in sight of the "ordeal" ahead was lonely for the sound of a familiar voice, the sight of a friendly face.
I knocked on the door, timidly to be sure. Silence. . . . Taking a deep breath (secretly hoping that P.I. had been closed for the summer). I rapped louder.
"STAND FAST THERE!" boomed a voice big enough to put my heart in my throat. On went the barracks lights and from inside came the sound of what I was sure were the hobnail boots of an ogre.
The door swung wide, "Get in here on the double, recruit."
He wasn't as tall as I had supposed, but for what he lacked in physical stature he made up in mien. His eyes were hidden under the brim of the DI's campaign hat.
As "instructed" I emptied my wallet and shaving kit, my only luggage, and placed their contents neatly on an unused bed in the empty squad bay. Finding no lethal weapons or drugs, the DI gave me "thirty seconds to get that garbage squared away."
I was led, like the proverbial lamb, to a desk in a darkened classroom. He relieved me of my orders and disappeared.
- *
AT 5 A.M., DURING an hour's "sleep," my head cradled in my arms, the sound of stampeding hoofs jolted me and my taxed adrenals to consciousness. About one hundred identical bald pates on a variety of bodies streamed into the room and assumed a position of attention before the desks.
A half dozen other recent arrivals were attired in civilian clothes, the rest of the "mob" wore T-shirts and green utility trousers, the recruit's only uniform up to his last two weeks
at P.I. Each had a crumpled "cover" (a hat-like covering for the head) jammed and buttoned into his right rear pocket.
"Ready . . . Seats!" The floor in the WWII "temporary structure" seemed to buckle under our collective weights.
AFTER MORNING "CHOW" the seven of us who had just arrived, were taken to Hygienics for transformation. Issued a towel, we stripped off every piece of civilian "gear." It was wrapped in a heavy sheet of brown paper along with all personal articles but our wallets and wrist watches, tied with twine and labelled with our home addresses. We never saw civilian clothing of our own again while we were on the island.
In 30 seconds after sitting in the "barber's" chair, we were bald. With a few deft swipes of the electric razor the Beatles and the Presleys looked almost human. Whether we came from the streets of Philadelphia or the prairies of Kansas, now we all looked the same.
Then down the hall, under the showers and into Clothing Issue where we caught our clothes for the next 84 days and stashed them in a canvas seabag. Walking past a counter, arms above our heads, dimensions measured, we were tossed shorts, T-shirts, knee length, cushion sole socks, utility trousers, jackets, a buckle and a belt. Then over to another counter for a quick foot sizing and two pairs of boots, new, stiff and lusterless.
BODIES CLOTHED AS the others and with bulging seabags hanging from our shoulders, we "marched" to Initial Issue where we received $38.50 worth of razors, blades, shower shoes, tooth paste, tooth brushes, tooth brush cases, shaving kits, marking kits, cigarettes and matches for the smokers (who weren't to smoke for longer than they imagined), handkerchiefs, gloves, sweatshirts, athletic shorts and supports, utility covers and sneakers.
*
We "hit the rack" that night at 9:30. For me it was the end of a 39 hour day and I knew no more what was to happen the next day than you do now.
Same as Barabbas
Tomorrow—The "formed" platoon is "picked up."
Registration procedure hasn't changed much in the last 2,000 years, according to the movie, Barabbas, shown last week at Dyche Auditorium.
Poor old Barabbas, sentenced by Romans in the year 33 or 34 A.D. to spend the rest of his life working in the sulphur mines, had to stand in a long line to be properly registered before entering to work.
This simple scene, which looked vaguely familiar to KU freshmen in the audience, for some reason, and caused upperclassmen to feel twinges of nostalgia, did not prove as locally significant as the scene to follow.
BARABBAS, WHO HAD long since decided when in Rome etc., finally faced the Roman clerk at the edge of the sulphur mine. The Roman clerk looked up and growled at Barabbas.
"My name is Barabbas," said our hero, proudly.
"What is your number?"
Whereupon, amid the laughter of the KU audience at this unconscious social commentary, Barabbas is given a medallion for I.D. purposes, to be kept with him at all times, chained, and thrown into the depths of the sulphur mine...
"Your name doesn't matter, you fool!" roared the clerk. "What is your number?"
IT IS HOPED THAT civilization will attempt some improvements in the art of registration procedure by the year 3965, as little progress appears to have been made in this area in the last 2000 years.
— John Hill
Bradbury Stories Charming, Macabre
THE VINTAGE BRADBURY, by Ray Bradbury (Vintage Books,
$1.45).
If you're unfamiliar with Ray Bradbury's approach to writing stories, you'll get an idea if you imagine Horatio Alger's running a crew of body snatchers on the side; or the biography of Jack the Ripper staged as a musical; or "The World of Laurel and Hardy," starring Bela Lugos and Boris Karloff. This is to say that some of his stories are slyly charming ("A Medicine for Melancholy"); some are macabre ("The Veldt"), and the majority are both ("The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse").
Sometimes mistaken as a purveyor of sciene fiction, Bradbury is in fact a fantast. The life he describes, as Gilbert Highet intimates, is not always very real, but it is always very human. If his stories contain a little magic and maybe a ghost or two—well, an optimist who looks toward a fuzzy future may well plead for a little magic; and a pessimist who looks back on his own time from a point in the future may well see ghosts of what might have been. In short, if you combine a slightly more cheery Franz Kafka with a slightly more penetrating Alfred Hitchcock and a slightly restrained Max Schulman, you might come up with a Ray Bradbury.
To those who have already contracted Bradburyphilia, all that need be said is that here are 26 stories that Bradbury himself considers his best. -D.H.
"STEP UPS was only one of the stations in the Combat Conditioning Course. The exercise duplicates the effects of a rapid hill climb."
2 Daily Kansan Thursday, October 14, 1965
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