The NEWS in an untypical moment of serenity during production of the
week’s quota mistakes, misquotes, misprints and Wits-End-ia.
All was not war work, however. Not even war could change the three hours
a week psysical education requirement, and no crisis could force Miss Petts to
overlook the fact that a bachelor of arts must maintain floating power in the
swimming pool for one minute. No amount of nightly excursions to the
Greeks could be considered physically educating and no deluge of rain on the
tennis courts could dampen the insistence of the department. So we donned
figure-disgracing tunics and led with our chests on the grass or the splinters
as the seasons changed... We listened to Miss Petts as she lectured with her
arm around the long-lived skeleton .. . We went in for the modern dance...
We tried to keep eyes focused on the shuttlecock after an all-night vigil with a
philosophy paper. We did not mind, however, cheering our more athletically
inclined classmates as they raced Ursinus up and down the hockey fields in mit-
tens and ear muffs... watching the Dance Club’s outdoor production of Mr.
Schumann’s cycle of fairy-story operettas . . . playing a vague outfielder in
the faculty student baseball games come spring ... and we loved the inter-
hall hockey games, replete with song, slogan, and costume.
The Athletic Association also dug up a war activity designed for that rare
species—the outdoor girl. Philadelphia farms needed harvesting and, to the
distress of previously unrecognized muscles, we did it. We picked apples, we
shucked corn, and we ached.
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