Sayonara Sweet-Pea - Poem ------·------·····------34

SOUNDING BRA SS The literary publication of the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute. Staff STEvE M 1 LER ----------·····------·---············-- -········--· _ __ ____ ______ Editor in Chief T oM BOYD --------- -· ········--- --- --------------- ------------ ------------- -Business Manager SLJCK WILKINSON --------- ------- ---------------- ----------------------- -Managing Editor T APPEY JoNES -- -- -- ---- -- ------ ----- ------------ --------- ------ ---- ------- ---Assistant Editor MrKE PHILIPPS -------------- ------ ------------ -- ------ --- ------ ---- ------------------------ -- ---Cover 1~~: ~~:::JNE }--------- ---- ----- --------------------------------------------- --Illustrations 2 Table of Contents Scraps from the Editor ------- -------------- ----- -------------- --- ------ ----------------------- 4 Sounding Brass Awards ------ -------------- ------ ------------ ---- ----- -- ---- --------- -------- 5 Late- Story ------ ----------------- ---·········-·---------- ----·-·--------------------------------- -- - 6 Twelve Hell- Poem ------- ----------- --- ------------------------------------ ---··----- ------ 9 Repeat of a Come-On - Poem -----··-- -------·-·······-·············--··------------ - 10 Richmond Time - Poem ----- ···-- ---- -- -----······--- ------ -------- --- --···------- --- ---- 11 Mad Lane- Essay ----------- ------------------------- --- --- ·----- -·-- -- ---------- ------------·- 12 A Small Time- Poem --------- --- ------------- -- -- -- --······----------·---- ------- --------- 14 "Home Free, Baby" - Story --- -- -------- --------- --- --------------- ···----·------------ 15 Coming Home- Poem --- --------------- ---------- --- ------··---- ---------- --···------------ 21 On Declining an Invitation to an Afternoon Stroll and Picnic- Poem ····------------------ -···-- -- ---------· 22 Thoughts-Poem --·------ ---·------ ------ -- -- ---- -- -----···----·----------- ------· ---------··-·· 22 Satori- Poem -·--- -- -- ---------------- ------- ------ ------- ----- ----- -- ----- --- ·-····-·-- -- ----- ---- 23 Glass, Virginia- Poem ----- -------- -- ---------- -- ---------····---- ------····--------- --·--·· 24 Mudpekle - Poem ------------------ ------------ --- --------------- -- ·----------------- ---------- 26 The Maple - Poem ------ ------- --------- ---- ------------ ----- -- ------···········-------- --- --· 26 Reprieve - Story -- ---- --- ------ ---------------- --- ------------- -------- -------- --- ----------- ----- 27 School bus for Old Times - Poem ------- ----·····------ ----·-·········-·----------- ·· 33 Sayonara Sweet-Pea - Poem ------ ------ -- -- ------------- ----·------------·····----------- 34 Parting - Poem ------ ----- --- ----------- --------- ---···········----------- -------------- ------- ···· 35 3 Scraps from the Editor . .. The Sounding Brass is out again this year which should come as a surprise to everyone ... even the staff. George Squires told me once that he wanted to just run away and be a soul singer. That's not a bad idea. The soul singer is a rebel-drop out; a Christ figure, up there telling it like it !feally is and nobody listening-just dancing away below him. Sylvia Wilkinson has got to be the most in thing to hit VMI since Miles Merwin. Has it occured to anyone that the deletion of pages in the Bomb says more perhaps than those pages ever could? VMI needs more students so that it can have more courses. Maybe if you want to study the history of Africa or South America there will be a teacher for you. It's not Viet Nam that bothers me so much as it is the attitude that you shouldn't question our being there. Man is obliged to probe for answers, to make curiosity an active process. If he didn't all our globes would be flat. Why not an Art department here, a Sociology department, a degree bearing Political Science department? Why not? Now if you want to be an L.A., you can only choose among English, His tory, or a sadly neglected Modern Languages curriculum. Bill Warren is the fastest rising artist I have ever seen at VMI -He started copying record album covers this semester. He will be really good if he only keeps up the progress. Did anyone notice that if you put up a McCarthy poster people tear them down, but you just don"t see Nixon literature being swept away by the stoopies? The tragedy is that VMI is not even a microcosm of the world outside. VMI in some ways prepares you to continue on in later years ... as a VMI alumnus. There is nothing wrong with militarism, and although I do not plan a career in the service, I always did enjoy war flicks- especially John Wayne. Someone said that VMI is an anti-intellectual college, but I don't believe it because they didn't kick George Squires out after all. The grooviest couple at VMI is English Prof. Jim Seay and his writer wife, Lee. 4 I want to take some space to thank T. Y. Greet, who has taken a lot of time with this magazine, helped it along since its birth. The Sounding Brass has been printing for three issues now, and T. Y. Greet has every page committed to memory. A real good man. I'm proud to work with him. Looking back through four years; there's a lot that's good here, a lot that's bad. If the cadets thought about it more, or the men at the top . there's just the feeling that so much could be done at VMI. There were so many things I missed. S.E.M. Sounding Brass Awards This year the poetry awards for the best poems appearing in Sounding Brass will be announced in the finals issue of the Cadet. The fiction awards are being withheld this year because of lack of eligible manuscripts. 5 Late Tom Province History, 1968 The letter came on Tuesday and it was short and brief and to the point as her letters always were. It was dated Sunday and about halfway through she wrote, ''I'm seven days overdue. I don't want to alarm you, but I think something's wrong." And of course, she didn't alarm me, because seven days are really only seven days and I was sure she'd just had a cold or something; girls are funny that way, and anyway I had final exams coming up. Lorena hadn't gone to college after high school. She went to business school at home, and now she works in an office for International Harvester Company in Washington. We have been dating for about two years or so, and are suppoed to get married when I graduate. The deal, see, is that she puts me through busi ness school at George Washington. She really isn't very cosmopo litan even though she's been working for a couple of years now, I mean she goes home to her folks every weekend and talks about how she hates working in a "rat-race" city like D. C. I guess she'll like it better when I get up there and we can get married. Anyway, I got the letter on Tuesday, so Tuesday night I wrote back for her not to worry about it and try to forget it. I mean, after all, my exams were supposed to start in three weeks, and I sure didn't want to get caught up in that mess right then. That was on the ninth, and that night Sam, my roommate, and I got to talking. Sam like<~ to drive sports cars and as always, we got to talking about cars and then graduation, 'and then what we were going to do after we got out. Sam has a funny way of picking his nose on the sly. He can sit for hours, just picking his nose and day dreaming about racing his car back home in Georgia. I think he must have some colored blood in him somewhere because nothing bothers him; he could get drafted tomorrow and he'd just sit there and pick his nose and smoke his Lucky Strikes, and not really care. He had just finally decided that he was going to Europe for a couple of years after we graduated, and that night we got to talking about it. And you know, the idea didn't sound too bad, come to think of it. I sat back on my chair and listened to him, talking about racing cars in Europe, and all the girls he'd meet and all the places he'd go, and the things he'd do. And for a while 6 it really sounded better than going to business school and settling down to a steady job somewhere. It's funny, you know, but we live in a small room and whenever I think about going to business school, the room always seems to sort of get a little bit smaller, cozier would be the right word, I guess. But when Sam starts talking about going to Europe and racing cars the room seems to really get bigger-almost as if one of the walls disappears, or something. And that Tuesday night, Sam lighted up a Lucky Strike, and I smoked a cigar, and it was as if we were really sitting on a balcony. The whole world seemed to be right there, all around us, and we were a real part of it. I figured that Tuesday would be the ninth day, and she surely would have her period. Wednesday there was no word from her so I figured that everything was all right; if she was still concerned, she would have written. Thursday there was no letter, so that night I called her. It was a mistake to call her. I know that now, because she still hadn't come around, and by then it was the eleventh day and she was really upset. She isn't very worldly, as I said before, and she cried most of the time over the phone. She felt that she didn't deserve to live anymore, that she had disgraced her family, and that she had let her folks down because they had trusted us. I tried to calm her down as best as I could, but it didn't seem to do any good. She said she was going to kill herself if she could get up enough courage. This really shook me up. So Saturday I cut a class and drove up to ' 'Vashington to see her. '"'e went out that night with her roommate Sarah and Sarah's boyfriend Phil, to a little restaurant in Georgetown. This place was called "The Old Virginia," and it was away from the college night clubs on "M" Street, way up in the quiet, fashionable part of Georgetown. vVe got a table in a side room of the restaurant, all to ourselves. It seemed real stuffy and closed in, especially when Phil and Sarah started asking me about business school. We sat around a small round table with a black and white checkered table cloth, with Lorena sitting across from me, and Phil and Sarah sitting across from each other. A sugar bowl sat in the middle of the table, and when the coffee c.1me, we all reached for the sugar at once, and Sarah succeeded in knocking it over.

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