editoradmin
One of Nature’s Dramas
(In Three Acts)
The scene: A city boulevard, where someone has thrown a half-eaten doughnut.
Act I
A sparrow alights, begins pecking at the doughnut remnant. It tries to carry the doughnut off, but it is too large, too heavy. The bird keeps pecking away.
Act II
A starling drops from a tree limb above the sparrow, beating its wings to frighten off the smaller bird. The starling attacks the doughnut as the sparrow watches from the curb.
Act III
A squirrel darts toward the starling, which tries unsuccessfully to fly away with the doughnut. Starling and sparrow perch side by side as the squirrel tests the morsel, and watch with cocked heads as the squirrel, on its haunches now, begins to dine in earnest.
The End
Or… is that a dog I see coming this way?
The Canisius Gryphon
III
There was some dispute whether Canisius College adopted the gryphon as representing La Salle’s ship or the mythological creature. The college’s present archivist, The Rev. J. Clayton Murray, S.J., addressed the question:
“Would those who were searching for a symbol have taken as such a ship which floundered on its maiden voyage? Hardly an inspiring symbol. The animal, on the other hand, is a symbol of courage and vigilance.”6
Fr. Murray also points out that one can conceive of many animal griffins, while, if the members of the college’s athletic teams owed their name to the ship, they would better be called “Griffonauts.”
The Canisius history also deals with the problem of griffins in the plural. “One must say a Griffin, since, unlike the Phoenix, there is more than one at a time, even though it is not yet settled what their collectivity should be called. On the analogy of flight of eagles and pride of lions, one might suggest a flourish, a rally, a gathering, even, in view of their implacable faces, a masque of griffins.”7
The author of the article I am excerpting8 cites still another literary allusion to the griffin, one which may have accounted for the college’s use of the creature. In a short story entitled “The Foot That Went Too Far,” published in The Canisius Monthly for November 1931, La Salle’s building of the ship, The Griffon, is alluded to.
The short story was written by Charles A. Brady, author of the Canisius College history before cited. It was he who was in a position to suggest the gryphon as a suitable symbol for a “La Salle Medal” first awarded to Canisius student honorees in 1932, the same year the gryphon became part of the school newspaper’s front-page nameplate.
Charles A. Brady was a professor of English at Canisius. His son, Erik, writes a column for the school newspaper (The Griffin) called “Griffin on the Wing.”
6. Murray, The Rev. J. Clayton, Memorandum, Feb. 26, 1971 (Canisius College, Buffalo, N.Y.)
7. Brady, Charles A., op. Cit.
8. Brady, Erick, “Griffin on the Wing,” in The Griffin, Canisius College, p. 7, October 10, 1975.
No One Left
“First, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. When they came for the trade unionists, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. And when they came for the Catholics, I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for anyone.” – Martin Niemoller
One-Third Break Up
One of three marriages in the United States now end in divorce and four of five divorced persons remarry.
It is estimated that 40% of all marriages of young adults end in divorce. The U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the industrialized world.
Almost two million people are living with an unrelated adult of the opposite sex. That’s 80% more than in 1970, but such relationships represent only 2% of the country’s 48 million “couple households.”
What This World Is Coming To
Another in a series of essays which I wrote in 1941 when I was 13 years old.
In my opinion this World is going to face difficulties in every way within the next decade.
After the war that will grip this entire world we shall have to band together, large countries, small countries, peaceful nations and warring nations to keep this world going as it should.
This will seem very hard now, but to me they will be ready to band together and join forces instead of quarreling.
Germany will hold to war for many more years I fear but it like Napoleon will meet its Waterloo. Where? I think it will be with Russia or the Americas.
When the world’s troubles will end, and when we band together, I think we will be much happier. We will need complete reorganization to bring this sphere back to its feet.
But now we must think of what is happening around us. Still we can think of the time when we will all be working for the same thing – world-wide peace and happiness.
Notes from a Journal
I have changed from 2-pt. to 1-pt. leading with this issue. In life as in printing, a little change can make a large difference.
The following are the percentages of my gross income paid in U.S. income taxes in the respective years: 1971, 15.5%; 1972, missing; 1973, 18.2%; 1974, 17.7%; 1975, 18.6%; 1976, 19.4%; 1977, 20.5%. What about you? And I wonder what percentage of their incomes our Congressmen pay in taxes.
How we laugh
At the monkeys cavorting in the zoo!
But do you have the feeling
The monkeys think us funny, too?
Our yesterdays are never as long as our tomorrows
The Gryphon
A hobby journal, hand-set and printed
by Walter H. Brovald
St. Paul, Minn. 55105