| Summary: | Page 2 THE CONCORDIAN October 17, 1952 for doing so well the big job that was yours in pre-paring'the events of this weekend. You've had the headaches; now may you have the satisfaction of seeing everything go as you have so carefully planned. We tip our hats to you, and you may borrow our aspirins. CHECK THAT IMPULSE wreak awful revenge on whoever did the decorat-ing on the north side of the Old Main. We won't be proud of any over zealous, under developed kids who get the notion that spreading paint is a proper demonstration of college spirit. There are many who had hoped that we had seen the last of this sort of thing. Can't it at least be stopped* from this end? It still takes two to keep it going, and Concordia has unfortunately not always been innocent. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN HERE Wonder what it's like to have a fine Homecoming celebra-tion marred by a fatal accident to one of your fellow students? Over at NDAC they know, because it happened there last weekend. Traffic accidents are such customary headlines that we barely give them more than a glance and a shrug. They're an all too familiar part of the American scene, and anyway, they always happen to somebody else. Last Saturday that somebody else was a student, just as you and I are students. No doubt for him, too, accidents were something that always happened to somebody else. But not this time. Most of Us drive occasionally and all of us are pedestrians occasionally. Are we as careful as we should be when out on our streets and highways? The subject of safety is preach-ed so constantly that its message is trite, and anything said on the subject seems trite. It takes a jolt to make us think a bit, and check on ourselves. There will be a lot of extra cars around and extra travel-ing done .this weekend. It will "pay us all to be extra careful And then keep being careful through the .year. Records Chipped From Rock Inasmuch as this week-end has been designated for the observance of Homecoming, it is only proper that we should take note of how this noWe tradition evolved into what it is at the present. ' Assuming that you are all well-informed on the subject of Home-coming in its relation to Goncordia college, let us occupy ourselves with a little research into the origin and background of this ceremony, A graphic account of the first Homecoming oh record is contained on an ancient scrap of papyrus, now on exhibit in the museum of Alexandria, Egypt. This invaluable manuscript recounts an epic struggle between two groups of men playing a newly-invented game. This game was known to the participants and spectators as "Ped- Accompanying the hieroglyphics is a drawing of the stadium de-picting the half-time ceremonies. Julius Caesar is the. dominant figure, and, it is said that this was the occasion for the speech in which he uttered the famous phrase, "Venl, Vedi, ViciJ", which ".translated liberally means, "Do you want your hot dog (weinie) with or without?" However, the primary significance of. this game was that it was the forerunner of *the rooter-stick. In its original form the rooter-stick was no mere stick of wood with, paper streamers on one end. Rather, it was a four-foot olive staff with -'a harpoon-like point on one end. To this was attached a lengtb*of rope; the point was camou-flaged with eagle feathers. The cheer, leaders, used this implement to good advantage when the game • was not going-well an<* the coach wished to send in a substitute player., They- 'merely harpooned one of the players and dragged him off No further evidence of a. similaE: game' appears until the period of the Renaissance. During the reign of Hect6r VM of Lathunania, Thomas Aquinas published an essay on a typical day in the life of an athlete. Special attention was devoted to the training diet, which consisted mainly of fried grasshopper legs, to which was attributed the players' special aptitude for leaping over the goal posts. (This was the method used to gain an extra point after a touchdown.) There is no indication that football was played as an organized sport among the Indians on the American continent before the year 1000. i Up to this time their activities seem to have been limited to La Cfosse. The most plausible explanation for the introduction df the tradi-tion of Homecoming to this country dates back to the year 993 A.D. A stone slab was found near the present site of Concordia college in 1890 that is thought by many scholars to have been left behind by Leif Erikson on one of his exploration trips. This stone bears a runic inscription, translated as follows: "We are 11 Norsemen and 11 Swedes on a long journey from the Old Country. We were out and fished for 7 days and caught many huge fish. Upon returning to camp we feasted for 3 days. On the second day of the feast we played a game with a ball—we 11 Norsemen against the 11 Swedes. The final score was Leif's Redmen 48 to Sven's Swedes 12—AVM." Upon these simple happenings our annual tradition of Homecoming is based. However, research on the subject is continuing and anyone desiring further information may appear personally in Box 112, and arrange for a conference with the author. THE CONCORDIAN Published weekly during the school year except during vacation, holiday and examina-tion periods by the students of Concordia OolJege, Hoorhead. Entered an second class matter at the uost oifice of Moorhead, Minn., Dec. 9, 1920, Take Down Billboards' Says Richard By Arlene Dippe By now, many of you Cobbers have become acquainted with a dashing young foreigner by the name of Richard Pals-son. (For those of you who refer to him as "Paul," you're wrong; he has a brother by that name, but he is in Iceland.) Richard, 20 years old and single, — • hails from Deykajavik, Iceland. He arrived in New York Septem* ber 2, and plans to remain in the U. S. until June, at which time he will return to his native land. He is studying journalism here at Concordia on an American-Scan-dinavian scholarship. Richard was astounded at the many misconceptions we Ameri-cans have concerning Iceland. For one thing, it seldom gets much colder there than it does right here in Minnesota,, because of the warm gulf stream which flows past its shores. The chief industry of Iceland is fishing, not refrig-eration. RichaTd has spent two summers fishing at sea, and has many interesting things to say about these trips. Richard has seven brothers and four sisters, all of whom live in Iceland with the exception of one brother who lectures at the U. of Edinburgh in Scotland. In Music Review !. By Ernest Lloyd Paula Lenchner, of the Metro-politan ppera association, gave^ a very creditable program here last Friday, October 10. She sang works by Faure, Paulenc, • Puc-cini, Mozart, Resphighi, Stella and other, more minor composers. Miss Lenchner has a good lyric soprano voice, which. though it sounded tired in spots, was none-theless beautiful. Her vibrato seemed to give her some trouble at times, but her quality is very good, her range is wide and her intonation is excellent. The best performances of the evening, in my opinion, were the French and Italian songs of tfre second group, followed in quality by the Richard Strauss works. The first group suffered from a slight insecurity, and the Puccini Aria from "Turandot" was good, thdugh not particularly distin-guished. The encores were good. Miss Lenchner has a powerful and sweet stage presence; some objected to her operatic man-nerisms, although from the back of the hall these didn't appear overly obtrusive. Swede Talk By Art Dahlqulst I have been asked how mem-bers of the Marine Corps tell what section of the United States other marines call home. This is really quite simple. It is all in the way they sing the Marine Corps Hymn. If the marine is from Chicago and has worked on the railroad he will use the tune of the "Wabash Cannonball." If, on the other hand, he hails from down Texas way or Mon-tana he will yodel the hymn to the tune of "Ghost Riders in the Sky." The man from Minnesota is the most easily spotted of them all. He uses "Reuben, Reuben, Ay Ban Tinking." So you see, it is really quite simple. It's just like telling a Montanan by the guitar around his or her neck. While on the subject of Mon-tana ns. I want to deny a rumor that has been circulated recently. A hydramatic Montanan is NOT, I repeat, js NOT a shiftless son-his leisure time he likes to read good books and play chess. He also loves to ski and swim. When asked what he thinks of American food, Richard replied, "You use too much salt and pep-per." He feels that the average Icelandic woman is on the whole "better dressed" than the Ameri-can woman; rpr6bably because of the mixed European-American in-fluence on their fashions, as in their movies .and music. He says that Icelandic girls are very beautiful and pretty; however, the American girls are nothing to "pass up." (Thank you, Richard!) Richard has grOwn very fond of our country and of our school since his arrival here. But he has just one suggestion for improve-ment—" Take down some of those billboards that hide your beauti-ful scenery." One of my friends this summer took a trip to the Near East by plane. It was supposed to be a secret mission so he couldn't say where he had been. He did tell me, though, that when he got off the plane a native boy came up to him and said, "Carry your bag; Dad?" In case any of you are inter-ested in taking a trip from Seattle, Washington, to MJami, Florida, this summer, you have 3505 miles to go. Judging by the speeches of the various candidates for offices this fall they all seem to agree with Mortimer Snerd. When Mortimer was asked' what he thought the answer was to the farm problem he replied, "Fertilizer." Just one question this week. Which prolonged the life of Cob-ber hall the longer, {Hitting the new siding on the outside or mov-ing the freshmen to Brown hall? Beo Gloria By Jeanette Sandness Are you interested in living? Here at school we usually concern ourselves with learning something of the various fine arts, but I wonder if we don't often neglect the greatest of them all—the fine art of living. By living, you understand, I do not mean merely existing, but having some purpose in life. Now, there are many purposes one could have. Your own choice of purpose would naturally fall in line with what you consider to be the" best things in life, or the most important to you. This may sound rather simple, but it becomes quite com-plicated when we realize that we nave been given an eternal life to plan for. Eternal life means, of course, that we will continue to live forever after we pass away from this earth. But there is more to this term "eternal life" than a continued life after death. Eternal life began for us when we were born—so it refers to our life here and now as much as our life after death. We know that our acceptance or rejection of Christ as Savior will determine the course of our life after death. But what of our earthly life, which is also a part of our eternal I if e ? Consider this paradox: Christ's kingdom is coming, but it Is also here. This fact would seem to indicate that our; purpose for our earthly life should tie In very closely with our purpose for our life after death. So .f we plan to serve Christ and glorify His name in eter-nity, it is only logical that we should have that as our purpose for life now while we're young. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, and He wants us to be His from the beginning to the end.
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