Judge — August 16, 1930 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Commencement Exercises By S. J. Perelman Memnees of the Graduating Class of The College of Tree Surgery: When Professor Cockroft of the Trunk and Roots Department ap- proached me to award the diplomas at your exercises, I felt’ somewhat embarrassed, _ princi- pally beeause Thad left the bathroom door open and the steam was so thick I couldn't see To make matters worse, the soap slipped out of reach, and when I made a pass for it, I got hold of Professor Cockroft's ankle, which is no bargain—ha, ha, ha. commencement who it was, JUDGE Four years of your carefree student life h ay passed and you stand on the threshold of the sea of ready to chart unknown dangers and mount the ladder of Su To young men, [would say: Do not waver under the buffets of Disap- pointment, but let take you by the hand, and turn your back on Lust and Evil Companions. 1 often think of Life as a which we are only players; to one is it given to speak his small piece and then vanish from the you, stage I’M SICK OF THESE MATH POTATOES! BAWLED THE ALGEBRA PROFESSOR Here's a bit of wreckage I picked up after the Battle of Santiago Bay; I know it'll Schley you. A Bov—“They say you can still see people smug- gling some nights on the beach around here says she thinks it’s simply disgusting, too! A Gint—"Yes, and Mother Just because I put iodine on the rocks when I go in bathing so I won't infect my foot, she calls me lazy! 4 Determination and leap lightly over the hurdles of Disillusionment, watch in refully lest your untrained fect b snared by those lurking roots of Defeat, Sr en, When weight of ¢ umbrella, ‘1 ing and Loose Wom sur head is bowed by the res. let h Fate's tempest. smnile be your If my son came to me and said “Father, what profession would you advise me to take up? Tam thinking of becoming a hop-head,” I would © his head in my bands, and say. on (or daughter, as the case may © you thought about tree sur Let me tell you a story. One y. when I was one-and-twenty, 1 was walking in the woods. Suddenly I heard a little stifled moan coming from a furze-bush. There in the gloaming. boykins, was a poplar sap ling with a thorn in its foot, gazing dumbly at me and making appealing little forest noises. In a trice I whipped out my kit and extracted the thorn. ‘Then T went my way, boy 0” mine, and forgot the incident, Several hours later I was startled by a fierce growl in a thicket. A huge, shagyy - its fangs bared, was pon me. I cowered larm; the beast jumped and cht my days were numbered But it was not to be. To my surprise. the grateful poplar sapling threw it self in between us and crushed the puffalo to a bulp—the buppalo to a fulf—the fuppalo to a bulf—well, he just smashed that old water-buftalo, let me tell you. 1 took the ling home with me, and in time friendship ripened into love. little sapling. laddies, was — your mother.” Tonight, at your class supper, you will join arms for the last time to siny your Alm ing song, “Tea paths will separate; some of become juniper men, others will spe- cialize on beeches and larches. But at heart you will all be sons of the old school, ready to saw a limb off each other as you would off a patient. You may not all of you have been brilliant in twigonometry, but you can all climb like monkeys and ate practically indistinguishable from them in a dim March on with good fellowship your hearts, men, and make that reunion five years hence something to be remembered as you return covered with chestnut blight, both legs gone. and a hole in your head as large as a soup tureen, “And if you don’t come back at all, the rest of us will have an even better time. Nuts to you, my fine fellows. sap our comicbooks.com