Number '24'
Volume XXXVIII
Salem College, Winston-Salem, N. C., Friday, May 2, 1958
Walker Begins Her Reign as Queen of the May
The May Queen Has Other Attributes
While talking to Nancy Walker,
Salem’s May Queen, I was very
surprised to find that she is plan
ning to spend the summer at home
with her parents. Other than being
at Kinston, she will stay at the
family’s beach - home on Ocean
Ridge. “I don’t know what Mother
will say,” she confessed, ‘‘but I
want to get a job while I’m there;
maybe on a paper or something.
Also I’m planning to catch up on
a little reading. This summer I
want to digest my four years of
college.”
I wondered why she wasn’t plan
ning another one of her trips again.
Her only reply was that she had
done so much in the way of travel
ing that she didn’t want to add
any more experiences until the old
ones had sunk in somewhat.
Year before last, Nancy lived
with a German family during the
summer. She did not study, but
she became acquainted with the
language and the people. During
high school she knew a German
boy, who was an exchange student.
He taught her to appreciate Ger
man literature and the language,
so when she came to Salem and
discovered that she could take Ger
man, she immediately enrolled and
became an honor student. At pre
sent she is reading Faust by Goe
the. During the past year, she has
read manj^ German short stories in
German and English translation.
As the male sex goes, she prefers
European boys to American boys.
As for the women, she says that
she has never found a word in
German equivalent to the English
word “diet.”
After seeing that German women
didn’t bother about styles, she be
gan to notice the American wo
men. Although she enjoys the way
American women pamper them
selves with high styles and cos
metics, she says that many times
it is carried to the extreme.
Nancy does not like perfume and
a great deal of jewelry. Being in
music, she cannot wear rings, or
bracelets, so this accounts for her
lack of them. She dislikes having
an3'thing around her neck, and
wears only pearl earrings.
She dislikes seeing someone with
a short neck wearing a high necked
dress and seeing a peter pan collar
on a large neck. She enthusiasti
cally approves of sack dresses with
good lines. “They have such de
lightful back interests.” she re
marked.
Last summer Nancy went to
Michigan and was a student at the
University of Ann Arbor. Her main
interest was music, but she also
took “Great Books”. This course
originated at the University of
Chicago and is designed to give the
student “free rein” in the studying
of great works. She audited a
drama course and used the book.
From Ghosts To Death of A Sales
man. By belonging to the Arts
Council’s Foreign Film Club, she
has seen many of the plays she
studied last summer, such as Green
Pastures and Miss Julie. Although
the movie. Crime and Punishment
was entirely in French (she’s never
had French), she says she enjoyed
seeing the French treatment of a
Russian novel. This year she has
enjoyed reading 1984, Desire Under
The Elms—a plaj*- by O’Neill, and
The Fountainhead. At present she
is reading By Love Possessed,
which she feels was overrated.
Among her favorite authors are
Orwell and Fluxley. She dislikes
Hemingway, for “he really thinks
he’s pretty special.” After read
ing The Sun Also Rises, she con
cluded, from a remark by a friend,
that he threw in Spanish phrases
so that everyone would know that
he spoke Spanish. Then he jumped
from France to Spain so that we
could hear how much he knew
about bullfighting.
Speaking of Europe, Nancy says
that before a person goes abroad,
they should really brush up on art.
She admits readily that she could
not begin to judge art. She at
tributes this to the fact that she
May Dell Transformed;
Spring Officially Begins
The narrator begins with a poem
on May by Herrick. The audience
sits on the hillside anxiously await
ing the court procession. The girls
in their long colorful dresses stately
walk down the winding path of the
May Dell. A slight breeze stirs
the grass. The skirts rustle. The
queen stands as she is crowned.
She then sits in the rustic outdoor
throne and the girls in the court
has never had any real close con
tact with artists and has never stu
died art, except for her course in
art appreciation here. Comparing
art to music, she says she can’t
conceive of anyone understanding
a complete performance who has
never had any training in music.
She named Eric Newton as the
best Rondthaler lecturer Salem has
ever had.
While in Michigan, she went with
her Connecticut roommate to the
Shakespearean Festival at Strat
ford, Ontario, where she saw
Hamlet and Twelfth Night. She
was very excited when the Pierret
tes chose the latter of these last
fall, and decided she must be in
the cast. She played the part of
the page. The actors she saw this
(Continued on Page Six)
surround her.
The narrator begins. “Billy Big
elow, do you remember . . .”
Suddenly, there is a splash of
color—bright red, hot orange, corn
flower blue, dazzling chartreuse,
brilliant purple. The crowds of
people mill aimlessly past the Car
nival show.s—the Arabian Dancer,
the fat lady, the two-headed lady,
the half-man, half-woman. The
Parisian Can-Can girls.
Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordon
meet at the Carnival, dance to
gether, and fall in love. Mrs. Fow
ler, the Carousel owner, watches
jealously in the background.
The crowd breaks up into small
bunches. The narration' stops. The
scene shifts to a picnic—cloths are
spread on the ground . . . food.
The Choral Ensemble appears.
The sound of their voices echo
through the tree-lined dell. The
dancers twirl and their skirts swish
to the music of the Carousel Waltz.
And then, “Once A Year Day” is
snng as the hillside is covered in
an array of color.
The last notes die away. The
dancers disappear. The color fades.
The pageant is over as the nar
rator begins again with the opening
lines of Milten’s poem on May.