By STAN STAPP

THE YEAR 2001 had a rather rough beginning for Seattle citizens - what with the Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday rioting, a 6.8 earthquake, students shooting other students, dot-com failures, sagging stock market, energy crisis, the Boeing Bombshell, and the Chinese affair.

Heck, some of us older citizens can recall enjoying BETTER days during the Great Depression in the late '20s and early '30s. And I can prove it!

For example, as a sophomore at Lincoln High School in 1933, I began saving all of my copies of the school paper, the Totem Weekly, and can now document a lot of the fun we students had.

Journalism was my main subject at Lincoln, and I appreciated the efforts of Miss Bernice Dahl, who was teaching it, and her eventual appointment of me as editor. Journalism 101 you might have called it, her room number being 101 - right across from the school office.

Of course, it didn't hurt that the Totem was printed in the basement of the Stapp family home, which was also the home of the Outlook. At an early age I was involved with the production of the Totem and the Outlook, including typesetting, composing, printing and folding of the paper.

The following material was taken from my 1933 Totems, a mixture of school news with a lot of fun stuff, mainly the gossip printed in several columns: Totem Scout Saw, School Daze, Totem Pole, Faculty Noose, and the like. I have added a few asides of my own (in parentheses):

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MISS ALLIE BLOUGH announces her Study Hall is adopting the NRA (National Recovery Administration program). Miss Blough's version is "No Rummies Allowed."

Because of crowded conditions at Lincoln, approximately 100 students from Lake Forest Park, who would have attended here, have been transferred to Roosevelt (High).

Mary Ullern declares that she likes all boys.

The Beanery advertises quick service with their new hamburger stand. Also school supplies, including gym clothes, shoes and socks. "What we haven't, we'll send for." (The Beanery, also known as the Lincoln Sweets, was located just east of the school, between Woodlawn Avenue and Woodlawn Place. It was torn down with a block of homes when the school expanded in the '50s.)

Tip Top Hamburgers, 1400 N. 45th (just across N. 45th from the better known Broome's restaurant) advertises the original 10 cent Hamburger, two for 15 cents.

Schools outside of Seattle sending students to Lincoln are: Broadview, Haller Lake, Lake City, Maple Leaf, Oak Lake, Olympic View, and Ronald.

Faurot's, 13th and E. Pike, offers dance instruction, plus dancing to a live orchestra for three hours each night, all eight weeks for $5.

Seattle school students are now required to buy many of their own supplies, which formerly were furnished before.

Fifteen freshmen fainted when Bob McCausland wore his red gorilla sweater this week. They thought King Kong had come to life. When Bob wears his sweater again he will carry a white flag to avoid being mistaken for a wild animal. Incidentally, if Virginia Norgren and Lois Shorelund are not introduced to this senior boy they will go "scaarewy."

EIGHTY GIRLS participated in the hike from the Bagdad Theatre in Ballard to Fort Lawton last Friday after, making the trip in four hours, due to the low tide. The monthly hikes are under the direction of Miss Katharine Wolfe.

Why did Tom Powell bring Lela Mae Dodds 16 asters instead of some dandelions?

Bob Scott, Lincoln P.G. (post graduate), and Leo Lassen, of Ballard, were trying to keep off each other's feet at a dance recently. (Leo later became the radio voice of the Seattle Indians baseball team, and lived in Wallingford, at 4517 Latona Ave.)

Grace Crosby is the first girl to become a member of the Lincoln band. Now Lincoln is the only high school band in the city with four French horns.

Community singing led by Barbara Ellis was featured at the Friendship Luncheon for Little Sisters in the north lunchroom.

The Girls' Social Welfare Committee has collected a lot of jig-saw puzzles, which will be given as Halloween presents to the children at the Mother Ryther Home (then located at 4416 Stone Way, a block from Lincoln High. Today, the property is the location of the new University House, a retirement center. The Ryther Child Center is now located at 2400 NE 95th.)

Joyce Horn thinks Carl Faust is the answer to a Maiden's Prayer.

The football team will have 1,000 sanitary drinking cups at tomorrow's Broadway (High) game - quite an improvement over the old unsanitary method of sucking water out of a sponge carried around in a pail by the water boy.

Nelle Fisher, a Lincoln grad of '32, and a teacher of dance in the Wallingford district, has appeared in two dance recitals at Cornish Theatre.

Ad for Lincoln Cycle & Fixit Shop, 1601 N. 45th: Bikes for rent for 10 cents an hour, 20 cents for balloon-tired.

Peggy Horrocks has been hunting up books on "How to be Popular."

"Woman-hater" Bill Skinner dated 30 different girls last year. A record!

Carl Faust and Evelyn Swedman think each other are the "berries."

Jamie Couden's six-piece orchestra will play during both lunch periods Tuesday as part of Senior Week. Bill Dell and Betty Godfrey bit the dust at Playland Roller Rink (N. 132nd and Greenwood Avenue) last Friday night.

Lincoln's PTA Dance was held at Green Lake Masonic Hall, with music by Paul Mulvane's Orchestra, instruction by Miss Sallie Sue White. Four hundred twenty-one tickets were sold at 15 cents each. Later dances were held at the Green Lake Fieldhouse. (Sallie ran a dance studio in the University District, where I first learned to dance.)

Twenty-five thousand fans, at the "greatest game played before the greatest crowd a high school grid contest ever drew in the Northwest," saw Lincoln lose to Garfield in the University of Washington stadium, 19-7, on Thanksgiving Day.

Bill Haigh, Totem editor, was overheard telling his brother how to cook beans over the telephone.

Clayton Stotts is still ga-ga about Jeanette Simpson. (Earlier, I somehow had acquired Jeanette's wooden ruler with her name carved on it, when she was a classmate of mine at Interlake Grade School.) Howard Hardy gave poor streetcar connection as a reason for tardiness.

Beth Neander laughed at a French joke she didn't understand.

Mr. Pitzer (music teacher) stated that one of the best hints of "ettyket" is "Never to break your bread or roll in your soup."

Bill Dell recently did a rumba on roller skates for Betty Godfrey.

Broome's Aristocratic Hamburgers advertised: "With every purchase made from 3 to 5 o'clock, students are given a free school token." (Worth 2-1/2 cents on the streetcar.)

Thirty-two girls have confessed they have the lead in the opera "No, No, Nanette." (A couple of weeks later the leads were named: Von Wernecke and Jacqueline Kalushe.)

Jack Putnam's third "steady" in two week is now a Broadwayite (a student at Broadway High on Capitol Hill).

Bill Morrice gets as nervous as a jelly-fish on a Ford fender in the presence of a certain brunette.

Bill Smith lets out a Tarzan yell whenever he sees Florence Turbitt.

Sixty boys wanted to take Senior Foods, but there was only room for 30. So Miss Eileen Houlahan asked each his reason for wanting to learn to cook. The most popular reply was: "I intend to be a bachelor."

Dick Spence got picked up by a prowler car for carrying Ken Pearson and Jack Putnam on the running boards of his car. Incidentally: Master Pearson ducked into a grocery, and Messr. Putnam hot-footed it around the corner.

Sam Adams and Harry Pepin were seen playing "Tom Mix."

THE DOG THAT HOWLED in first period study last Friday was under Jim McNett's desk. It seemed that Dale McNew, in the seat behind, pulled the poor canine's tail.

Betty Adams and Barbara Horrocks recently exchanged brothers.

The main attraction at the last Hi-Y meeting was a talk on "What the Modern Girl Expects in Her Boy Friend." There were practically no absentees.

A little hint to Marty Faust and Larry Pepin: Get some roller skates or somethin', boys, it's a long walk to North 90th.

Ruth Holden can wiggle her ears.

Ellen Dudgeon refused four invitations to the PTA dance just to go with a certain person.

Betty Terrell dropped her purse for Al Cruver to pick up.

John Robinson does a ballet dance in left field every time he catches a fly ball.

Pat Kohler sez she wants to go back to Ballard to see her boy friend named Axel.

Watson Smith was seen sitting in the sun on his back porch singing, "I Ought To Be In Pictures." Kenny Duff and Joanna Osborne sat in front of a pet shop window for approximately two hours before deciding, under pressure, on the purchase of two rabbits.

Coach Bill Nollan warned all girls to stay away from Dixon Garner.

Millard Loomis, after spending a day in Woodland Park, said, "Teeter-tottering is too tiring."

Seven hundred copies of the Totem Annual have been sold, 125 of them on the installment plan: 25 cents down, and the remaining 75 cents in installments of 25 cents each until $1 is paid. After June 1, the price goes up to $1.10.

Local merchants offer bargains to Lincoln students in a Totem Weekly promotion. A few specials are: Double Decker Cones 5 cents, Mountain Creamery; lip sticks, rouge, powder, etc., 10 cents, Bartell's; "A Real Camera," 39 cents, U Book Store; Ice Cream and a Hamburger, for the price of a hamburger, 10 cents, Broome's; Ice Cream Cones, two for 5 cents, Stone Way Pharmacy; Ice Cream Soda, 5 cents, Lincoln Pharmacy; Homemade Taffy, lb. 20 cents, Ullan's; Shampoo and Fingerwave, 35 cents, Delmar Beauty.

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Now, doesn't it seem as though we had a lot of fun in those days without the worries that beset us now?

And there IS hope for the future! At least one enjoyable event has occurred this year - the birth of a baby elephant at the Woodland Park Zoo; and the six-year-old Redmond girl, Madison Gordon, who bested 15,000 contestants in naming the baby elephant, Hansa. Have you ever seen a happier child when the winner was announced? - an unselfish curly-headed moppet who wanted to give her award, a trip to Thailand, to her teacher?

Let us hope that this event portends better days for Seattle, for Hansa in the Thai language means SUPREME HAPPINESS.