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Activities in War-Time–Dramatics; May Festival; Canteen

Customary "school activities" were not only subordinated to
all these new war tasks but, especially at first, they were severe-
ly limited by war-time restrictions. Curfew and black-out began
at nightfall in 1942 and even when it became "legal" to be out
until ten o'clock, transportation was difficult. When the first
dances were arranged at Hemenway Hall they began before sunset
and were over at nine.

Dramatics, Ceasing abruptly when Mr. Fulmer entered the Special
Services, revived tentatively with extremely amateurish Christmas plays
in Farrington Hall. Then came an evening presentation of What a
Life and finally Letters to Lucerne, but the quality of the work did not
reach pre-war standards.

The May Day festival, on the other hand, requiring little
rehearsal and depending on borrowed finery, actually surpassed
most earlier Lei Day Programs. In 1945 the University amphi-
theatre provided an unusually beautiful setting, and the Hawaiian
students, with the help of their mothers, outdid themselves in
their presentation of a colorful spectacle. A holoku ball in Hemen-
way Hall completed the celebration.

Not to be outdone, the Chinese Club entertained the school that
June at a dance in honor of the retiring teachers. Chinese decora-
tions, refreshments, and costumes carried out the theme.

Throughout the war, Punahou's social activities were also
hampered by the inevitable competition of a heavy program of
entertainment for service men in which the older girls were natural-
ly involved. Association with young men a few years older than
themselves made the girls feel that the boys of their own class
were "dreadfully young" and a little crude as well. Boys resent-
ed the slight and tended, more than ever, to honor the girls of the
9th and even the 8th grade, thus presenting the school with a real
problem. In an effort to meet the "aspirations" of these younger
girls and to keep them in their own age-group, a dancing teacher
was secured and a large part of the 8th grade, boys as well as
girls, took lessons and attended the parties which closed the
"season."

Later when the school came back to its own campus a new
pavilion was built close to the Spring. By day it serves the ele-
mentary school, but in the evening it offers a delightful dancing
place for medium-sized parties. A terrace sheltered by a flower-
ing tree adjoins the building on its mauka side and provides an
ideal location for refreshment tables.

Another part of the plan to bring the young people back to the
school for their social life centered around the year-long project
of a "teen-age canteen." It opened for business late in the spring
of 1946, after months of work by a committee of Lokahi members
and by the students of the Booster Club. Several rooms in the

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