MORE SPIRIT WILL SOON ARRIVE

Smooth and shining cheeks, it seems, are not accorded any regard or recognition as boys attain puberty at Government College, Ibadan. While a group of boys in our class (the bearded ones) are secretly shaving their beards even when they are just whiskers, another group (the smooth ones) are busy rubbing mentholated spirit on their faces so they can grow beards and mustaches. Little do these boys know that mentholated spirit dries up the skin and destroys its natural defence and nourishment All that the smooth boys end up with are pimples, carbuncles and all sorts of skin bumps plaguing their faces.
A host of us keep wondering what always attracts the smooth boys to the chemistry laboratory. We soon detected that it is not any super love for chemistry as a subject but the bunkering of mentholated spirit in quantum, an operation aided and abetted by the laboratory attendants who turn the taps on for the boys. This often leads to shortage of mentholated spirit in the laboratory.
Soon the riot act is read to the errant laboratory attendants, who from now on say to the mentholated spirit-searching boys: MORE SPIRIT WILL SOON ARRIVE- meaning - . Prominent among the bearded group are: Ilori (Swanston), Falope (Grier), Raji, (Field) and Obadina (Carr). Representatives of the smooth cheeks are: Sangowawa (Swanston), Adetugbo (Grier), Solola formerly Salaudeen (Field) and Johnson (Carr).

Written by: Olutunde Oni (1960, 1137)