Some years ago, I thought I would share some items with y’all from my diaries after 50 years had passed. I initially found one notebook from March 1972, but since then, I found one that starts on November 23, 1971.
The problem is that my way-too-detailed diaries haven’t yet gleaned much info to blog about. For instance, my father must have picked me up from college at New Paltz on 11/23. Then I went to my old high school and saw a plethora of students, former students, and teachers, all named, with some discussions dissected. Other parties in January are cited with a wealth of names interesting only to a very few people.
Hey, it was snowing in Binghamton on 11/25. I watched the Baltimore Bullets beat the Atlanta Hawks on 11/26. In fact, I have likely documented every single television show and movie I watched, and with whom. I hated the movie Fellini Satyricon.
I wrote or received letters from people A, B, and C. I did homework X. Cramming for a calculus exam in 1/1972, I amazingly passed. Then, there are the details I’m not willing to share because it affects still-living people, some of them significant.
Also, there are people mentioned that I have ZERO recollection of. Three of my friends and I went to Woodstock to the 18th birthday party for some young woman, who was taking care of a four-year-old developmental disabled child. (I used the word “retarded” because that’s what I knew then.)
Worth sharing
But there were some revelations. The Okie brought up the idea that we should get married way back in mid-January of 1972 when we had only gone out for four months. I was surprised; I thought she’d be disinclined because of sexist marriage laws. Also, she didn’t want to alienate her parents if we were to have lived together. I did not remember this info at all.
My parents were in the process of moving from 5 Gaines Street in Binghamton to 29 Ackley Avenue in Johnson City. It was quite stressful. I noted on 1/22/72, “I knew this intemperate unreasonableness would come in moving.”
My dad had recruited friends to help fix up the new place. When he got into the task mode, my sisters and I used to refer to him as The General. “The General, a side that [a couple we all knew] had never seen, is obnoxious and is annoyed easily.”
I have about 15 notebooks of various sizes filled. The oldest volume I found is #3. I lost about half of them from a flood in an apartment in the 1990s. This pained me greatly at the time, but now I have a sense of relief; I don’t have to read them all! But periodically, I’ll leaf through the surviving books and generate more posts. I do know there will be some share-worthy events when I get further into 1972.
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