Five-Year Diary Offers Slice of Life

  A slice of life…that is what an old diary of mine offers when I am able to unscramble the handwriting.

   As I mentioned last week, I kept a daily log book starting in 1969. Beginning in 1971, I switched to a 5-year diary that chronicles almost every day of my life from sophomore year in high school through sophomore of college.

   The diary hardly reveals my inner thoughts. Instead, it reads like the log of a detective assigned to follow a suspect.

   On October 11, for example, I bought an Army jacket at the Army Navy store in 1971. A year later I had a half day of school and drove around all afternoon with a friend who recently got his driver’s license. In 1973 I spent October 11 taking a math quiz and working in the school darkroom. As a college freshman, I played pinochle all evening and in 1975 I was camping in the rain in the mountains of New Jersey.

   Little can be learned from reading the diary up and down but it does include special days like the very first day of college in 1974: “Drove to Glassboro (NJ) with Bill. Got lots of pamphlets and moved into dorm room and went to a movie on campus.”   The following day I “stood in registration lines all morning, got my schedule, bought books and went to a coffeehouse.”

   Wow – that just about captures all of the excitement and anxiety of my first two days at Glassboro State College.

   Some entries do a better job of capturing the seventies.  “Hitched to the mall and bought a Moody Blues album at Sam Goody’s.” Another sign of the times refers to my first paycheck from the Garden State Farms dairy store: “Got paid $26 for my first week at Garden State.” In another entry I put $3 in my father’s gas tank.

   Two stars in the margin show that an extra special event in 1973 was seeing Elton John in Madison Square Garden for my first big concert. The only other entry over 5 years that earned stars in the margin was the purchase of my first car; a ’57 Chevy that I’ve written about on several occasions.

   Movie theaters were a cheap date in the 1970’s and the book is filled with references to movies like Poseidon Adventure, Lady Sings the Blues and The Godfather for example.  Cabaret was the most memorable movie but not because of its Academy Award.  The entry on June 27, 1972 explains that “snuck into the Newton Drive-In and watched Cabaret outside – got tons of mosquito bites.”

   A phrase that most readers can relate to is “hung out.” Throughout high school a bunch of us (without girlfriends) hung out a lot.  We hung out at the mall, at Friendly’s Ice Cream Parlor, at the park, and at each other’s houses. Hanging out was also free- at least for the kids. 

   The 5-year diary is not a literary work of art.  Like most people, I wouldn’t want people to read my diary but not because of its personal revelations. I just wouldn’t want to bore people with days like May 26, 1974. “Slept late, had lunch, hung out at Gary’s all afternoon, had to go home for dinner.”

   It’s like Déjà vu all over again.