For all of the toys and
clothes and albums I received from my parents as birthday gifts, I never would
have guessed that my favorite is now a small black book.
The peculiar book had the days
of the week but no dates and embossed on the front cover was the word
Diary. Beginning in January 1968, I
filled in each day with a short sentence or two describing the day’s
activities. Unlike most diaries, there were very few personal thoughts although
I did admit that I hated math.
My mother gave me the book
because she saw I was interested in writing. As always, mom was on target. I enjoyed filling in the book so much that I
was given a five-year diary the following Christmas. That book chronicles the
daily activities of Timothy Carroll from 1969 – 1974. Together the books let me
go back in time to almost any day from 7th grade to my first year of
college.
The first entry was made one day
after my birthday on December 28, 1968. It says “I had to serve the 8:45 / went
to Paul’s house / watched the Colts beat the Browns 34-0.”
It’s not exactly prose but it
tells a story. I served an 8:45 a.m.
mass as an altar boy in church, went to my friend Pal Gilroy’s house for the
afternoon and watched the Baltimore Colts earn a berth in the 1969 Super Bowl.
To make this easier I will insert explanations along the way and offer a
glimpse into that first diary.
For example, (12-31-68) Saw
Yellow Submarine movie with Peter Kremer / ate dinner at Biviano’s (family
friends) for New Year’s Eve. On New
Year’s Day I served the 12:30 mass / went to Ray Kenny’s and played Batman and
Twister.
With a few exceptions, the
school week entries outline various homework, punishments or highlights. A
phrase that comes up often is “punish lesson.” The practice has fallen out of
favor today but homework as punishment was common at St. Thomas the Apostle
School and I seemed to attract a large share of those assignments.
(1-3-69) Mrs. Bulmer gives us
punish lesson; (1-6-69) Mrs. Donahue checks my homework every day now; (1-7-69)
Donahue gives me punish lesson for not doing homework; (1-8-69) Mom makes me
stay in after school cause of homework; (1-14-69) Granger and I got in trouble
with Sr. Adrian (principal) for talking; and so on.
Boy Scouts were a big part of
this 12 year-olds life. From the mundane “patrol meeting today / did auto safety
merit badge” to the exciting “…lots of snow for the Klondike Derby,” my years
with the Scouts are well documented. Some great entries in April 1969 detail a
scout bus trip to Washington D.C. Apparently we saw the Washington Monument,
Mount Vernon, the Smithsonian Air and Space and Jefferson Memorial all in one
day – wow!
Reading the first book carefully, I found a
few details that I had forgotten over the years. I bet my friend Gary $1 on the Jets-Colts
Super Bowl on January 12 and lost. I also proclaimed that I liked Patrice and
no longer Eileen. Years later, when Patrice (Keegan) and I were dating in high
school, I wrote down every date she drove me on and every movie we saw and
every restaurant we visited. In 1969, I was content to pass notes with codes
like TPCEKP on the front. Texting would
have been so much easier.
In the coming weeks, we will
continue with the amazing story of this columnist. I think I will title it “The
Altar Boy Who Couldn’t Do His Homework” or “Love Struck Scout Strikes Out In
Class.”
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