Wild With Possibility:

Fri Jun 19 – 64
I’ve decided to work on a third person account of my life. (Everybody wonders why I am writing all the time.) Look at myself from the outside in.  Obviously I have to change all the names – for me, chose the name Melantha Clenn. The title is “Dark Flower” which is what Melantha means.  Whew! That was enough work for one day!  My poor brain is exhausted! 
 Last night we reached Valley Forge very late and decided to sleep there.  There was nowhere to camp but thought it would not be too much to sleep by the side of the road.  We no sooner had out sleeping bags out then up comes a fuzz car!  (Stu referred to him later as Officer Remedial.)  No amount of pleading would work; he ordered us to “follow” him.  I guess he thought he was on Dragnet or something.  We weren’t even told where we were going!  Straight to the Valley Forge Police Station! Shavonne and Stu were led inside and the rest of us just sat there arguing about whether our camp counselors would be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors! 
But when they came out they said we would be allowed to sleep on some rocks behind the fire station!
I do miss Bookie but for some reason think mostly of Mark!  I’ll send him a postcard from Gettysburg: North Carolina memorial is a good one.

Sun Jun 21 – 64 – YMCA Camp in Poughkeepsie, New York
Can’t believe we’ve been on this trip four days only! For such a motley crew of sixteen girls and two counselors we are very compatible.  Two of the girls are childish which I actually don’t like. 
Shavonne is a sweet person. She is plain though with a very bad figure. She is certainly not distracting Stu from thinking about his girlfriend who he says we will all meet!  Shavonne is reading The Agony and the Ecstasy, says its very good and will lend it to me when she’s finished. (It’s a big fat book and she seems to read onl8 4 pages at a time! She was impressed that I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel.)

Mon. Jun 22 - 64
Thinking strange powerful thoughts.  I guess it is another mood coming.  How can I think of Bookie and death in the same thought?  Probably because I feel bad about Mark. I didn’t say the things he wanted and I didn’t want him to say the things I thought I wanted!  Bookie is outgoing and clever but less scary somehow.  Do I like being the one who cares more? I don’t think I want to be in this boat alone!  I hate myself for complicating my life! 
Now, meeting so many new people I am having to worry whether people like me.  Andrea called me “ugly” several times yesterday.  She was trying to hit a tender spot but I think she was really feeling the opposite! So there goes that relationship! 
I would rather not be hideous. 
Dark Flower coming along pretty well.

Mystic Seaport, CT – Tues June 23 – 64
Awful night!  Laura stole my diary and read it!  Made me so mad!  And that’s not all. We were sitting around the camp fire singing songs and I saw Laura and Andrea  planning something in the woods.  Said they are sneaking out to meet four boys and did I want to come!  I was all for it!  Laura, Chris, Andrea and that awful Julie who keeps tagging along. 
Unfortunately the minute I saw the boys I wanted to leave! They looked like hoods to me, but I couldn’t talk anyone else into leaving. Andrea started making out with a complete stranger immediately!  I talked to an ugly lug named Ralph, but when I told him about Bookie he kept his hands off. Then who should appear but Stu!  He knew all about it!
I told him nothing happened and he was very sweet.  Said he gives me credit for a  lot of common sense, says I am one of “the most intelligent fourteen year olds he’s ever met!  Others not so much. This AM when I woke up my eyelids were swollen: gnats bit them almost shut!
Really liked Mystic Seaport.  We toured the beautifully restored ships. Here’s a picture of the Charles Morgan. Bought ships-in-a-bottle for all family members and sent postcards to everyone.
Stu staged another of his “movies”.  I was a barmaid! 

Mass & N. H – Fr. Jun 26 – 64
Having a ball! We are in Hanover NH at Dartmouth College. What a pity its not co-ed or I would go there.  We went to Boston and rode the MTA – saw a lot of Harvard!  Met Stu’s girlfriend who is a waitress at an ice cream store! They just stare at each other adoringly.  Luckily she gave us free ice cream because now I have exactly seven cents to my name.  Writing home desperately for money.  I owe Vicky 5¢, Sally 10¢ and Chris 5¢.
Stu goes to Dartmouth and he was eager to show it off.  Not having seen boys for DAYS Andrea and I were principally interested in finding one or two or FOUR THOUSAND. 
It didn’t take long!  The few girls we’ve seen are nothing much so the Trailblazers bus is getting a lot of attention!   At Hopkins Hall we picked up seven eligible males, all of them cute who promised to visit our campsite and say hi.  Stu is not too sure about this.  A particularly cute boy named Tom Morris said, “We can’t help it if we sleepwalk, can we?”
I was Head Cook that night and while stirring the ravioli was not too surprised to see the bushes rustling.  When we sat down to eat they jumped out to say hi!  Stu made them go away.  They kept loitering around making it hard to go to the bathroom.   
When I climbed into my sleeping bag Morris scared me to death jumping out from behind a tree!  We talked for hours, promising to write each other. We have a lot in common (He is 5’11’!) but I don’t see how we can be more than friends. 

Percé on the Gaspé – June 28 – 64
I seem to be in an awfully good mood right now!  Probably because we’re on the move, singing our latest camp song to the tune of 500 Miles, “If you miss the bus we’re on, You will know where we have gone