Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #WorldsLongestDiary

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 4 Jan 67


    Back at school the horror continues. I refuse to write my New Year’s resolutions or I’ll have to keep them. A rotten vacation. Genevieve complains about Radcliffe where you have to take deportment class and march around with a book on your head! She says it’s not what she was expecting at all. Harvard won’t even let them use the library. Beales DID ask her out and she said yes because she couldn’t figure out what else to do but then a cool Harvard guy asked her so she told Beales she was sick. And who should she run into on the date but Beales – who looked at her with “disgust and horror.” She returned the look of horror at least.


    New Years’ alone babysitting at the Carnahans. They are teetotalers – nothing to drink at all – not even cooking sherry. Did find a bar of cooking chocolate which I tried mixing with sugar – disastrous results. Spent all night reading Kristin Lavransdatter. Really interesting! Six kids are definitely out for me, however.


    New speech coach offered to drive me to school and parents said yes! (Anything to get out of taking me themselves.) Wore extremely tight jeans, scratchy ski sweater hair in pigtails to be as unapproachable as possible. He took me out to dinner at the General Greene Inn! (Because he’s faculty he can give me an excuse for Vespers.) I had to get a dress out of my suitcase and change at a gas station! Let down my hair and wore the glittery hoop earrings my mother hates so much.


    Over clams & wine he told me to call him Brice and explained how he lost his virginity to a stewardess in the back seat of a car at the age of 14. (Not sure I believe him.) He spent the vacation getting drunk on bourbon and looking for a Rich Woman to Marry! That lets me off the hook! He ordered coffee and poured his cream over the spoon in the coolest way.


    I said I’m looking for a Rich Man and he said he’s got the perfect one, his friend Aiken. Actually met me at the school and compliments all over (I don’t remember him.) That I was so alive!


    Unfortunately he started inveighing against Today’s Mores and I began to see why our school hired him. He’s just as confused as anyone. Tells dirty jokes out of one side of his mouth and talks about Freedom VS License out of the other side.


    Told him if Aiken can get me out of school I would be willing to date him. Older mean are three times harder to resist. And presumably they’re not all stupid about V.D. & pregnancy. Aiken Billings looking better and better.


    Fri. 6 Jan 67
    Why remain a virgin? Why why why? The mags say to avoid Emotional Hurt & pregnancy. Aynsley insists if you use tampons you’re not a virgin anyway. Headmaster showed us a drink/drugs/sex/cigs movie and wanted our Honest Opinion what we thought of it. No takers. We still have to live in this place. These moves are invariably loathsome “case histories”. Should it be shown to sophs for “health class?” Sure, we say.
    Yes, Virginia, sex can be bad. So can fire, penicillin & coca cola.


    I think I am held back by Fear of the Unknown. Irrevocable steps make me nervous on principle.
    Mom and Dad say they are moving to Philadelphia! Better for me. They are renting a townhouse on Penn St to throw their furniture into until they find something permanent.


    Tues. 10 Jan 67
    Whenever I clean up my inner fog and become a functioning human being something happens to bushwhack me. I’m a brooding hermit and a mad spirit. Faculty thinks I’m just peculiar. Little do they know I’m the only one who tells them the Absolute Truth (I’ve often taken the heat for Teacher’s Pet Janet Hill.) She keeps a jug of sangria underneath her bed!


    “Janet’s room always smells so nice” warbles Miss Wienand. Aynsley’s and my room has bureaus on top of one another the moment you open the door so you can’t see what we’re doing behind it. We are “inhospitable” to Required Room Check and Random Police Powers. Imagine! Be careful Miss Wienand that one of those bureaus doesn’t fall on you and CRUSH YOU DEATH!


    “So I’ll continue to continue to pretend; That life will never end, and the flowers never bend with the rainfall.” Simon & Garfunkel


    Wed 11 Jan 67
    Finished Daisy Miller & Turn of the Screw – Rasputin the Holy Devil next followed by Chekhov. Thank God for literature is all I can say. I will worship Henry James until I die. His dialog is stuffy – his genius is revealed in his plots. Brice signed me out again and took me to the car wash where he carefully detailed his car so we could “chat”. Aynsley says the rumor mill is going into overdrive; are we having an Affair? Much as I like the IDEA of consorting with a faculty member I have to say Brice is not my type. There is something mysteriously slimy about him like he’s not quite coalesced. Alas, my handwriting degenerates LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE!


    Thurs 19 Jan 67
    A useless hour trying to paint a picture to Simon & Garfunckel’s Cloudy. We were supposed to paint to a piece of music but maybe I consider this song TOO perfect. I’ll have to choose something that doesn’t stir me so much – such as the Beach Boys’ Wendy. What I really want to do is finish up Chekhov (he’s not as funny as he thinks he is – apparently he laughed at sad things) so I can read A Raw Youth. Then I have to delve into Fitzgerald for Miss Lissome but feel slightly repelled.


    Writing a story (for fun) about a Danish boy who visits a famous neurosurgeon. So far so good except Aynsley keeps bugging me – her latest boyfriend wants her to dye her hair. (She’s been a blonde for YEARS) because it “isn’t natural.” I said once you start that stuff he will get the wrong idea about who’s in charge. But I’m afraid he really IS in charge because she cares more about him than he cares about her. She is so afraid of loneliness. I have conquered my fear of loneliness, mostly through books.


    Have been hanging out a lot with Casey these days. She is flat chested and stubby legged but a very pretty redhead. She is honest about planning to go to Pine Manor, marry a rich man and live in a house with white pillars where she can have affairs. You’ve got to admire a girl who knows what she wants! And here’s the craziest thing – she keeps a diary! Always has! I, a star in my own diary, am not used to being a bit player in someone else’s!
    Miss Womrath raked me over the coals today over my short skirt. Told her I am just a reflection of my times. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

    Fri. 20 Jan 66
    Writing in math class. Around me open mouthed concentration as fingers scribble bits of wisdom dropping from The Mighty Throne. They seem unawakened to me.
    John Van Dusen asked me out for Fri night. I said yes because he’s handsome, blond and very gentle. Unfortunately he’s also so fragile he makes me feel like a female gorilla. Why don’t these boys eat more? Is it wrestling? I could give them some pointers. Alas he has a broken leg so NO DANCING. Well, no one can say I didn’t do my part for The Disabled.
    Brice invited me to Aiken’s Phila apt this weekend for steaks & “messing around”. Double date. That settles the seduction question I feel pretty sure because who would want witnesses? Skating tonight – not much fun if you’re not going with anyone – just cold.


    11 PM
    Matt Romer (who calls love a “psychological maneuver”) asked me out for Sat but I had to tell him I’m going on a meal per with Aynsley and her grandmother. Too bad! Told him to try again! Although he’s only a sophomore he’s very intelligent. Word is out that I have a thing for penseurs.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. Nov 20 – 66


    Sorry for the gap – life chewed me up and spat me out. I would be a lot better off without the amateur psychologists picking my brains. This place is determined to break me whatever it takes.
    No Mr. Dean I do not like your math course or your clumsy attempts to “civilize” me. Yesterday I was shaking with rage because he said I would need math when I am a housewife! I thought I’d pass out!


    Actually feeling a bit better today because of the movie we just saw – Sixteen in Webster Grove. It’s about the pressure adults put their kids under. You even worry in your sleep. I used to be so excited about every new day but no more. I am the same jittery mass of frenzied hostility as anyone else. My only defense is “to hell with it.” Nice to know it isn’t just me.
    After the film (in the East Room) there was a Discussion. What a travesty. It was all “they”. Why are “They” so bad? Why can’t they be wonderful and right-thinking and privileged like Marvellous Us? How we Pity Them!


    Tues. Nov 29 – 66
    Mr. Ensleigh agreed to be my advisor. He let him kick his desk and turn the lights off and on until I felt better. He asked me what I was reading and I told him Brideshead Revisited. He asked me to lend it to him when I was finished. He is at least a step in the right direction.
    Got a booklet in the mail from the Central School of Drama (London.) They listed all the ways you could get expelled! Sounds like another prison where they watch the inmates closely! Fortunately the future never comes. Today is all there is.

    Thurs. Dec 1 – 66
    Today I achieved a real understanding of people who throw their dreams away for a little security. Anything for Peace and Quiet. I signed up for Coffee & Conversation – Juniors & Seniors ONLY!!! as a Hobby (they are Required) and we sat around Mr. Ensleigh’s apt talking about juvenile delinquency while we devoured a whole chocolate cake. I imagined what it would be like to be married to him and when the bell rings and the Patients toddle out, I throw off my clothes and fling myself full length on the sofa to watch TV. (They do say he is queer, however.)
    In how short a time would THAT security seem another prison?
    Doug Bristow told me the rumor is I’m cold! Wow! How well I conceal my true self!


    Tues. Dec 13 – 66
    Reed Hambro asked me to the Christmas Dance and I said No. Aynsley (who favors him) said Why on Earth and I said because he needs someone to take care of HIM and I need someone to take care of ME!!


    The theme of the dance was An Old Fashioned Christmas so I took the job of barmaid handing around birch beer. For an old fashioned barmaid I did a lot of dancing (with Brice the new speech coach.)


    Next night was The Santa Clause Masque – a stupid play, if you ask me. My part goes, “Knowledge has taken love out of the world and the world is empty, empty, empty
”
    Do they HEAR themselves? I guess art is about other people – unfortunates we can feel smug about. We don’t NEED art because we’re perfect! 3 weeks work up in smoke.
    At least it’s snowing. I like snow. Beauty, strength silence – it has all the good qualities.

    Wed 14 Dec 66 – 2 PM
    Feeling sick after reading Rabbit Run. It’s a Forbidden Book which means they keep it in the Librarian’s office and you need your parents’ permission to read it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered.


    Character describes his wife as a “white, pliant machine for mating, hatching and feeding”. Yuck. I used to want six children but now I’m wondering. I’m starting too think women are worse off than Negroes. Negroes can go to Africa but women have no country.
    I am a Human Being. I intend to lead a full intellectual, artistic and emotional life. Those uninterested in the Entire Package need not apply.


    11PM
    Reed sent me such a sweet KOB.


    My heart leaps
    As a pebble will do after sitting two days
    In a glass of still water.
    For the legion of the sixties is clashing with its foes
    Marching to inevitability & failure.
    Rationalizing & nationalizing its ineptitudes
    Treading mercilessly on inferiors
    Leaping
    At the drop of a penny and
    Leaving a cavity gold could not fill.
    As I sit in my army blanket
    The torchbearers approach
    Glory heads, holding
    Exiled pedagogues captive with
    Their faithful frightful faces
    Whose drab accoutrements dissolve
    I know all and yet
    I will not speak out.
    Only the hues of night will know
    They are the base
    I am the apex. I could name
    A hundred faces in between.
    I must judge iniquities of façade & mind
    Doomed to live a life
    A hypocrite could recognize.
    Life goes one and
    Life goes on and
    Venus will never know.


    Wow! I will date any boy who writes poetry this good. Pebbles don’t leap but still. He uses the word “accoutrements”! However he No Longer Believes in Dating. Couldn’t we just Show Up somewhere at the Same Time? No, we could not.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Aug 15 – 66 – Aboard the Gryphon


    No Bad, no Good, no Up, no Down, No Wednesday or Friday except in The Mind of Man. Sitting on the deck reading Maurois’ Life of Balzac – Prometheus. As usual I am fruitlessly pursing interesting people through the indexes. I am so interested in people who just appear once and flash away. That’s history. I especially enjoy the tantalizing extracts from the diary of Melanie Princess Metternich! How I’d adore reading the whole thing! Makes me ashamed of this spastic notebook with its diaristic pretenses. How can I upgrade this rag? Mention as many names as possible and hope one of s vaults the bridge of death?


    Getting late. We left Sarnia headed for Tobermory and I have the nine to twelve watch so I have to stay awake. I should rush down now that I have a chance and freshen u, trying to make myself a ravishing beauty in case of passing tug. Dad keeps mouthing off about The Evils of the President – I say Johnson is just a Prisoner of his Age.


    Sat. Aug 20 – 66
    What a storm! I awoke to hear Daddy calling me – pulled on some foul weather gear and went on deck – seas foamy white and waves at least 17 feet – no lie! Daddy gave me the helm to hold hard over while he & Mom lowered the sails. I was freezing and wet and shivering in seconds. Dad tied the helm over and went below for just awhile. We were looking for the Cove Island Light and when we got there the natives were amazed that we had weathered that storm! (Battens flew out of the mainsail!)


    Daddy took us out to dinner at The Tub. We had porterhouse steaks! We stocked up on food, had the head repaired and then took off for Collins Inlet. After skirmishing with a couple of snakes (one a rattler! – the other a swimmer) I was happy to sunbathe nude on the beach while Mom & Dad explored the island. Saw 2 jackrabbits and a passel of beavers. Afterward we barbecued chicken and ate apple pie on the beach leaving me fatter and happier. I am writing this by flashlight while Mom and Dad yell at me to go to bed. (Apparently they don’t want to be mentioned in my index.) They are prisoners of convention.

    Sun. Aug 21 – 66
    Feeling oddly happy and calm in spite of the turbulence of my future. School? I can’t kid myself – in two months I will be bored & screaming. I don’t want to follow a life shaped by another’s hand. I want Alysse to be for Alysse. Wonder what that is in Latin – want to put it on my shield. My mother says I’m an egotist but I think I’m just normal.
    I believe in generosity and kindness and all that but living for others is death. I believe in calming and exploring the depths of your own waters. “Self-plumbing!” Inspired right now by Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. (The “dutiful” is sarcastic.)


    Sep 12 – 66 – Brockton Ohio
    Back home. Sitting on the same old stone bench where I used to sit and look out at the Same Old Woods but things are inexplicably different. Bloy is back from Choate – much handsomer – blonde goatee and all. He is very envious of me for going to a double sex school and asks a lot about it. He is taller and handsomer but he doesn’t seem to notice it – in fact has acquired a stammer that makes my heart go out to him. Is the Boy Next Door a Possible? I don’t know.


    Tues Sept 20 – 66
    Back at horrible old Plumly. Already so restless that I want to leave. Had to break up with poor old Blair – he kept holding my hand, waiting for me after meals and telling me things I’ve heard before. It got so I wanted to duck behind a pillar whenever I saw him. Reputation for heartlessness into overdrive but I can’t help it. Not heartless merely ornery. Just can’t cope with this “ownership” stuff.
    Reading The Hepburn which is WAY too sexy and not helping my mood. Dizzified with lust. I’d go for a Hepburn but I can’t find any.


    “Give me the earth, give me the sky – Stone, not sand on which to lie.”
    Writing a parody of The Last of the Wine – “The Last of the Alphabet Soup”. Takes place at Plumly in the far distant future and reveals a sexual disintegration of the nth degree. Of course I am the heroine – named “Shalott” but pronounced “P-chot”. Better get to it. Whether Mr. Bernard will find it funny or not I can’t say.


    Sept 25 – 66
    I’ve got to stop reading like this. Evelyn Waugh did not write Vile Bodies to motivate Christian schoolgirls to do their homework and get into a “nice” college. Further disturbance created by the fact that the person I identify with in his work always gets killed. First Prudence, then Agatha. I think he just hates women.


    Hard to concentrate there are so many record players going on this floor. Open any door and the inside looks like a Pepsi commercial. It’s Barbra Streisand vs. the Fugs, the Turtles battling it out with the Lettermen and Beach Boys neck and neck with Bob Dylan.


    Thurs Sept 29 – 66
    Everyone in love with new speech coach except me. I spread my dragnet instead for Doug Bristow from Kenya who has one gold and one blue eye! (And a crazy laugh!) Unfortunately he’s dating someone else and my roomie Aynsley says Marnie never dates longer than a month because she’s too possessive. (Hope!) I asked the Ouija board when he would ask me out and it said Oct 2 but doubt he can move that fast. Blair keeps KOBing me: “You are an elusive problem. I want to ask you out for Fri but I’m afraid you won’t go you seem so noncommittal.” He is a slow boy to get the point.


    Classes grim. In history Mr. Beedwell keeps telling me not to speak in wide terms. Unfortunately I THINK in wide terms. Synthesis and analogy are my arts. In public speaking I burst into tears Mr. Thornton is so mean. Very humiliating for a future actress.


    On top of all this I’ve been elected Vice-President of the Junior class! Girls are not allowed to be president – it would upset the boys and we know they’re so fragile. (That’s why they’re out every day on the Golden Fields of Autumn trying to kill each other.) President is Shawn Kobler.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed Aug 25 – 65


    M & D up sailing at six, we girls slept like hogs till 9. Loafed in the sack discussing M’s wedding.

    “I want a small wedding.”
    “You’ll never get it under 50 people,” I said.
    “You can all be bridesmaids! Gayle is maid of honor.”
    “I hope our dresses are full-length!” (me)
    “Avril will be flower girl,” suggests Genevieve.
    Now Merrill is threatening to get married BEFORE the actual ceremony because otherwise she’ll be too nervous! Yeah! She might fall in love with SOMEBODY ELSE and then what I think but don’t say.

    Reached Long Point, Canada by lunch. Half mile to shore, G and I certain we could swim it so we plunged in, Avril trailing us in the dinghy. It was gorgeous, water clear but green, not blue like Mediterranean. Bottom pure pale sand. Not actually tired when I reached shore but proud – boat looked so far away! Glorious sand beach, big light house. G found a dead seagull that hadn’t been dead very long so we got a good look at this magnificent bird. Close up they are so beautiful. No clue what killed it – did not look sick. We gave it a nice burial (it was so heavy I was surprised it could fly.) I recited Millay – I never miss a chance to be poetical, just part of Alysse’s Beachside Morgue Service. Avril cried.  Byron’s my favorite (strange since 19th cent makes me want to scream) but couldn’t recall any of his stuff. 1Jane Austen my favorite hist period. )  Could I have used his quote about Napoleon? What must be the madness of thy memory? I particularly love Don Juan. Also I like Keats. Frost is good but with him you don’t have to think. 

Back at the boat we had lunch and set sail for Berwell. Long, lazy afternoon.. I’ve finished all my books – heavy into spy literature – also poisoned chocolates case which I didn’t like as much as I thought I would. I thought it was Mrs Bendix all along. Also Anya Seton’s Katherine. “Eve of Destruction” playing on the radio. Great. I need several hours alone with the author of this song in order to straighten him out. I refuse to believe politics is anything but temporary madness.

    Thurs Aug 26 – 65
    Harshly awakened by pots, kettles & cans falling to the floor. Boat rocking wildly and me, in the lower starboard bunk, got entangled in my sleeping bag and almost thrown into the bilge. Then my roll-in bed slammed into the wall as far as it would go with me in it! Knives flying – I was in fear for my life!

    “This ketchup bottle almost hit my FACE” said Merrill. I rescued diary from floor and tried to lock it in books cupboard while books fell on my head. I heard the sound of the motor as M & D tried to straighten the boat. Avril was actually thrown out on the floor under a cascade of bottles. If you really thought about it you’d get seasick. Put on a lumberjack shirt – no time for  bra and climbed above to see Port Stanley heaving into view. Fat white gulls sitting on the black coal. Port Stanley itself looks like it was erected overnight for a Hitchcock film and will be pulled down next day. We had a lot of trouble docking. A cheerful idiot in a yachting cap kept offering directions that turned out to be wrong. Once docked a customs officer came aboard and stamped around. We were still cleaning up.  Dad said we looked like “a laundry scow.” The customs man kept  a cigarette in his mouth while the ash grew long and longer. Had to ask us the date. After he left we put up the awning and ate lunch, then went ashore looking very conspicuous. The natives seem harmless.  I bought 2 books – Nicholas Blake & Phyllis Whitney.

Mom found a good bakery so we are all in the cockpit munching cookies. Tough t-bone steaks for dinner with plenty of onions, then cards.

    News: that Johnson again. Married men no longer exempt.

    Wed. Sept 1, 65 2:40 AM
    Lie awake wondering why I want to be an actress. My reasons are all wrong. I simply want to be Somebody Else. Wouk’s Morningstar currently driving me up a tree. I refute his assumption that if you’re young, talented, beautiful you’re bound to make it. I have hit upon a Plan of Action. Genevieve thinks I should go to a WORK CAMP next summer. I need to find some non-exploitative training so I can enter RADA age 18. First goal: save $100 out of my allowance. (That’ll be hell. Out of $30/month!)

    Next summer I will be sixteen and can WORK so maybe I should do that. Genevieve says you can just go into the Inn and get a job. THEN THERE’S THAT MINNESOTA PROG I WAS TOO young for, Maybe should go there. I don’t want to be so parasitical. Genevieve says London will be s expensive as Wellesley! People advise me to try writing short stories but I’m not there yet – still learning – and I don’t want to rush things. 3:40 AM! I surprise myself sometimes.

    Thurs. June 9 – 66
    Yahoo! Summer is officially here and I am FREE! Mom & Dad aren’t coming till tomorrow night so I have noting to do but take walks, pack, and try to avoid Blair who is becoming a little much for me. He moves with such incredible slowness and he has to have all my ideas exhaustively explained to him. He likes to read Ezra Pound’s poetry out loud while I lie under a tree with my eyes shut. Since this is the only thing we share I’m afraid to tell him I just don’t like Ezra Pound. I don’t think he can stomach Millay. Oh dear. While he talks my inner music plays Let’s Get Lost on a Country Road by the Kit Kats and We Gotta Get Out of This Place by the Animals. Speaks to our condition as they say. Merrill’s wedding June 16 – we have nightmarishly ugly bridesmaid dresses to wear – Mom had them made by some disabled woman she took pity on. We are the ones deserving of pity for having to wear the damn things.

    Mon Jun 27 – 66
    Here I am at the University of Minnesota! I’ve hit the big time! I would not be writing at all but we are in the basement because of a tornado warning. Ah, the joys of the Midwest. Just us theatre students and a bunch of nuns who wear funny underwear and caps with strings. You wouldn’t think there would be an order of theatre nuns would you! Well there are! They are called the Franciscans and I must say they are making the idea of the convent look attractive. (Not the clothes though. But there is talk of fixing those.) They even have a swimming pool which Chassie my roommate and I sneak into – naked – in the middle of the night.

    A fat one named Sister Glory is praying out loud. They told us to bring “something valuable on our way down so of course I brought you!  Next time I will bring a blanket and pillows (the floor is very hard.)  Writing hard too because whatever I put down is played back in my brain very discouragingly.

I am studying Acting One, Fencing, Makeup and Fencing.  I love theatre people! (even uns.)But we don’t spend nearly as much time on those as on building theatre sets – obviously we are Slave Labor. This is even worse because the slaves didn’t pay to work. So far the only thing I’ve learned is how to mix “dope” to stiffen unbleached muslin into walls.  This will take me far in life.

As usual my intellectual life is alive.  Reading The Carpetbaggers in which sex warps into hate (Beales!) Turgenev’s Hunting Sketches (adore!) and The Prince, which is sort of a drag. I am Mrs. Smith in The Bald Soprano.  The director asked us when our periods are due before casting. (He is very superstitious.)

    Fri. July 22 – 66
    The fact that I am still a virgin’s not my fault. I am sitting in the coach of a New York Central Train headed (eventually) for Philadelphia – because there is an airline strike. I am headed to Charlaix to meet up with family aboard The Gryphon. It will be a long, laborious journey, which is good because I have had a monumental hangover (my first!) for three days. I am eating liverwurst & onions to keep away the sailors (it’s working.)

    I was dating this fantastic college student named Trey (Trùs trùs)!  I was too absorbed even to write about him!  He has the most glorious bod – how I wish I had a picture – and is very tan. Runs around Minneapolis St Paul in a little loincloth & flip-flops. He’s covered all over with a glittery platinum fuzz.  Alas he was just as interested in my roommate Georgy as he was in me but she was not interested in him. (Thank God.) He’s six feet six and has to wear coke bottle glasses but since I can’t really see as far as his face that doesn’t matter. He took me to see The Skin of Our Teeth at the Guthrie – fabulous.

(A sailor sits beside me. He grins. I grin. Blast of onionated liver.  He departs.)

    Trey gave a going away party for me at his house (parents away.) It’s a teensy little garage way out in the suburbs I’m surprised humans can fit in there. But it has a big back yard. I wore a bikini , sundress & sunglasses and brought my Village Fugs album – they loved it. Trey opened up the booze cabinet and started mixing whiskey sours while 4,000 of his closest friends trooped past scrutinizing and then ignoring me.


    Finally I announced I had to be going. (Early train!) He told me he would drive me. I said he didn’t have to – I could get some actor to do it – he said – “I want to” gazing deeply into my eyes. That gave us more time (all night!) together. Unfortunately. I was handling the whiskey sours, it was the Purple Jesus that did me in. Jesus! Never again! Nothing purple EVER! Trey went out cruising around for supplies leaving me alone with Leechy Friend who mixed me this awful drink and I was too drunk to turn it down. I threw up all over Leechy Friend who kept patting me and saying “Don’t worry, this happens all the time.” (Around HIM!) Trey came home and was quite upset by my condition. He got me a sleeping bag and put me to bed in his parent’ room.
    Later on I hear this noise like someone coming to bed with me.


    “Trey?”
    “No.”


    It was the Leechy Friend! I tried to escape from him but got stuck in the crevice between the twin beds and was still too drunk to escape! I yelled “Trey!” and didn’t my hero appear to rescue me! Minus his loincloth. I begged him to stay. He knew I was a virgin but he said, “There’s a lot of other things we can do” and there were. I had several “seizures” and I think he did too. If I had any criticism it would be that his penis is a little skinny- and ribbed – like a dog penis. But still! A night to remember! Life is no fun if there’s no one to play it with!

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Drama Camp – Bellfort LI Fri July 30 – 65


    After 4 days I am horribly homesick. The classes are wonderful, I am sure I will learn a lot, why am I so lonely? This is costing Mom & Dad a lot of money. You have to buy your own lightbulbs here and the teachers are alcoholic & temperamental – someone missed a diamond ring and all our quarters were searched (not found, either.) There’s nothing wrong with the kids – they aren’t the glamor girls I feared I’d get so what’s missing. None has the requirement of individuality I desire in a person. Maybe they’re pretending. Maybe they see our job here as pretending. Is acting imitation? Alysse doesn’t like that! The classes are good but the food is terrible and they give you so little you’re constantly starving. But at least there’s swimming. Should I rave about the place or lie to M & D? I’d betray myself when I see them again – burst out crying I love them so much. It was Thanksgiving before it hit me how much I love them. I love mom more than Dad if I’m confessing. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder to the point of hysteria?” It could be worse. I love everybody and I’ll write them every day. I’ll read Lord of the Flies, Le Morte D’Arthur – can’t wait to get started.

    Sun Aug 8, 65
    That went horribly. Was it a dream? Sadly, not. It went on and is still going on. Camp got better in some ways, worse in others. Found a good friend in Edie Jacoby. Danni Wisefield invited me to a beach party Wed night! This sounded exciting and it WAS. Guitars, beers, fires, BOYS! We built a sandcastle & sang! I met a boy named Rob (Victor Robinson Larsen) who goes to Oberlin College! (Class of 68.) Very nice person to talk to (never touched me.) He brought a book of poetry we read around the fire! They walked us back. The truth is I never thought about getting caught, I certainly didn’t think about getting EXPELLED. So shaming. I think I am a person who TRIES to be good. Mom and Dad didn’t even come to get me – sent a friend who brought me back to her Southampton estate. I feel cheated. I FELT cheated. It’s common knowledge that you rebel against those distrusted.

    Danni denied everything, I couldn’t. I did cry because I hate to be cross-examined. Mr. Pomeranz offered me a dirty choice. If I would say it was Danni’s idea and I didn’t know what I was getting into – but I couldn’t. I had to call home – only Genevieve was there. “A boy – AGAIN?” She asked. The worst injustice! She means sneaking out with Julie last summer. My parents never called back. Finally I put on my red boots & red corduroy dress and went to borrow a dime for a phone call.  “Your parents have been trying to reach you” says Mr. Sheldon. Pity no one bothered to tell me! Calling wasn’t a good idea – they were stern, I cried. Made myself feel better after by making up jokes: The Mr. Pomeranz windup doll- steals your money & expels you. I got a going away party – hamburgers & ringdings. Rob and his MOTHER showed up – tried to put in a good word to no avail! Sweet, though. I was happy to leave. At the last minute they offered to let me stay. I said No. 

This place is  rathole. Couldn’t talk honestly with Daddy because Mr. Pomeranz was there but he figured it out. The Hortons arrived in the middle of my going away party! I remembered Bill but had never met Leonie, a solid, freckled figure. They were very kind. They put up with all my emotions and rushing about. Mr. Pomeranz wouldn’t give me my plane ticket, refused to believe who the Hortons were, finally we got out of there. Isn’t it funny how things work out?

    Thurs. night Aug 12 – 65
    The Hortons house is a huge white estate on the water! Dripping with ivy & windows in unexpected places. Pretty much my dream house! I have a wing to myself! The bed is big but as hard as a rock. On the bedside table Eng short stories by Christopher Isherwood so they expect you to be wakeful. When I was twelve I had a crush on Christopher Isherwood! Children really are awfully strange. First I was at acting school, now I’m at a country estate for an Indefinite Stay. Sounds like the plot of a Passionflower Hotel book! Had a horrible nightmare about Mr Pomeranz.

    Woke late and helped Lee Horton fix lunch. She likes silent meals – she reads! Fine with me! Then we drove to the train station and picked up the cook, Georgia Clark, tall thin black woman who said, “I want some coffee as’ll do me some damage.” Apparently no one makes coffee strong enough for her. 

That night Leonie and I went to Prescott Horton’s house in St. James for dinner before the Smithtown Pageant. He’s Bill’s older brother. He looks like Commander Whitehead. I wore my Greek dress. He’s an official for Smithtown so we had to go – it’s a travelling co performing the Pageant. I sat there with an asinine smile on my face. Worst performance I have ever seen – pure canned corn. Called home after. Mom has not forgiven me yet. On Wed we went to Bellfort to see The King & I! The dancers were fabulous! Too bad I have no talent. Saw everyone during intermission! They were surprised! 

Thurs a beach day. Mr. Horton was late (he’s a lawyer in Manhattan) we didn’t have dinner till ten! Tomorrow I go. Hope there’s no yelling – I feel guilty enough.

    Fri. 13th Aug 65
    On the plane. Something wrong with landing gear, pilot circling while they figure. We may have to return to Kennedy. Almost hoping we crash; I don’t want to die but if I was a little mutilated my parents would go easier on me.


    This AM drove with Mr. Horton & Georgia into Manhattan; I slept most of the way. Left Georgia at bus station, then was delivered to Mr. H’s secretary at his office. She took me to the UN right across the street. Pretty cool but I hate guided tours! Hate being one of the masses. After that I was given a typewriter & office stationery to write letters until cab time. Now trying to think of Famous Last Words in case we crash (it IS Fri 13.)

    OBITUARY
    OUR whole community is sorrowing sorrowing SORROWING to hear of the death of Miss Alysse Aallyn, budding actress and writer, dearly, dearly DEARLY beloved of the entire Clark family (currently vacationing in Italy) nipped in the bud by a p
    L
    A
    N
    E
    Cra
..

    7:15 PM
    You’re not going to believe this. We DID have to land and have been waiting here ever since to find out why they gave us a broken plane. Luckily I bought duMaurier’s Parasites it is very good. Called home – only Clarice there of all people. They’re serving dinner – nice of them! I better eat it. Unfortunately the food is all sterilized, just like airplane food. I am so scared I am breaking out.

    Sun. Aug 22 -65
    Still alive. Very jumpy plane ride – a stewardess buckled in next to me and when she got scared I got scared!

    Whole family there to meet me! No reproaches – even hard looks except from Genevieve. After M & D have gone into a huddle they are Done – no more influencing them. It  was a mistake to write those glowing letters! I told them they read our mail but I was not believed. I am set for Plumly school which will straighten me out (G not too thrilled since she had it to herself. She is clucking away disgustedly.) Definitely Wellesley material (where she wants to go.)

Frankly it’s horrible being home. I should have stayed at camp. Why can’t I learn to fake it? My old friends seem cliquey and narrow minded. I go to library, run errands for Mom, read, write, sleep, keep to the house like  a hermit. I read in G’s diary about how she read my diary!  I said, ‘I forgive you.” Then we both burst into helpless laughter. 

Merrill called to say she’s coming home instead of meeting us on the cruise. Looking smaller, she arrived with Ted Damian in tow. He looks stupid to me. Merrill seemed a little sarcastic towards him. After he left, she said they broke up! Her eyes were shining, she seemed relieved and happy! She said she’s IN LOVE and ENGAGED  to a guy SHE MET A WEEK AGO! HIS NAME IS JULIAN Holt (she calls him Julio.) I decided this girl doesn’t know what true love is. But then, I don’t either so there you go. He wants to be a foreign correspondent and has given her an engagement ring which is more than Ted ever did.

Had to cram the station wagon with provisions and drive Merrill, Mom, Mouse & me to Mentor on the lake Ohio where Dad & Jay took the boat. Passed through Brunswick where the police checked every car in advance of the big KuKluxKlan rally. This plus Vietnam makes me want to cry or be ill. He’s a corn-mouthed, barbecue-eating ASS!  He’ll incinerate the world if he gets a chance.

Lovely cruising days (even without the sun.) First night at Ashtabula, next Conneaut. They were dirty & insignificant but now we are at Presque Ile which is glorious.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs. Jun 10 – 65 On a plane somewhere over Cleveland.


    New diary, new paths on my journey. Stepped into a dark green taxi leaving five crying friends behind. Leaving behind the Age of Dreams and entering the Age of Doing. I’m not saying I haven’t got a past – I have – quite a past – but the future still holds all the excitement. In 45 mins I’ll be saying hello to mommy and whoever else she brings to greet me at the Cleveland International Grubport. This is a very jiggly plane and this writing could go wrong at any moment so think I’ll go back to my James Bond.

    Somewhere in Lake Erie between Toledo & Vermilion – Fri. Jun 18 – 65
    Just completed a week of inactivity – a century in Plumly time. I only needed the first three days, by Wed night I HAD A FIT OF THE WOLLIES. I’m either hysterically joyous or wretchedly depressed – which is the real me? Sobbed myself to sleep in sheer frustration. Daddy asked me if I wanted to go on the Mills Race so I said yes. He’s trying to make up for the time he got angry & said I didn’t care a goddam about anything. I’m taking the boat to Toledo (won’t be in the race). Dad dragged me out of bed after 5 hrs sleep 8:45. Ragged madras shorts & pink shirt & yellow beach bag, rubber bands in my hair, crammed into the Monza with crew member & his family. We were so packed in crew member kept shifting my knee. (Bill Capitan.)

    Stocky, amiable, running to fat (his face looks like a pudding) he is a prof of photog at the college. His wife plain, cheerful, cajoling 2 children. They were talking about last Wed’s race – Dad won! Dad said if he’d fallen in Dad would have kept going so it was a good thing he didn’t fall in. We stopped to lay in supplies of beer & vermouth. Goodbye to wife & kids, out towards channel by 10 Am. Me at helm (boat fought like spoiled child) and I fought back. Sails up, I was relieved (Bill’s no good as helmsman either.) 

Dad said between the two of us we were wandering all over the damn lake. We had lunch at 12:30 – to amuse myself I cleaned the galley even the medieval cubbyholes. Got to improve my pater’s opinion of me!  Read all afternoon –finished Flight of the Falcon started Payne’ s Gold of Troy. Falcon isn’t so good- I don’t like its overall feel. Gold more interesting though written in the passive style. Break for pretzels & coffee.

 Dad whispered “Bill thinks you’re the sweetest girl.” Aww. Dad then said, “Except when you’re being obstreperous.” We were outside the firing range at 4 had to stop & tether to the Fine Feather (beautiful yawl- very good looking boy on board) to let them finish and let us through.  We were a flotilla. Our wind failed, we had to motor though the range. (8 knots/hr!)  I took the helm for 2 hrs that was easier.  Water cool and smooth as glass. Bill excited about the herons, Dad playing w/chart & slide rule. 

The Toledo LightHouse is a Byzantine castle – I hope to build my own someday. It’s 20 to 9 – we’ll be in by 9:30. We fly four flags – Vermilion Boat Club, Great Lakes, Italy & France (Dad gave his Greek one to the Lagoon Boat Club.)

    Thurs. June 24 – 65
    Dinner at yacht club. Buffet, and the meat was terrible! Dad said it was “highway robbery” but they were having a party, celebrating start of the Mills. Dad promised I can race someday.

    Back at the boat Don Lennartson showed up with the hood jenny (the one Dad sent to be repaired.) He’s the one taking me home – we left at midnight. Don & I exchanged civilized pleasantries, then fell silent. We stopped at a gas station and I did make him laugh. He thought I was a drama major and he was too. He suggested books by Lawrence Durrell I ought to read, then we had a good long talk. I arrived home happy & sleepy. Mom awake – chatted with her & the hamsters then went to bed. Waked in the AM by Avril and Genevieve – we are driving into Cleveland – hooray!  We played the radio and were very sisterly. Mom forgot to give G the map so we got lost. We went to Mus of Art – I was sorry we would eat there because I hate the food. Poor sandwich, bad jello. We met Mom & her head start program at the museum. I love the Egyptian room – we feel the same about cats. Also the Modiglianis. Mom met us at 2:30 and took us shopping – I begged off to sleep in the car. Avril got lots of beautiful clothes and I was madly jealous. Went to a bookstore after that and I got a history of the silent screen. More shopping – I coaxed an orange dress out of Mumlet. Sirloin steaks with onion rings at Clark’s then thundered merrily home.

Sun was Father’s Day. Everyone forgot except me. G and I drove up with Mrs Capitain to bring boat back from Toledo with Daddy. She is a very bad driver. It was agony.  We were very late. Dad, G, Don & I shoved off.  Solid breeze made getting out of the channel a nightmare. Dad told a Satchelpuss story that made us all laugh. Poor Don got seasick, I felt wonderful.

    Tues. July 6 – 65
    Lovely weekend on boat with Clarice (Genevieve’s friend) Mom, Dad, and Genevieve. Dinner at the Twine House (shishkabob.) Parfait for dessert! Poor Clarice is so fat Dad thinks she should be hospitalized. Men are always that way about fat. She’s lovely – makes a point of being sure I’m “in” instead of trying to get rid of me (like G). I don’t want to be like G, I enjoy being different. This is the reason for Your existence, diary. I’m the “wondergirl” as G says.

    None of this fat problem can be Clarice’s fault, she is a really confident person. It’s no act. My matchstick confidence is always going CRASH!  I only feel “good” when I’m really done up. G. is writing in her diary too! Us diary keepers must stick together. “How long have you had one?”

    “Quite awhile.”
    “I didn’t know!”
    “I don’t advertise it like you do.”
    It’s probably about Me! Mine’s about her!

    Sun. July 11 – 65
    The stage is always stagey but movies are personal. They are at the same time a thought, a dream, or something happening outside your window. Hollywood doesn’t give people credit for their intelligence. The thrill of thought is a lot more potent than identification with some sex-goddess. Should I graduate from Plumly and storm RADA? I can only hope I have the talent.

    1 am Fri July 23, 65
    Can’t sleep. Tried exercising, counting things, pretending, even acting! Acting like I’m sleeping! “Alysse, my Girl,” I said to Me, “What you need is a Good Think.” So here I am. We have guests, so I’m in a sleeping bag on the floor. I’m reduced to a flashlight. It was an evening of Unexpected Phone Calls. Nightie
root beer
TV. RING! I jump up, knock over a table.
    “Hello?”
    ‘Nyello. Nye have a collect call for Anyone from Miss Merrill Aallyn. Will you accept?”
    “Sure thing!” I say, “Hi, Muff!”
    “Get everyone on the line!” demands Merrill.
    “I’m the only one here,” I apologize.
    “But I sent a LETTER that I would call TONITE!”
    “Well
” Bzzz. Cut off. Sure enough – RING!
    “H’lo?”
    “DID YOU HANG UP?”
    “NO. DID YOU?” (Hard to hear. We were having a storm.)
    “Let’s have some female gossip. You know Ted?”
    “Yeeesss
” (her latest guy.)
    “Well, you have to promise not to tell anyone BUT TED AND I ARE GETTING MARRIED!!”
    I screech jubilantly. Bzzz.
    I wait impatiently. RI-
    “Merrill, I’m so excited!”
    “YOU DO THAT ONCE MORE
”
    “Look, it isn’t me! I swear! When? Where? This is fabulous! My own sister!”
    “Sssh. I thought you didn’t LIKE Ted.”
    I DID say that. “Well, if he wants to marry you he can’t be all bad,” I say guiltily.
    “Promise you won’t tell. Mom & Dad don’t like him either.”
    “Married!” I couldn’t get over it. “Wow!”
    “Next year,” says Merrill glumly.
    “Well, don’t get married in June like everyone else does. When will you tell them?”
    “I’ll tell them SOMETIME.” Now SHE sounded guilty! “I won’t let you be a bridesmaid if you tell anybody!”
    “OK, Ok.”
    “Ted’s parents keep sending us these articles on premarital sex. They’re giving us ideas.”
    “So, have you premaritally sexed him yet?” I was WILD!
    “Yes. Once.”
    This was something! Merrill not a virgin? I felt separated by the gulf of human experience making her so changed. “What was it like?”
    “It was a lot of work. He had a towel with a bulls’ eye and I had to lie down on the target. There’s too much pressure! You want to get it over with.”
    I was scared to ask if she loved him – she HAS to say yes! Talk about pressure! But who could love Ted?
    “Did it hurt?”
    “I have to hang up now.”
    “Oh Merrill, it’s wonderful to hear from you, I’m so glad to hear about you & Ted! I’ll write a lot, I promise!”
    Poor girl! I romantically resolved to be her champion. RING!
    “HELLO?”
    “Hi. Is Genevieve there?”
    “Nope. Sailing.”
    “Is this Avril?”
    “Nope. Alysse. Who’s this?”
    “Bill Laughlin. You’re the one I REALLY wanted to see! Want to drive out and get a Coke?”
    “Are you serious!” I foresee a great future in the Diplomatic Corps.
    “Sure! What’s the matter? Going steady?”
    “Yeah, with Billy Stephens. I babysit for him.”
    “How old is he?”
    “About six.”
    “He won’t mind one coke.”
    “Genevieve might not like it.”
    “Genevieve’s just a kid! You’re the one I want!” (Amazing how good this feels.)
    “I need to get ready.”
    “Are you in your nightgown?”
    “Yeah, but I can change.”
    “Don’t bother. I’ll be right over.”
    This guy was hilarious! CLICK.
    Anyway, I put on a dress. I wrote a note – “Bill Laughlin taking me out to pump me about Genevieve. Be right back.”

    That ought to cover it! Bill at the door. We drove a gold Mustang with black leather. Gorgeous car. (He said it was his brother’s.) Went to the Dairy Queen, got small cokes & talked. It was a good conversation. I liked the way he tried to match my moods, serious to joking all at once. I said I’d been wanting this sign Youth Haven and he offered to get it for me but it was too high up. I showed him the mogul on the way to Kretchmar’s – he gunned it and we soared over it. Great fun. He never mentioned Genevieve at all!  Until in the driveway he said, “Do you think Jenny will go out with me Fri?”

    I said, “Sure, why not?”
    “Well. We had words.”
    “A fight?” This was exciting!
    “Something like that. Sort of “you can forget about Friday.”
    “Uhoh. She’s not a big mind-changer. But you should ask.”
    And don’t mention ME!
    “If she won’t, will you? I’ve already got the tickets.” Tactless.
    “I’m already going with Avril. Better ask Genevieve. Really.”
    No matter how second-hand I obviously was, I was flattered! Thank you, G’Bye, slam! He’s good looking and fun, I would definitely date him if Genevieve doesn’t want him.
    “Of course I’ll go,” she said condescendingly.

    LAKE ERIE AGAIN – Sunday July 25-1965
    One more day till drama camp! Sometimes I get so excited I want to jump up in the air screaming EEEEEEE! Reading DuMaurier’s Glassblowers I just learned something I already half-knew – “There is no such thing as time.” It’s what you want to do with it! A beautiful truth. The tree we climb may be cut down but the past is never gone. I can be any age I have ever been before.

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs Oct 8, 64


    Got a “social warning” for “lights out” with a boy! It was only six o’clock for heaven’s sake! I have much to learn about the Art of Shiking. Things are rough for the Prisoners of the Tower. We were talking about hobbies. His is photography. I said mine is philosophy. Social philosophy. Like why people are so very, very strange.

    Also got a warning for not wearing a “covering” on my curlers in the upstairs Girls’ End Hall!  What is this, Moulay Idris? What a place!

Favorite song this week – “I like it” by Gerry & the Pacemakers.

    “I like it! I like it!
    I like the way you run your fingers through my hair
”
    Exactly.

    Doggerel for English:

    “To laugh and love and run and sing
    Are gifts beyond all price.
    And when I die for die I will
    I’ll feel no pain or strife.
    It is enough for me to know I’ve sipped the wine of life!
    In a way I’ll always live
    In all I’ve loved and seen
    The whirling whiteness of the snow
    The emerald spring of green.
    A rock that’s round and hard and smooth
    The restless roaring sea
    The pale blank beauty of the moon
    All have a piece of me.
    So I can die without a qualm
    ‘Cause death is never mean.
    Dying too is part of life –
    Remember – dirt is clean!

    Eng teacher gave me a B MINUS and asked me to write it again without rhyme!  But since it’s in the past, why would I?  Life rushes on, Master Gwill! Better get moving!
I recited it at the dinner table (maybe it is more of a recitation piece) and – Miss Womrath liked it so much she gave me her notebook from a Trip to France in 18 BC.  It is full of sketches of fishermen and birds – the poems are unbelievably bad. There are a surprising number of breasts – even men had breasts in those days!  Maybe she is a nympho-lesbo.

    TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1965 – Brockton, Ohio

    Tonight Mom and Genevieve and Avril and I went to a concert at Avril’s school – my old school. It was like walking smack into the past—a nightmare come to life. Old Miss Quinn came lurching toward us like Boris Karloff in the Mummy – she was even trailing some sort of torn drapery. I stared disbelieving at the puniness of the drinking fountain –more like an animal watering device than any kind of implement to be used by human beings – was I EVER that small? The halls were narrow and grimy but I remember them in my dreams as vast and spacious with the edges seeming to drop away like unmapped territory. The children’s faces even seemed familiar – as if I grew up and they didn’t – maybe children’s faces are indistinguishable.

     The Auditorium was pathetic.  It had a tiny stage – made of wretched splintered boards. I felt my rear end itch in memory.  I imagined myself, old and famous, donating  decent drapes to replace those ratty dust catchers. But probably it would be better to deny any association with this place. Of course Avril performed horribly. Years of relentless babying have softened that poor child’s brain.  

Genevieve and I walked home so as to avoid the reception afterwards.  I don’t recall my mother going to a single one of my concerts – and Genevieve doesn’t remember it either. This mothering thing is something she’s only recently discovered – twenty years into the job.  Oh well.  

As  Genevieve says, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. When we got home we watched The Man from Uncle, (naturally Avril gets a TV!) then  I worked on my novel about teenage stardom while Genevieve set her hair with beer cans. That’s because we were going to the movies - the second showing of 36 Hours and she might see someone. Genevieve had already seen it and couldn’t help giving me a running commentary. I need all the help I can get in war movies. My favorite part was when Pike and Anna were in the hole and  the German soldier, looking in sees a nest of baby birds instead  of them and whistles to the birds. I thought it was very mature of the scriptwriter to resist the urge to have him murder the baby birds.

    When I got home Daddy called me into the study where he had an application for summer theatre camp! I can go! Off to sleep in a haze of bliss.

    Wednesday, March 31, 1965
    Sure is hellish trying to write in a car. It’s 4:12 pm and we’re in the Shenandoah Valley. So far we’ve traveled through five states. I have a feeling this is going to be a short entry because I’m feeling carsick. Avril has been carsick twice already.

    We got up at nine and left at nine thirty. Call last night to Phil - saying goodbye was rather a greasy experience. I wish he had a sort of brake control. I promised him I would write.  He will probably be back at school by the time I return. 

The countryside is all the same, dark woods, yellow grass and ridiculous road signs. We had lunch in a bone-chilling wind at 12:30 and now I’m starving again. We ate at Howard Johnson’s and Dad embarrassed us about the food. He always complains but I like the clams. Mom’s scarf blew out of the window so we are turning back to get it.

    FRIDAY APRIL 2, 1965
    At last a moment! We have really been having fun. We ended up in Front Royal Virginia the last time I wrote you at The Colonial Motor Court. Dad said it was about as colonial as a TV dinner. We went to see Goldfinger after dinner and Dad pretended to be Oddjob in the parking lot. Mom was rigid and disapproving but whether of murderous Oddjob or boisterous Pussy Galore I couldn’t say.

    Next day we went to Monticello. I could spend a lifetime there! We made it to Williamsburg by late afternoon and went straight to the Candlelight Concert at the Governor’s Palace. Concert mediocre.  Then we went to the Sheraton, which was a pretty cool place except the pool is shut.  

We ate at Chowney’s and I had Brunswick stew and apple pie.  Dad rousted us out at an ungodly hour so we could see all of Williamsburg.  First place we saw was Bruton Parish where I liked the graveyard.  I found a small stone with just the initials B.S. on it. That’s the way to go – keep everyone guessing.  Then we saw the George Wythe House. Rough way to live.  I preferred the Palace, where we got lost in the maze. I said I was sure I had been an aristocrat I in an earlier life and Dad said everyone thinks that.  I found the middle of the maze all by myself, but it began to rain and so we ducked into the Brush-Everard house.  We had lunch at Christiana Campbell’s.  I had potpie and stoked myself quite full. After lunch we hit the shops: I bought a blank book, a thistle seal (Mary Queen of Scots) and a gingerbread man.  I was so sleepy I slept in the car on the way to Washington, but I woke up when we got to our hotel, the Fairfax.

    The Fairfax is a rather doubtful looking place – Dad has a tendency to choose hotels that look like the owner just died. Our rooms are on the eighth floor. We went to dinner at an Italian place called Nino’s. The food was good, but you can get better pizza at Benet’s. We drove around after dinner and Dad said this is the second most beautiful American city (after San Francisco.) Mom said its No. 1. All I could see was huge monuments looming at me through the gloaming.

    SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1965
    I was rudely awakened by someone trying to strangle me – it was Daddy. And yet nobody’s allowed to make noise while he’s trying to sleep – just one of the many inequities between parents and kids. Genevieve called me a sloth and I reminded her that it takes a sloth three hours to drown because of their generally superior construction. They probably experience things more deeply too. I know I was having a wonderful dream, I just can’t remember what it was. It was six a.m. – earlier than I get up at school. We drove around looking for somewhere to eat, finally stopping at the Ambassador where I had strawberries and coffee. (You’ve gotta start sometime.)
    We decided to climb the Washington monument but a surprise awaited us: to be exact, a line that stretched as far as the eye could see, comprising:
    Girl scouts
    Brownies
    Old ladies
    Fat ladies
    Dead ladies
    Dead girl scouts
    Hoboes hired to stand in line for somebody smarter.

    What to do? Fortunately Dad decided to pretend to be a tour guide and just walked in front, talking and waving his arms, something about how the building was built of pennies collected by Brownies and some statue, covered with pigeon poo, was a memorial to a man who invented a way of cleaning pigeon poo off statues.  At one point we had at least thirty people in our group – everyone was riveted. Of course all that climbing was pointless and not worthwhile.  Genevieve said the monument looked like a giant planeria, which is a repulsive image.

Other deathless thoughts from the day’s experience: The White House does not look like it would be fun to live in. I failed to catch a glimpse of Luci Baines who has probably gratefully gone somewhere else. Dad made us stand in front of the Treasury Building for what seemed like an eternity (“because we owe them so much money”) and then we went to see our Congressman.  Although he is a Republican he seemed like a good fellow. Daddy called him Chuck and he talked to us for quite awhile as if he wasn’t really busy.  He gave us passes to the next session of the 89th Congress which I thought was nice until Dad pointed out that we’re paying for everything. So we trudged over to the Capitol. I liked the classy pillars and noticed the meander design everywhere (matching my sweater – which my mother knit while I studied the Greeks.)  I also liked the chandeliers.  They have a lot of them.  There was one hall where each state had put two statues of famous men – one of ours was Garfield (who I’ve heard of) and the other one was Allen (who nobody’s heard of.)   The tour guy said Garfield’s assassin is one of the Capitol ghosts and the guards see him occasionally.  The best statue was Will Rogers.

    Then we went to see the Supreme Court. I wish they had been in session but they weren’t so I actually saw more of the ladies’ john. There were a lot more steps. I was beginning to get a rubbery sensation in the knees.

        We went out to lunch at Hogate’s where I had crab imperial and Dad lost his air travel card. Then we drove to the Pentagon because Daddy wanted to see it.  Not interesting. We went to Arlington, which was very depressing. You wouldn’t want to live your whole life just so you could be seventh from the end in the thirty-ninth row of Section A.  

    The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was not as impressive as the one in France. Daddy was angry at us for giggling but I don’t think it was the kind of place to make you want to be quiet.  The French know how to do these things right. I was taken out of my mood by the Jefferson Memorial. It’s adorable. I would like one in my yard. I think it’s my favorite thing I’ve seen. “I have sworn on the Altar of God Eternal Hostility Against Every Form of Tyranny over the Mind of Man.” Wonder what he would have said if they added “woman”  to that. 

    Back at the hotel Avril and I hung out in her room, Genevieve went shopping and Mom and Dad went to an art museum nobody else wanted to see. I washed and dried my hair and at six-thirty we all walked to a Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Sukiyaki, which Dad said, would be like opening a restaurant in Tokyo and calling it New York Steak and Potatoes.  I must say we are eating well. Dad said it was the most authentic Japanese restaurant he’d ever been to in the States.  They painted the walls to look like paper and we had to take off our shoes. The tables were low and there was nowhere to put your feet. We all ate with chopsticks. Dad said you’re a pro when you can pick up three peas I in a line.  He can do it – I can’t – and Genevieve pretends she can.  

    After that we tried to see Zorba the Greek but it was all sold out. So we went to Lord Jim instead. And guess what? Sold out too.  Lots of parents would have been stymied at this point but Dad said he had just begun to fight.  We went to a discotheque called Le Bistro where everyone was dressed to the teeth but there wasn’t any dancing. Dad bought us all beers (except a coke for Avril.  I hate beer, as it turns out) and we waited around but we didn’t want to be the only ones dancing so we went back to the hotel and played Hearts.  I got the Queen of Spades twice, which is definitely a sign of something.

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Tues. Sept 8 – 64


    Well it’s happened. That thing I fought so long: I am crying. Next to pain, disbelief is my strongest emotion.

    There is no getting around it.  I looked in the mirror and I am ugly. Mom offered to trim my hair – I was losing my flip – and I thought she actually would but she cut it so short its not even short length. It just looks stupid.  You can still see the scars of the summer’s impetigo all around my mouth. (Mom calls it a “deficiency” disease! Great!)

Can you imagine arriving the first day of school with a deficiency disease and stupid hair? And now my eyelids are swollen and my nose is purple!

Can I rise above this?  At least in my dreams I am beautiful.

I’m exhausted from a day of shopping, sitting at my desk in my rabbit slippers in my own little room. Tired of wrestling with Mom over clothes, as usual. Finally got her to buy me a decent pair of heels and some black underpants (for my exotic moods.) I lost on the black party dress even though I promised to take the rose off the shoulder. All she will buy me are horrible Villager, John Meyer and Walter Lanz desecrations that make teenagers look like members of the golf club. 

At least she let me buy makeup to cover my impetigo and a powder blue cardigan I really like which will look good once I shrink it. Genevieve caught me in the bathroom trying it on backwards and she said nobody wears cardigans backwards and if you wear your circle pin anywhere but at the collar of your cardigan it means you’re not a virgin. (Also if you wear your kilt pin upside down.)  I said everyone in France wears their cardigans backwards and nobody in France is a virgin.

Mom and Dad say I need a “progressive” school because I am creative and Genevieve needs a “snob” school because she is smart.  Unfortunately for us both it’s the same school.
Next-door creep Bobby Bloy raked my diaries out of the leaf pile but they were too burned to read hahaha.  He will never know whether I wrote about him or not, the little grossness. (He chests his pants.) How he would love to be preserved for posterity.

Fri Sept 11, 64
So many days since I wrote!  It shows how exciting my life has been.  My only problem is my roommate who seems to come from another planet. But I want to write about everything.

Wed AM I woke up early, washed my hair in beer, put Dep on the ends and set it on orange juice cans. This really seems to work – it held the flip till almost noon.  I had to drag the hairdryer out of my trunk where it was mixed up with all the unspeakable hockey things they make you buy. Had my breakfast under the hairdryer in my room because I didn’t want to hear Daddy’s remarks idiot women whose hairdryers melted on their heads, burned their hair off leaving only a scarred patch, welded orange juice cans to their skulls, etc. etc.

Then my sister’s boyfriend Granger showed up.  My parents really like Granger but the joke’s on them. They are allowing Granger to drive me and Genevieve to school for reasons I’ll never understand. He drives like a hellion and makes “vroom vroom” noises with his mouth like a little boy. I hope none of the other boys at school are this disgusting. He and Genevieve are perfectly suited for each other however.  Neither know the meaning of true maturity. 
Plumly is NOT a pretty school but I’d seen it before so it was not a shock. It looks like a prison out of Dickens.  Why don’t they just call it “The Workhouse.” (Oh no! Don’t send me there!) However the trees are pretty and at least it has a lake. 

My roommate Thekla is an albino.  When she is speaking I am just staring at her wondering what its like to have pink eyelashes and not do anything about it. She is very religious and says if I say “Jesus Christ!” one more she will report me; that it’s wrong to use the Lord’s name in vain.  How does she know its vain?   Aren’t you supposed to call on your savior in times of trouble?  I’m in trouble a lot.  Also, this is supposed to be a progressive school – my father says “Jesus Christ” all the time and he is very progressive. 
I think I am going to lose this one because Thekla is from Nebraska. She is like one of those frontier women who stand in the middle of fire, water and Indians and never get budged or scraped. 

I am writing with a flashlight under the covers and Thekla would be threatening to report me if she was awake. Fortunately she snores – it’s very handy for knowing if she is asleep or awake.

My Big Sister came to visit me. These are assigned to you to show you the ropes. Her name is Lauren and she is so cool it hurts.  She came in wearing one of our awful gym suits and on her it looked good. She has cut the sleeves off and ripped the bottom into fringe. She says I will get a big brother named Larry Murchenwold and he is a WOLF so I’d better be careful! 

Great to go to a little school where everyone knows everyone and you don’t need to waste time on trial and error. She showed me how to write a KOB (these are the notes sent from Girls’ End & Boys End at night.) You have to fold them a certain way or people think you’re queer. Also never use the Senior Stairs. (Boys who do this at boys’ end get their heads SHAVED.  At Girls’ End things are more ladylike.  They just cut up your underwear when you are out of the room. (Obviously I’m going to need some better underwear.)

My first sight of the freshmen boys was a big disappointment. They are such babies I assumed they must be visiting. Some have feet, which do not touch the floor when they are seated, others were crying for their mommies. The really tall one chests his pants! Lauren says sometimes the senior boys ask younger girls out.  Let’s hope so. That never happened at my old school.  The very nicest seniors are all taken. There is even one who looks like Jeff Hunter, my favorite movie star. (Genevieve dropped Granger like a hot potato because he has a girlfriend!) So far no sign of my personal Big Bad Wolf.  I don’t think he is taking his Big Brother job seriously!

Friday, Sept 18 – 64 
I can’t believe another week has gone by!  This is amazing – I am actually too busy living to write! This has got to be a first.  Friday seems like the only time because we don’t have sports in the afternoon. Lots of people are taking weekends but I’m saving mine up till I have somewhere special to go.

I’ll tell you about my classes.

    ENG 1 – Strictly for losers. Miss Wienand is so old we can’t believe she’s still alive and not something that struggled its way out of the Tomb of Ligeia. When we speak to her we have to shout and then her head wobbles and her eyes fill with tears. At first I was shocked but you gradually get hardened. She quotes the Lady of Shalott by the hour. Genevieve says it’s the anesthesia they gave her in the war – now she is crazy. There’s a funny boy in class named Ted – he is not sexy at all but he is hilarious. When he said he preferred Coney Island of the Mind to Keats she got so upset she forgot to give us homework. Reading A Separate Peace.
    FR II- Not bad – taught by a real Frenchwoman named Ann-Marie Bustas. She wears very high heels and very tight skirts so she can barely walk and she teases her hair high in back with a rattail comb. I am smug because I aced the first test! She says I can read Françoise Sagan if I want to.

    ENG Hist – is my favorite class taught by a sexpot named Nichols. His teeth are stained with nicotine and his hands shake but he is very funny about Ethelred the Unready and the Venerable Bede. (Unfortunately he is married.) He never fails to crack us up.

    BIBLE – a romp through hell. Zealots 5, Sadducees 0! The teacher is the janitor – he probably works for free so they don’t put him in a home. He wears a hearing aid as big as a toaster and if you want to disrupt class all you have to do is hum. He takes it off his head and tinkers with it for minutes at a time. Gerry Woo is trying to program him by remote control but so far it hasn’t worked. Gerry is another writer (he carries his sci fi novel with him everywhere) unfortunately he spits when he talks and jumps in his seat as if he has bugs in his pants. (He probably does. I hear the hygiene at Boys End is nothing to write home about. Dr Freud to the contrary I am glad I’m not a boy. Sounds hazardous to the health.) So Gerry & I won’t be forming a writing coven anytime soon.

    MATH – Over my head from Day 1. I have a Math Deficiency Disease. Need I say more?

    SCIENCE – I have always admired Science from afar but here’s my chance to see it up close. I’ve promised myself to work really hard this term and plumb its mysteries. What else?

    Oh yes, HOME EC = putrid and ART is for babies.  I’m talking finger-painting and cutting things out of magazines.  If we are really good Mrs. Kurtz will let us make a potholder to take home to our mommies.  Me, who made a pajama coat over and over again from scratch! (Teacher rejected it the first 4 times.) 

We are imprisoned in hockey four afternoons a week while a man-woman makes me run so much I’ve developed a heart condition. We are required to take at least one hobby and I’ve signed up for Workshop Theatre but the teacher hasn’t shown yet because he’s busy getting a divorce. 

I’m sure my impetigo is no longer contagious but no boys have come close enough to find out.   A few drips circle warily and have to be dropped in their tracks before they

    spew.

    Sat. Sept 19 - 64 
The most amazing thing has happened! I am the leader of the freshman girls!  There are only nine of us living at Girls End! (The others are day students.) I know I am an unlikely leader type – I am not bragging or being aggressive. I think I am simply les panic stricken than anybody else. They are in hysterics about grades, boys, hair, parents, I say Why worry about it? And they sob gratefully. 
They put me in charge of the Freshman Skit for Camp Suppers. Nobody wants to look stupid because there may be Boys paying attention.  Har to tell which pair of beady eyes around a campfire belong to a handsome face or an agile brain so we can take no chances.  We are putting on GOLDFIGURE –a girl whose incredible physique turns men into statues.  What do you think?
Sun. Sept 20 – 64
Life is such a great adventure!  I am planning to be so happy my whole life I wake up laughing. Got a letter from Andrea yesterday that made me momentarily nostalgic about The Past.  Oh the times we snuck out of the house in the deep of the night wearing our father’s shirts.  But one can’t look back one must move forward.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diary of Alysse Aallyn

    Quebec – Thurs – July 2 – 64


    So much to write don’t know where I should start! Quebec is a beautiful city built by dreamers. From the grassy fortress of the citadel to the boardwalks of the wharf I have fallen in love wit it. I loved London, Florence, Paris and Rome and now I have to add Quebec! You could be fooled into thinking that it was a prosperous French seaport.


    Not just the money and signs are different, the people are different as well. We drove all night to get here and when I awoke from my uncomfortable position on the floor we were parked on the Green Plains of Abraham!


    A troop was sent to buy breakfast while the rest of us walked around. I stood on a bluff overlooking the harbor and then sat meditatively on a bench. How beautiful life is, what a precious thing to have! How can people look forward to eternal life when this is so good? Seems greedy to ask for more!


    After breakfast, put on my blue gingham sundress and off to the Chateau Frontenac to use the john. “You can’t miss it!’ said Stu, putting me in the lead because my garbled French has him fooled.
    He underestimated me. I clung to the belief that since Chateau Frontenac is old, big and made of stone, any old big stone building would do. I led my faithful few to a storehouse, a club and the Quebec Institute of Dramatic Art before we wound up at the Quebec Parliament where we wandered up and down the halls.


    After all that fun, Andrea and I were on our own, working on more creative ways of getting lost. A street artist did my portrait for $2. He made me too pretty but flattery will get you everywhere. I’ll give it to Mom in a last-ditch effort to give her some illusions about me. I ruled the sailors and hoods and old men who came after us Unacceptable! Poor Andrea in mourning for her brothers will take anybody but I won’t let her. She wanted a midshipman, I wanted a French beatnik. We found two charming French beatniks (short-ish- my height) who walked us to our bus. Learned a new French word: “ravigoter” to freshen. Two beatniks gave us two kisses each!
    Singing on the bus: Up in the Air, Junior Birdman, Up on the Air, Upside Down! And Down in the Sea, Junior Frogman! Made camp WAY outside Quebec and we were tortured all night by malevolent mosquitoes. Next morning I was so sleepy I didn’t think I could stand up. Fortunately I can sleep at the laundromat. I sent so many postcards!

    July 4, 64 – Stratford Ontario
Happy Independence Day! The trip just began and tonight’s the last night!  I will pitch it to make it really great!
Arrived in Stratford too late to get the mail. Drat. Cruised around town, listened to some bagpipers, then pitched tent on the edge of town.
Dinner was delicious: tuna fish salad (in honor of the Catholics) and doughnut balls (Bisquick blobs in boiling Crisco) for dessert: delicious!  After that, we were all getting ready for the play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme which I had seen twice and loved in the original French.  In English I should understand so much more.  Wearing my figure-flattering sailor suit  and white wood heeled sandals.

    Unfortunately my hair is dead after all this camping. It isn’t doing anything.
    Stratford is a lovely town and the theatre a splendid combination of old and new. Front balcony seats! The play was very good. At intermission Debbie came over and said two of the ushers were asking about me! I gave my address to the handsome one Dell Rynehardt. They walked us back to the bus Dell holding my hand. I would have let him kiss me but he didn’t try.


    We performed our song, the Trailblazer Anthem and Stu talked about how much the trip meant to him until the tears were hot in my head! I apologized for not doing more for the group and he was very understanding. Afterwards Andrea, Vicky and I slept in the same sleeping bag!!!
    Later –


    Saw the Falls! They were so beautiful but I did think they’d be taller. Too bad we won’t be seeing them by night – must be even more breathtaking than by day.
    Beginning to think tenderly of home, especially the sunlight striking that gray rug in the hallway. SusiAnna (he’s a boy) always hogs the brightest sunlight on the dining room floor. Plants everywhere, green and rich, the wood carved king with his tired kind face. Maybe there will be a letter from Mark!


    Last but not least my room with its green walls and twin pink-covered beds. Furry white flokati rug.
    Ending this on a happy note. Isn’t that the way all good things should end?

    TRAILBLAZER ANTHEM
    Oh we set out from Toledo on a bright and sunny day
    And our parents were there to wave us on our way!
    Gettysburg was our first stop where we made a movie flop
    As we rolled along the bumpy Eastern Roads!
    Bruises and hives, seven campers lost their lives as we rolled along the bumpy Eastern Roads!
    CHORUS: We’re still moving thank God, still moving Hallelujah! And the bus hasn’t conked out on us yet!
    Valley Forge was just a hop where
    We were picked up by the cops
    And the New York Fair made us spend our money there!
    Hanover we found was a Dartmouth kind of town
    As we rolled along the bumpy Eastern Roads!
    Peanut butter, jam, bug repelling spam oh we rolled along the bumpy Eastern roads!
    We flew to old Percé which is on the great Gaspé
    Where we realized French boys just love to fraternize
    “Bonjour, good day, ou est le cabinet?”
    As we rolled along the bumpy Eastern roads!
    Garçons of all kinds, Stu & Shavonne lost their minds
    As we rolled along the bumpy Eastern roads!
    We went out to the Boardwalk to see what we could find
    And each girl there had sailors on her mind
    The last two of our hauls were Stratford and the Falls as we rolled along the bumpy Eastern Roads!
    Rollers and combs, without money from our homes
    As we rolled along the bumpy Eastern roads!
    Oh, our sleeping bags were nests for nasty insect pests
    And the mess on our bus was very picturesque
    Though the trailer broke down once
    We’ll remember this for months
    As we rolled along the bumpy roads toward home!
    Impetigo and fleas, we had Band-Aids on our knees
    As we rolled along the bumpy roads toward home!

    Mon July 6 – 64
    Dear Diary, I‘m sure you’re tired of my lovelife, but I’m not. The Trailblazer bus roared into Brockton at 5:30 PM on a hot Sunday afternoon. Passed familiar figures – Haze & Bookie!!! I cried but he didn’t see me. Forgot about Tom & Dell, it’s all Bookie Bookie Bookie! Forced to go to the Pendragon house because my parents are out of town so I called Bookie from there. Bookie rushed over and kissed me. He doesn’t like taking off his mirrored shades but he will remove them for me. Julie & I agreed to meet Bookie & phil at the college snack bar. I care so deeply for him!

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen years of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed. Jun 10 – 64


    A great summer is ahead! I’m excited – home life’s been getting pretty tough. Can’t say whether that’s my fault or not. I have many ideas on the subject – you will probably be forced to hear them later. Mom tells me I am too independent; that I am constantly trying to be an island unto myself.

    Camp Stark is a YMCA camp. They call it Camp Tarantula because of the Amenities (more like Eumenides. Greek.) This camp attempts to Instill Christian Character.  I don’t know how much Christian Character I already have – it all seems to be ebbing away.  At the end of the summer I may have even less. But it sounds like a lovely place to go.  Shastain, MI meets my requirement of Not Being In Ohio. We heard about it through the Imries.  My mouth started to water when I heard at Horsemanship Division you work with your own horse!  Do you impart Christian Character to them or do they impart Horse Character to you? I can but wonder; unfortunately I first have to go through Freshman Division. I was on the waiting list – it was only a week ago that I was told I was in if want an all-girl Trailblazer trip back East! !!  My friend Andrea is going, too!  She is fun but thinks boys were made to be taken advantage of.  Her trip to camp is not for a good reason – her two brothers were killed in a motorcycle accident (drunk driver.)  Now it’s just her and her parents and apparently they need to be alone. 

What with buying and packing and marking my days are just filled up!!!

Thurs. Jun 11 – 64
I knew sooner or later I’d have to acquaint you with family problems. Poor diary. My reputation around here is Slovenly Loaf who has never done a day’s work in her life. Most of the time I creep around the walls trying not to be seen but yesterday I swept the porch and washed twenty-eight screens – I call that hard work for a summer day when all my friends are at the pool. But I don’t get any thanks, it’s all “Poor you.” So why try? Today I’m supposed to clean the house!  I hope they don’t come in here to check on me!

Maybe mother can’t understand me but I understand her.  And I forgive her.  I will permit myself only to see the kindness that is there.  Remind me to read this when I become angry and tearful. Daddy’s in the hospital with an infected kidney but it’s not serious. 

John Bookover invited me to the dance tonight!  I don’t know why since he thinks Mary Ann Murphy likes him (she denies it.) It certainly is great to be a girl!  The town dances are at the Fisher Food Pkg Lot!  “Dancing in the Streets” blasts from a truck and all the teenagers come!  I’m finding Mark a lot easier to forget than I thought. John is very skinny but he is willing to dance fast which is rare. All the boys want to dance as slow as possibly.  A dance would look like a wake if it was up to them.

Sun. Jun 14 - 64
Bookie (everyone calls John Bookie)  invited me & Andrea out at night to join him & Chase.  Andrea and I wore jeans and our father’s white shirts.  Andrea told Genevieve which I knew was a mistake (she is very righteous) and we only got as far as the garage. “Tell your friends goodnight” said Mom through her teeth. Alysse the juvenile delinquent!  Oh well! I don’t like foursies anyway. (Double dates.) Date to play tennis instead. Bookie definitely doesn’t care for me as much as I care for him.

Thurs. Jun 18 – 64
You have to forgive my writing – it’s hard to write on a jiggling bus!  I snuck out one more time before I left. Andrea and Chase threw candy at my window – Bookie was easier to rouse because he sleeps on his porch. Andrea’s parents were already gone so she opened their liquor cabinet and Chase got drunk. (He is a problem.  He steals things from cars.  I think this is why he was kicked out of Eastern. ) Bookie and I didn’t have anything – we just wanted to slow dance. We kissed!  He promised he will write! Andrea and Chase were making out like mad but Bookie walked me home. 4:30 AM! 

Up at quarter to seven – too late to have breakfast – off to Toledo!  We are getting to know everyone on the Trailblazers bus. I am working on a Trailblazers song to the tune of “Oh It Was Sad When the Great Ship Went Down”. 

Stu & Shavonne are the leaders. They are nice – especially Stu. He wanted a few kids who could speak French and Andrea volunteered me!  Let’s hope I can understand enough to manage.
I slept all morning; we stopped at 1 to each lunch (tinned food) in a motel parking lot.  Maybe I can lose some poundage.  Looked at a map and selected a park to stay in, (Gettysburg) in Pennsylvania. We slept in sleeping bags on the ground! It was hard as cement. I slept in my cute pink nightshirt. Walking around the park all day looking at monuments.  Every now and then you get a whiff of history. Names like “Valley of Death” and “Bloody Run.” Stu posed us dying over  a fence for a picture!

Left Gettysburg driving too fast, the trailer broke free and we had to go to town to get a part.  We need to travel tonight to get to the World’s Fair on Saturday.

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 only 4 pages at a time! She was impressed that I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel.)

    Michelangelo says: “the promises of this world are phantoms and to have faith in oneself and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course”.


    Stu is broadminded – I think Daddy would approve. But he does have fits of anger and bursts of gloom. He’s a Catholic and says we should all get a chance to attend mass! I found the sermon interesting and the hymns beautiful but the Latin is annoying. Andrea and I left early because we had signed up for horseback riding at eleven thirty and when we returned for lunch Stu was furious! Said we were rude! We offered to be waitresses to get back into his good graces.
    Andrea and I have a room to ourselves in the South Barn. Boys in the North Barn!


    The World’s Fair is no Disneyland but it was interesting. Andrea and I pretended to be French! I got an ID bracelet with a big A on it. (I got another for Avril’s birthday.) I love it and I never take it off. Andrea and I saw Peter and Gordon who were performing – all the girls screamed and we screamed right along with them. I hadn’t heard of them before but I like their Willow song. Also the Eggheads and the Esquires. We were separated from the performers by a pool and a lot of kids jumped in! Andrea and I danced instead while 3 men filmed us with movie cameras! The only performer whose autograph we got was Danny Taylor. He was very nice, says he’s been doing this since he was 13.