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.
Alysse Aallyn 