The little red diary from my moving-away party in June 1970 is only two-thirds complete. Our family was getting ready to move from Pittsfield, Mass., to Fairfield, Conn., that summer. That diary gave me – a 12-year-old middle child – a place to be excited as well as miserable.

Fifty-four years later (ack!), the diary is sitting on a shelf here in our home. I’ve been tempted to pitch it for years.

Last night, I decided to take a look at it before figuring out whether to fire up our shredder.

Let us be clear: I didn’t take the hint from reading my favorite birthday gift that year, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Yes, each of my posts began with Dear Kitty, but the similarities end there. Anne looked for the good among the horror that surrounded her. I detailed my pet gerbil’s escape routes and complained about gym class.

Here’s a sprinkling of entries from 1970 and into 1971, divided into six categories.

Old friends, new friends

Starting the diary mid-year seemed weird, but since it was a going-away gift, there was no other choice but to begin on June 16, 1970, with a few words about the good-bye party and overnight at friend Maggie’s house. The next day, though …

June 17: This morning I woke up – no Maggie. Thinking she was in the bathroom I waited for about an hour and then stole outside her doorway. No one in any of the rooms except in Mr. & Mrs. L’s. I crept downstairs and every creak was like a gong. It was so hard, but I finally got the front door open. I was hungry and shaking but I got home. What an experience!

Once we moved to Connecticut, we lived on Mohican Hill Road. Just down the hill was the beautiful Lake Mohegan. In the three years we lived there, I never did find anyone who could explain why the spellings were different.

It bugs me to this day.

July 16: For the third time, (neighborhood friend) BB said she’d go swimming with me and then came up with a dumb excuse.

July 24: We need rain SO bad. There isn’t a drought or anything, but just we haven’t had rain since … since we moved in! Lake Mohegan will soon become polluted if we don’t get some turbulence in it. We went swimming this evening and expect to go tomorrow morning.

And then they got scientific about it:

July 25: Well, they closed the beach. The lake really needs stirring up. The bacteria is 1,900 and “bad” is 1,000 – oh brother, talk about pollution.

July 28: The weather is still v-e-r-y hot and humid and muggy. Lake Mohegan is STILL polluted.

July 30: The weather is still dripping! I guess they opened the lake. They must have put chlorine in it. I hope they discontinue this because I HATE chlorine water. Apparently so does Harry.

July 31: It turned out that the water doesn’t have chlorine in it after all. They drained the lake until it was about five feet deep. Then they pumped in water from Bridgeport. What a relief.

August 6: I wish people from Pittsfield would write to me.

September 16: I finally had a fight with BB. I’ve been dying to have one because I’m mad at her. She ended up saying I could go back to Pittsfield and no one would care. I know she didn’t mean it, but now I’m homesick. Then she called up and asked me to sleep over her house on Friday.

February 24, 1971: I had to deliver some school books to my friend Robin. The road leading up to her new house was all muddy and my shoes got stuck in the mud – sucked those shoes right off my feet! Carried my books in one hand and my muddy shoes in the other and walked home in stockinged feet. YUK!!

Gosh, we were sick a lot!

I don’t know that my brothers and I were any more sickly than Gary and my sons were, but it sure seemed like it. Using math, though, we had three children over the course of 15 years while Mom & Dad had four in just nine years. There’s probably an elaborate equation to be made of this, but let’s just say Mom made a lot of runs to the doctor with us.

First, though, my non-fairy godmother (not a relative, we’ll call her GM) came for a visit and usurped my bedroom:

June 27: GM practically drove me up a wall today and I don’t know how I survived. Tonight I’m being squeezed with Harry, Dave, and Billy into their bedroom. Her Majesty has my room all to Herself. My brothers just came in and I quickly locked my diary. Tomorrow I will be very happy for my godmother is leaving.

June 28: GM woke up sick this morning, so I’ve got to sleep in the boys’ room again. I got sort of sorry for GM tonight, so I kissed her goodnight and asked her how she felt – oh brother.

July 31: I have an awful sore throat. I woke up with it.

August 3: I have a gross cold. It’s mostly in my nose and throat. It’s dumb, we’re having such hot weather and I get a COLD.

From summer to fall …

October 26: I think I have the flu. Boy, do I feel GROSS!

October 28: I stayed home from school yesterday and today and I won’t be going back tomorrow. Apparently I have some disease that is common at this time of year. The symptoms are a stuffy nose, sore throat, and aches. Blech!!!!!

October 29: I went to the doctor; I have strep throat and laryngitis. I can’t talk for a few days. I’m doomed.

November 10: Tomorrow is Veterans Day and we don’t have school. Both Harry and Dave were home sick today, so I don’t expect that tomorrow will be too hot.

January 28, 1971: Everyone is sick lately. Billy has a really bad cold. Dave has a virus, and Mom doesn’t feel too well – what a mess!

February 3: There is a big flu epidemic going on around. Today we had only 16 kids in our class.

The high price of being a kid

June 22: After a few weeks of scrimping and saving, I finally came up with $4.00 to buy the sheet music to Oliver! I wasn’t too sure how much it would cost. It was $3.95!

On the first day of school, we found out the cost of milk with lunch had gone up from 4 cents to 7 cents. Highway robbery!

October 8: Everything is going wrong this week. Today I was holding the wrong end of my lunch bag and it fell out somewhere.

October 9: At Girl Scouts today, we found out that dues are 25 cents! Wow! That’s one-fourth of my allowance.

November 22: After dinner, Mrs. P called and asked if I could babysit. Ellen was tired and I played with her for about 45 minutes. I got a dollar. I’m getting rich!

Gerbils: Harriet and Dozy

August 4: I want to get gerbils.

August 5: I’m still trying for the gerbils. BB is also getting gerbils and already has a cage (lucky devil).

August 6: I’m still trying to talk Dad into letting me get gerbils. I hope he lets me.

August 7: I’m sure Dad is going to let me have gerbils but he still hasn’t consented. P.S. I want to get two girls and trade a girl for a boy and mate ’em!

August 10: Hooray: I can get gerbils! I asked Dad tonight (again) and he said ask your mother, and she said YES!

The gerbils arrived the following week. The larger, a female, was named for Harriet the Spy. The diminutive male was named Dozy.

August 21: This morning Harriet got lost. I searched everywhere and I returned to my room sadly … there was a little hump moving around under my bedspread and a little head peeped out.

October 6: Harriet got out twice today and is attempting another try. She is a devil!

October 12: Harriet is trying to get out every spare minute she’s got. She’s exhausted now and is lying down.

October 15: Mom woke me up at 12:30 this morning. Harriet had gotten out and was in her closet. She got out again this morning before school.

Here’s what a gerbil looks like:

October 20: I got in trouble last night and I was mad. Billy was playing with the gerbils and he was going to get a sunflower seed out of the bowl and Harriet bit him. She hung on and got out. It drew blood! Harriet got out this morning SHE WAS DOWNSTAIRS UNDER THE REFRIGERATOR!

On and on it went…

Harriet’s escapes increased in frequency. She boldly leaped up and down stairs and seemed to love the refrigerator. Ultimately, it was the fridge that cut her life short.

November 2: Harriet had an accident and is dead. Dad gave her a proper funeral. I cried, etc. Dozy seems all right but he won’t take to another gerbil.

November 25: Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We (my family) are going to my grandparents (on Dad’s side). After much begging, Dad has finally consented to let me bring Dozy along. He will travel in a hat box. I’m bringing his cage along. The drive is about 2.5 hours. I hope Dozy doesn’t get sick!

November 27: Dozy is doing fine. We had a good trip home today. Everyone really enjoyed Dozy. I was afraid that he’d be scared, but as far as I know, he’s fine.

November 29: Mrs. P called and said that Ellen (her little girl) has had terrible skin problems. She asked if I could take their two gerbils and their babies. Mom said no – it isn’t fair! They’re Harriet’s parents. Mom doesn’t understand!

December 1: Dozy is doing fine. He took a pin out of the pin cushion and gave it to me.

Gym class

August 28: I am very nervous about gym, because we will have to climb ropes and do tumbling.

September 11: School was good today. I went to gym. My locker combination is 26-4-34 or something like that.

September 17: I was sort of nervous because third period was gym today. But as we were doing situps I realized I’m not that pitiful. Some other kids are not too good either.

September 18: Today in gym we had this stupid thing. Mrs. R timed us. We ran to the blocks, took one, ran back, dropped it, ran back, got another and crossed the finish line. The first time I fell and the second time I did it in 12.4 that’s not too good.

September 22: I got new underwear today (thrills). I really need it because I can’t change for gym in the stuff I’ve got.

September 24: Today in gym we did the fifty-yard dash. I did it in 10 even seconds, which is pretty bad. I didn’t get to take a shower.

September 25: Today we had gym again. The six-hundred-yard dash (huh!) almost killed me. Luckily I got to take a shower.

Books and more books

I was delighted to learn early on that our new town’s local library did not limit the number of books you could sign out at any given time. First visit? I checked out ten books. The summer of 1970, some of my favorites were (in addition to Anne Frank’s diary) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Agatha Christie mysteries, Ray Bradbury science fiction, and Jack London’s The Sea Wolf.

September 26: I’m reading To Kill a Mockingbird and can’t put it down. I hope Harper Lee wrote some more books.

Although I’ve blogged since 2005 (first for work and then, since retirement, this family blog), I never kept a diary or “journaled” again. It was sort of fun reminiscing, but it was also horrifying. So off to the shredder we go!

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