The year was 1950. She doesn’t discuss music or clothing styles much, except mentioning a favorite record (Vaugh Monroe’s “Who”) and buying material to make a skirt. She also bought a pair of red shoes from “that cute salesman at The Bootery – drool drool!”
She had one steady boyfriend (who is mentioned on every page) but was friends with lots of kids, and went to the movies almost every night. Towards the end of the year, she two-times her steady boy for about a week, and then ultimately throws him over for the new guy, who has a newer car and more money. The last line of her diary is one of regret in breaking up with her former boyfriend, kinda bittersweet.
I’d really like to get in touch with him, but I don’t have a last name. He lived in another town and was already out of school and working, so I can’t determine his age or where he went to school.
I’ve been thinking about putting an ad in the paper asking for folks who knew her to contact me. Good idea?
Oh! I keep meaning to say – I love Adrian Mole! The books are best in order, because he does back-reference and it’s easier to keep track of everyone if you start at the beginning.
It was not a “box of wet garbage”, it was a box full of junk. The use of the word “junk” has an inclusive sort of “stuff/things/items” definition.
What all was in the box, you ask, that made it junk but not garbage? Among other little things, a rusty Lil’ Orphan Annie play stove, a green tin toy telephone, some animals made from wooden beads, a composition doll (badly decaying) wearing a calico dress, a handpainted but warped and ruined toy guitar, and a tiny set of cast iron skillets. Everything in the box had once been a treasured toy, I’d bet, and the only thing that turned it from antique to junk was a few years in the Pacific Northwest rainfall.
How it got out there, why someone took the trouble to box up and then discard these sentimental items, I can’t guess. I like to think it was a mistake – like it fell off a truck or something – but the location (remote) stymies me. I can’t explain it. I am glad I found it, though, and I saved the items I could and have them on display in my home. I feel like I know this girl, and I figured she wouldn’t want her stuff just rotting out there.
Not any particular park or anything, actually just a section of woods off the freeway (1-5) where I stopped to take the dog for a pee. He went off after a squirrel, and I found the box on my way after him. This is the second cache of stuff he’s led me to – see my other (older) thread “A Suitcase of Bizarre Mystery!” Those squirrels!
It reminds me of Toy Story 2 where the doll is left behind. That scene made me cryn and I am still mad that the accompanying song did not win an Oscar.
Depends on how the OP goal is perceived. If someone called you stating that he intends to write a book inspired by the story of a long dead friend of yours which he found particularily interesting, wished to interview the persons mentionned in her diary for his research, and sounded and acted like a genuine writer/journalist, would you still be creeped out?
Now, of course, if the OP behaved like a beyond-the-grave stalker, I too would find it creepy.
If the phone call was along the lines of “hello! I’m writing a book based on your old friend’s diary…” then I’d be interested. And willing to help.
If it was along the lines of “Hello! I’m a journalist and am writing an article about your old friend’s diary…” Then it would be “Hell no!” Help out a rival journalist? Ha ha! (But not creepy.)
If the phone call was along the lines of “Hello! I’ve find your old friend’s diary. Lets chat about old times…” Then, slightly creepy.
I’m apparently alone in this perspective, but I think what you are doing is sort of grotesque, and even if she is dead, violates her somehow. If you kept it as a semi-private bit of history that would be one thing, but this whole project to contact her friends in order to reconstruct and discuss her private emotional history, is invasive of her memory and violates simple decency IMO.
I think it’s weird too. Diaries are private, even if she is dead. And I think I’d feel really awkward if someone called me up out of the blue to discuss how I was mentioned in someone’s childhood diary. I don’t know if I’d be angry, but I probably wouldn’t want to talk to the person.
I’m really not interested in her emotional history. I mean, sure, were all had our share of angst when we were 18, but her diary is not full of deep, introspective thoughts, or even many personal observations. It’s mostly just a record of her schedule, with a few notes. A typical entry might read: “Susie called me today and we gabbed for a while. I went to the movies with my folks; saw ‘Attack of the Snakes’ and ‘Cowboys of the Sahara’. Got a letter from Larry --I miss him.” You wouldn’t think anything of it, except that she mentions Larry is stationed in Korea a few pages earlier. Then you never read his name again. What happened to Larry?
I’m interested in looking at the social structure she had at the time, in a historic sort of way. It’s her daily life and interactions in my hometown 54 years ago, when it was one-quarter the size it is now. It’s not just about her – it’s about her town and the people in it, the Calico Cat Diner that doesn’t exist anymore, canasta parties, Larry the soldier, the mill her boyfriend worked at, the blizzard that cancelled school during exams. In order to get perspective on these things, I have to talk to living people who were there – the library doesn’t have a lot to offer, though they’ve been helpful.
This is how we get books like Carl Sandburg’s writings about Abraham Lincoln. Is that grotesque?
In case you’re not familiar, you can register for free and post to the message boards (broken down by school) for free. You can also search the data base for people if you know their whole names.
This reminds me of a book by Colin Fletcher called “The Man From The Cave.” Colin wrote books on hiking, and while walking through hills in the southwest, stumbled on a cave that had once been occupied by a man who left some of his equipment behind. Colin tracked down the man and uncovered his life story. Turns out he was a prospector at one time, and a soldier who fought in the Philippines sometime around World War I.
