Some of my reflections have been based upon recollections stimulated by entries from my diary for the year 1952. Here I’ve transcribed a few direct statements from this source, with minimal editing. At least they give an idea of how I felt and wrote some 70 years ago.
Wednesday, December 24: Tonight was Christmas Eve and as usual we had to go “up-the-hill.” Mom and I had a boring time listening to them gab in Italian. To pass away the time, we played Canasta and then Fish. Mom gave me a radio-clock for Christmas, but what a way to present it. As I was getting into bed, she decided to plug it in. Half the enjoyment of receiving a gift is the manner in which it’s given. Christmas gifts should be wrapped and put under the tree on Christmas Eve and opened on Christmas morning.
Thursday, December 25: What a Christmas Day this was. I spent the day in my room learning Russian and studying English literature. [I had bought a Berlitz book on Russian, having decided I wanted to learn Russian on my own. The extra work on English literature was to make up for the deficiency due to taking Public Speaking in place of formal English.] What a way to celebrate a holiday. I think the ideal way would be – on Christmas Eve to sit around the tree as a family and sing carols. On Christmas morning after Church, should come breakfast and then opening of Christmas presents. Christmas should be a time of love, but around here it is far from that. Of course to “him” Christmas is a time to fill up his stomach on Christmas cookies. He has been yelling because she didn’t bake. But why should Mom bake when he throws stuff around?
Tuesday, December 30: Again, I was a scholastic hermit today, since I spent the day in my room studying and listening to the radio. Of course, he’s at it again. Yes, he’s on another financial warpath. Why is it he always gets hot at this time of the year? It seems that every year around January first, he blows up about approximately the same thing. I guess I will never learn to understand him. I only hope that I shall never become like him. One reason why I am keeping this chronicle is, if in the future I ever tend to become like him, I can re-read this and return to humanity. So, the main reason is to read this book and become a better father to my son or daughter, for I don’t want “shem” (sic) to hate me as I hate my father.
Wednesday, December 31: And so ends the year of 1,952, Anno Domini; the year 5,712-13 for the Jews; 1,372-73 for the followers of the Prophet Mohamed; 2,612 in the Japanese era; and 2,705 years after the founding of the City of Rome. At times it has been a boring year, at others to be an interesting one. Still it’s one which I would not care to relive. Life is but a long row of rooms in the house of time. We enter a new room each year, never to go back and unable to look ahead. Each room contains both joys and sorrows which we examine upon our one-way journey. Others travel through different rows of rooms but, in this maze, the room paths often intersect. Thus, we share the joys and sorrows left by Fate when she built these walls of life in the house of time.