The original entry, given below, was manually written in the journal I kept, from time to time, while I was in college, in the late fifties. The “endnotes” were added in 2018 when I began to write my “legacy in words.” A few additions have been made in January 2023 as I revised my biog: CameosAndCarousels.
I have covered just about all of my memories of the earliest years (2) until 1955. And now it is July 3. School has been out for three weeks, yet it seems as if I have been home an eternity.
I sit here now writing, since there is nothing else to do. I am at my desk in my room. It is an interesting desk (3), scratched and dusty. It is quite littered. In the upper left corner is a box of change, but the change is scattered on the desk. On the box is a copy of Wylie’s Generation of Vipers (4) with the dust cover marking chapter thirteen. On the book is a list of offerings of the Modern Library (5). On it is an empty case for my electric razor.
Next on the desk is a white plastic comb, a ruler with English and metric units, an opened package of Clorets (6), a brochure for King’s Men toiletries, a paper with telephone numbers, a handkerchief, a copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction (7) and on it my Bond wristwatch reading 7:22.
There is a wine-covered photograph album (8) with the DU crest, my tee-shirt from WOP-Harp (9) on it and on that, a memo book. The center of the desk has a green blotter-holder. Tucked into one corner is a postcard from Mrs. Zingler declining my room (10) for next fall and a paper critique of The Main Stream of Mathematics.
There is also a scarred, dull-green box index of my books, a bottle of Skrip blue-black ink (11), a listing of the summer addresses of members of Student Council, the cover to my razor (12), twenty-eight cents in change, a movie ticket stub, my wallet, an ashtray (13), a half pack of Pall Mall cigarettes (14), a tarnished gold lighter with my initials (15), two packs of color photographs, a letter from Marilyn Dodge (16), the front of a pocket to a tee-shirt (17), the dust cover to W. Somerset Maugham, Himself (18), a beginning German text, a hanger for pants, a goose-neck lamp, a box of pictures, a pair of old glasses, a pair of scissors, a German edition of Anderson’s Fairy Tales (19) and a pack of keys.
I am not an orderly housekeeper. The interior of the desk would be even more revealing to say nothing of the bookcases and cupboards (20). I think I had best stop now (21). Perhaps, I will go watch television.
(1). With annotations made 63 years later, almost to the day! The lines of the original journal were written on July 3, 1955; the entries for the footnotes are made on July 11, 2018. They have been modified, again, on January 5, 2023.
(2) The actual date was July 3, but the entry was made on the page for June 17. I couldn’t sleep and, in the middle of the night, in a hot, humid bedroom, several weeks after I had completed my Sophomore year at KSU, I wrote about my childhood and high school memories. The recollections became, in significant part, the memoirs I’ve written over the period 2018 - 2023.
(3) The desk in my bedroom was not all that old; I’m not sure how it had become so scratched. I received it as an unusual birthday gift when I was in high school; it remained as part of the family furniture until my parents died and it was given away to someone, unknown.
(4) This was one of my favorite nonfiction books at the time. It was a critique of American culture and authority in the forties; it was part of my library for many years. It may still be worth a re-reading.
(5) I once hoped to read most, if not all, of the books published by the “Library.” I never did, but I made a good start.
(6) This was a breath freshener I used to counteract the smoking-foul-month remains.
(7) This was one of the magazines I read, dating back to my early days of sci-fi in junior high.
(8) The cover was “wine colored.” It was not stained with wine, itself. For many years this album held all of the photos I took while at Kent. They are now saved as jpegs on my computer!
(9) The shirt was a left over from the DU annual picnic described elsewhere. It bore the inscription Round WOP and the imprint of a black hand, both of which lake-water had blurred when I was dunked by willing fraternity brothers.
(10) I had planned to live off-campus during my junior year. For some forgotten reason, the rooming house I had chosen became unavailable. I went back to Kent that summer to find another place. Most vacancies had already been taken, except for a room in the basement of a local funeral parlor! I accepted it, but quickly recognized, when I had returned to Niles, that, at night, I could never walk through the rooms where the caskets were stored, even if my own room was better furnished than any other I had found in Kent. I decided to reside in the DU House for the Fall quarter.
(11) Real fountain pens were commonly used for writing. The ink was sucked into the barrel of the pen. It was later that ink-filled cartridges were used as being less messy. Meanwhile, a tissue was used to blot the leftover ink on the nib. Blotters were used to absorb excess ink left on the written page; blowing on the work or waving the paper also helped. Ballpoint pens were a great (much later) invention.
(12) I have no idea why there was a razor box and a razor “cover” on my desk! The electric razor, itself, must have been in the bathroom! I, also, have no idea why the twenty-eight cents on the desk along with an unused change box were separate. I was, indeed, messy (unorganized) when it came to desk maintenance. Apparently, I, also, like to stack items on top of one another!
(13) Evidently, I had started smoking in my room, itself. When I first started smoking in the house, I sat next to the opened window in my room and tried to exhale “outdoors.” Having finally quit smoking, some twenty-plus years ago, I now realize how terrible a room smells with leftover smoke which cannot be eliminated, easily.
(14) I began smoking Pall Mall and later switched to filtered Kent cigarettes, not because of the name but rather because the Kents were milder. Somehow, I managed to smoke without deeply inhaling. I began smoking my freshman year in college (1953-54) and stopped the habit in 2000! By then, I was up to three packs a day.
(15) This was the lighter I received from my mother on my 20th birthday. I’m surprised it was already so tarnished. I have no idea whatever became of it.
(16) I dated Marilyn several times during the spring quarter; she went with me to Rowboat Regatta. It appears she wanted to continue our dating, given the letter sent in July, but I don’t associate her with my dates during my junior year.
(17) I have absolutely no idea of where this came from or why I would have the front pocket of a T-shirt as a souvenir.
(18) W. Somerset Maugham was never one of my favorite authors. I have no idea why I had the dust cover without having the book, itself!
(19) I must have been interested in improving my proficiency in German during the summer.
(20) This is still true. The surface of my desk, desk-drawers, and bookcases continue to house miscellaneous collections. My separate computer desk, with accessories for multimedia productions, is no better; it may be even worse. I do little actual work sitting at my current writing desk purchased in the mid-seventies when we lived in Amherst, Massachusetts. On the other hand, I really do know where “everything” is – or should be. Sometimes, the search takes a little bit longer now than it once did. I’m not sure if this comes from memory changes or from having the same study for more than a decade and being reluctant to throw too much away.
(21) This was true in 1955 when the words were originally penned. It is equally true at 5:30 a.m. in 2018. By the way, for clarity I should add that sometime in the eighties I transcribed my original ink-written journals to an electronic form and discarded the actual books. The only changes made at the time resulted from the spell-check of the WordPerfect program; I never could spell effectively.