Sunday, May 19th, 1974

It rained hard again this morning. I just played my new records a lot.

I wrote what I consider to be a lovely poem while thinking of Linda Blair. I also finished THE DARK AGE. One more quick rewrite and it'll be ready to turn in.

IT.

At work, we had to drag the ladder around and I had to pull one fluorescent light bulb from every single group of four to conserve energy.

A new sci-fi flick starts downtown at the Times on Wednesday.

NOTES: I'm surprised I didn't rant a bit more abut that light bulb thing. It's my recollection that it was a bit of a nightmare. If you weren't there, it's hard to realize how bad the Energy Crisis of the 1970's got...or at least seemed to get. A government edict came down on the lightbulb idea and since it was the Social Security Office, we were bound to comply. The office was lit by rows of fluorescent light fixtures, each with four bulbs inside and each with a cover that was a real bear to try to get off...especially without cracking it.


So that night we each had to do our regular cleaning and then Dad and I pulled the bulbs. Each bulb in the main area was about four feet long. In the conference rooms and the basement, they were six feet long!After I managed to wriggle each one out, thereby dimming its counterpart, we then had to figure out what to DO with the bulbs! They ended up lying on the floor in a little used storage room in the basement. For a couple of years. By the time we were instructed that we could replace them, many had been cracked or broken and had to be trashed. What a mess.