Monday, December 30th, 1974

Mom went in to work but she didn't stay all day.

Watched a special 90 minute tribute to Paul Baby this morning hosted by Tom Atkins. It was even sadder than Jack Benny's! That was probably because it was broadcast right from Paul's studio where the show came from all those years. But no more. It was empty now when it should have been full if he was still alive. They showed a lot of film clips. As funny as they were, I really cried. Oh, it was sad. I wish these things didn't happen. Even Nick Clooney before his previously taped show did a short, live eulogy for Paul even though he was on a different station. Bob Braun did one, too. The special was repeated tonight in prime time.

Terry and I went to see THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD and WINNIE & TIGGER uptown. The last movies of a busy movie year!

Later at Woolworths I picked up the two DC dollar books.

Saw Chris Connelly on a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE rerun. Dad wouldn't let me stay up to see the Monkees movie.

NOTES: ISLAND was a sub-par adventure film of the type Disney had done much better two decades earlier. It starred David Hartman, soon to become the hist of GOOD MORNING AMERICA and  give up acting completely. 

I assume the reference to a Monkees movie being on was a reference to HEAD, a film I wouldn't see until a midnight showing a decade later.

As you can tell, Paul Dixon's passing, especially coming almost immediately after Benny's, affected me greatly. The end of the year and the end of people who had always been there in my life, even if I had never met them.