Monday, January 7th, 1974

Although I went back to school today, the new Daylight Savings Time made it seem like nighttime!

Finally, all seems like it really is back to normal...and I'm really glad about that!

NOTES: Kinda boring so far I'll admit but it gets better. I was still learning what to write about.


Daylight Savings Time? In the middle of Winter? My friend Derek reminds me that this was the early days of the seventies Energy Crisis. On the 'Net, I find: "On January 4, 1974, President Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. Then, beginning on January 6, 1974, implementing the Daylight Saving Time Energy Act, clocks were set ahead. On October 5, 1974, Congress amended the Act, and Standard Time returned on October 27, 1974."


They say that one is a fool not to be a liberal at 20 and similarly a fool not to be a conservative at 40. In 1973, when I was in the eighth grade, I spearheaded the school support to re-elect Nixon as President. What the hell did I know about politics?

Sunday, January 6th, 1974

No movie again today! I was so bored that I just sat around watching TV and reading all day.

Today, that feeling hit me again--that feeling of a need just to feel real affection. I hope something happens soon.

NOTES: The desire for affection that I felt so strongly here surprises me. Oddly enough, I am not an incredibly affectionate person. Never have been. Eventually  I learned to hug but overall someone touching me makes me extremely self-conscious and as far as touching someone else, I always feel even now that I'm running the risk of offending them or violating a boundary. It doesn't help that I had one friend throughout most of the past decade who jerked away and acted as though I had turned into a monster if I so much as accidentally brushed up against her while we were walking together. 


I wanted a girlfriend...more than anything in the world, I wanted a girlfriend...but even then, it seems like I was leery of the basic concept for fear of "why would anyone ever want to show affection to me?" In my mind, I saw myself as the brainy fat kid with glasses, acne and prematurely greying hair. Why would anyone want to show affection to me? Sigh...

Saturday, January 5th, 1974

Although I awoke this morning anticipating that i would finally get to see the movie I'd been wanting to see so bad, I found that i wouldn't be able to again today. I did, however, pick up quite a few good comics and a record.

Later I found out that Doug was in the hospital for appendicitis!

NOTES: Doug had been my other best friend in grade school besides Terry. I had two! We had met in fourth grade and become both pals and also--at least in my mind--rivals for the affection of my dream girl. Debbie. Debbie had moved in the sixth grade--1970--and, after a year or so, we stopped staying in touch but, as I never really had anyone to replace her with, she would remain my "ideal woman" (in spite of the fact that she was thirteen when I had last seen her) for several years more. 


In fifth and sixth grades, I walked up to Doug's house every morning and then we'd walk to school together. He lived in a church or at least an apartment connected to a church. His mother was the caretaker there. As elementary school became junior high, like so many things, our relationship changed and we grew apart. We were still friendly but we no longer saw each other as much, even in school. I still called him now and then, though, and that's probably how I found out his health issues here. I never had my appendix removed so the operation fascinated me.


The movie referred to here was, again, THAT MAN BOLT, a fun film that I wouldn't see for another 37 years! Wonder if Terry ever saw it? Since I was spending an awful lot of time hanging out on the streets of downtown Cincinnati, it was only natural I'd see a number of the blaxploitation films of the seventies since they tended to play mainly in the urban cinemas and Cincinnati still had a number of those at that time--The Albee, The Place, The Studio, The Times, The International '70, The Grand and The Skywalk!


I wish I'd bothered to note what the record was that I bought. I was still getting the hang of things with this journaling business. 

Friday, January 4th, 1974

Well, today the weather is, if anything, worse. And my cold is definitely worse! The sidewalks are still slick as glass. I'm staying home again in hopes that by Monday, this will all blow over.

I did IT again, today. Twice. I think I've solved the problem though by stapling my magazines shut!

NOTES: Those of you who followed me here from my 1976 Journal blog know that I referred to masturbation as "IT." It was a major issue in my life at the time as it felt good but made ME feel bad so I was always fighting against it! I felt the need to occasionally note it in my journal but couldn't bring myself to refer to it as anything other than..."IT."


That said, I wonder what magazine this was. HUSTLER just started later in 1974 so it wasn't that and the HUSTLER ripoffs obviously wouldn't have existed yet. I had never seen a PLAYBOY by this point. Hmmm....At some point I had mail-ordered some 1971 CAVALIER mags that had comics by Berni Wrightson and Vaughn Bode. Could have been those. Or maybe NATIONAL LAMPOON. Some of those issues got awfully dirty in those days and I had definitely started buying them by '74!

Thursday, January 3rd, 1974

Today the ice and freezing rain were so bad that I couldn't make it to school at all! I don't really believe this will affect my grades or anything, though. The weather got a little better for a while this afternoon but then worsened again toward evening. I just spent the day reading comic books in bed.

NOTES: As I write this in 2012, we're getting our first minor snowfall of the season. In 1974, though, I remember that this had been a massive ice storm with wind and freezing rain. Not the same at all. I doubt either of my parents went to work even though I didn't mention that in the journal. 


What you have to realize is that I lived only a couple of blocks away from the school. In those days they never, ever called off classes in my city school district due to weather (as opposed to these days when a couple of snowflakes can prompt call-offs). So we were expected to be there come monsoon or blizzard...and I usually was...but in the ice that year, I couldn't even get off my block!


I was already a major comic book collector so I immensely enjoyed the day I'm sure!

Wednesday, January 2nd, 1974

School started again today and, after the first hour or so, everything was back to normal.

I wrote a short but rather interesting sci-fi story today called MECHANISM.

Talked to my friend Terry and he says we will almost certainly make it to see THAT MAN BOLT this Saturday.

Feelings are so hard to write down. Either for fear of actually admitting them, lack of the proper words or just worrying that someone might someday find them and read them. In my case, its about all of the above.

NOTES: I had wanted to be a writer forever. Seen above is a photo of me as a small child with a typewriter my parents had gotten me when I first told them. This journal was a conscious attempt on my part to do just that--write. I had read a quote from Ray Bradbury that said a writer must write every day and I wanted to make sure i did.


I no longer have nor remember MECHANISM. I had begun writing short stories a few years earlier. The earliest I have is dated 1972 but there may have been a few earlier. I know I made my own mock comics before that but gave them to my friend Terry to read. 


Terry and I had bonded when I was in 2nd grade and he was in 3rd. It was a split class so we were both in the same room and we were both the nerds, the geeks. We remained friends for about 15 years and then didn't see or hear from each other until Facebook nearly 3 decades later!


We never did get to see THAT MAN BOLT that weekend. In fact, I finally saw it just about a month ago! It's a pretty good, fairly big budget film with Fred Williamson as a James Bond-type. 

Tuesday, January 1st, 1974

Midnight! It's 1974 now! Happy New Year to me!

I'd like to say right now, right in the beginning here, that my one and only resolution is to do better this year than last. Not to make the same mistakes. To gain greater will power and to control my personality traits more.

As the year progresses, I hope it's exciting so that this book is not left entirely empty.

(LATER:) Today itself isn't all that interesting. I've just been putting away all the remainders of the holidays and preparing to return to normal mode tomorrow morning.

I had a dream last night and in it I hugged a girl! It was wonderful! That's what I need--affection! I know others who get it and I feel like I deserve it, too. Maybe this year...but I doubt it.

NOTES FROM 2012: As 1974 began, I was 14 years old and in the 9th grade at Covington Junior High School in Covington, Kentucky. It was the same school I had attended all my life. After I finished sixth grade, they rebuilt the school into a junior high with 7th, 8th and 9th grades and renamed it. 


Other than the building itself, however, I had been quite traumatized by the switch from elementary school to what they now call middle school. There was no one thing. It was everything! The new teachers, more bullies, so many new students, the showering in gym class, the sex education classes! I had gone from enjoying school to hating it almost overnight and I hated it throughout 7th and 8th grade. In 9th grade, where we find me as 1974 begins, things had eased up quite a bit (or I had finally gotten used to them) and I was slowly sorta-kinda starting to enjoy myself again. 


I lived with both parents in a huge apartment we had moved into when I was 6 and where I would end up staying until I was 32. I had collected comic books since I was 7 years old and I was very much the budding film buff. I loved television and ever since I had seen THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW as a kid, I had wanted to be a writer. 


I guess that's why I decided to try my hand at a journal. 


I'm not reading too far ahead in the Journal, though. I want it to come as a surprise to me as we go along, just like it did then. Check back tomorrow when I return to school after the holiday break.