Sunday, April 7th, 1974

Terry visited and we played a long game of Monopoly. As usual, I lost.

The Reds lost today, too--their third game.

IT.

I'm going back over the river to get that Exorcist Special and a few old comics after school tomorrow.

I traded Terry two old Batgirl stories for a rare Kirby Green Arrow story!

NOTES: Terry really liked Batgirl and I really liked Jack Kirby comics. It was a good trade. The Kirby story was a reprint from the fifties. At the time, I hadn't realized that Jack had been the artist on the Green Arrow feature for nearly a dozen stores not long before he returned to Marvel to create the Marvel Universe as we know it today.   

Saturday, April 6th, 1974

Over at the Ohio Bookstore I got some old Vampi's and a few other old mags but hardly any comics out of all of those new old ones. There's also a special EXORCIST newspaper out that I want to get soon.

Got the another new TBG today.

IT.

NOTES: "Vampi" was VAMPIRELLA, a black and white comic magazine that didn't subscribe to the Comics Code and thus often showed naked women! At 15 it was perfectly legal to buy. No one questioned it. On top of that, some of the stories and art were by some of the best in the comics business! Win-Win. I started with issue 14 and bought it for many years, even having a letter published in one when I was about 16.


If I remember correctly, one of the back issues I got this day was the one seen here featuring a now-classic story by Wallace Wood. (In case you haven't heard, I run a Wallace Wood blog, too!)

Friday, April 5th, 1974

I got a free adzine in the mail today.

Terry says there's a lot of new stuff out over the river. Much more than I can afford. We're going over at 8:30 tomorrow morning to check out 2000 new books they got in at the Ohio Book Store!

NOTES: An adzine was a comics fanzine that consisted entirely or at least mostly of ads. I remember this one was pretty cheap-looking and homemade once you got past the cover but they had apparently gotten subscriber names from TBG so they sent me one. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was called POOR RICHARD'S ADZINE. 

Thursday, April 4th, 1974

Today I talked with Kathy Allen for the first time in a long time.

I finished work in an hour, did what little homework I had and tried to help Dad fix his garage door but couldn't. This just isn't his year for things that concern cars.

The tornadoes did terrible damage all around last night.

The Reds won their opening game and Hank Aaron hit one homer. Only one more to go!

NOTES: Okay, in this case Mom wasn't overreacting. I didn't realize that yesterday in 1974 was the date of the infamously destructive Sayler Park tornado! This was an F5 tornado in what became known as the Super Outbreak in which five similarly violent twisters struck around the same time. 


Dad had rented a garage space a couple of blocks away for the new car but the door never really locked and between the two of us, we couldn't fix it. Not a good sign.


Hank Aaron was one away from either tying or beating the home run record. Not sure which at the money.

Kathy Allen was a girl who had been a friend for several years in grade school. When Debbie moved away in 6th grade, Kathy and I sort of considered the idea of becoming a couple but it really didn't work out. She had quite a temper but a great sense of humor. Even though we had been in junior high together all along, we hadn't really had any classes together so we rarely saw each other anymore.

Wednesday, April 3rd, 1974

All the wrong people won the awards last night including Tatum O'Neal instead of Linda!!!!

I finally got the new TBG in the mail.

Terrible storms this evening and Mom was very scared.

NOTES: There had been a bit of a controversy when it was revealed that actress Mercedes McCambridge had "sweetened" Linda Blair's demon-possessed performance. Linda had still performed the difficult physical aspects of the role and the dialogue but the veteran McCambridge had added her rough voice to the mix for a better sound and that had been kept quiet. Mercedes wasn't happy and eventually was given a credit on the film. 


I hadn't seen Tatum O'Neal's performance in PAPER MOON at this point; wouldn't catch it until it showed up on TV a few years later. In retrospect, it really was an Oscar-winning performance. Tatum was, as many child performers are, a natural. Also like many child performers going all the way back to Shirley Temple, however, she lost much of her natural acting abilities as she grew older. 


My Mother was always scared of storms and passed that on to me. Even as I learned over the years that she was, on some levels, overreacting to basic thunderstorms, it had already been instilled in me. To this day, I worry a bit too much about thunderstorms...although, granted, in recent years there have been plenty in this area worth worrying about!

Tuesday, April 2nd, 1974

I had a really good day at school today.

Finished the new job a lot sooner tonight than last night.

I fact, my only real disappointment today was that the TV GUIDE and another mag with EXORCIST junk weren't out yet.

The Academy Awards are on tonight. I hope Linda Blair wins!

NOTES: It was unusual for me to do something like I just did--write about a show that was going to be on before watching it. More often than not, I wrote these entries at the very end of the night just before bed or sometimes even the next morning before going to school. 


Above is the Cincinnati skyline around this time, probably taken through a bus window.  

Monday, April 1st, 1974

April Fools Day and none pulled a single joke on me. Whew.

We started our job at the security office tonight and I think it's okay bit I'm not crazy about it. One interesting thing is they have a computer! It's a computer named Ssader who types out message automatically from time to time! Oh, well. It's an easy way to earn some money. I hope it works out, though.

I broke my second best tape later tonight in a terrible storm. In some areas, they said on the News that it was a twister!

NOTES: Never liked the concept of April Fool's Day. Back then, especially, I had a nightmarish fear of public embarrassment.


This was the day we started working as the janitors at the Social Security Office next door to our apartment house. 


The same man who owned our building owned the office also. Technically it was my dad that was hired but from the beginning my Mom and I worked with him as a team. Every night after everyone left the office, we'd go over and clean up. With the three of us, it only took between one and two hours unless there was a particular problem. After I finished my part--emptying the trash cans and ashtrays (yuck!) and tying the bags up to take out on Trash Night--I'd usually go home and catch some television. 


I also had to change a TON of lightbulbs, especially when President Carter's administration required government offices to remove two out of every four of their light bulbs during the energy crisis. 


There were 25 desks, 2 conference rooms and 2 private offices. My Mom cleaned the ashtrays, conference rooms and bathrooms and my Dad mopped the whole floor every night and buffered it occasionally. 


Sometimes the employees would work late and we'd end up having to go over very early (like 5:30 AM) the next day before they came in. 


I guess this was the very first time I'd ever seen a computer. It took up a whole room about the size of a large closet. It had reels and a dot matrix printer as well as something that spit out tape with punch holes in it. Whoever designed it never bothered to come up with some kind of receptacle to catch the little dots made by punching said holes so we had to sweep them up every night, always with the possibility of the darn thing spitting out more while we were doing it!


Ultimately we kept the job for ten years. During that time, my dad was sidelined for a year in 1978 by an accident so I took over the majority of the work. My mother died in 1981 and I took over hers, also. Somewhere in there, the Social Security Office moved out and the newspaper office moved in. They were a lot pickier and also more prone to working weird hours which meant I, also had to work weird hours. 


In 1982, I even lost my virginity on their conference room table to a young lady I snuck in one night at 1 AM.  Ahem!  


I ultimately left the job in late 1984 when I was by then promoted to full-time at Waldenbooks.