Saturday, July 6th, 1974

I didn't hear from terry today but I'm hoping to tomorrow. To see it!

I saw a good comedy movie with Sid Caesar and an old episode of OUTER LIMITS.

Picked up my last pictures and turned in a new batch for the drugstore to develop. I took those out of the patches. Next week, I hope we can go out to Aunt Velma's and I can show them around.

When their vacation is over, I'm going to finish and rewrite my story.

It's at this time of year that I miss Debbie most of all. I'd be at her house nearly every day and around her birthday I'd always go down to her house and leave a present at her door in a heart-shaped box. I always did. But not this year. Not for her or for anybody. Next year, either. Yeah, I'm crazy about Linda but I'll probably never hear from her (but I'm sure gonna keep tryin'!). If I can't get something going by January I may do my best to just quit trying.  I guess I don't really need a relationship. I just naturally want one. There should be a way to beat it, though, and if there is, I'll find it. In January. In the meantime, I'll try to make myself just forget the sexual aspect of the whole thing. I've never thought that way of any girl I've ever really known or liked anyway so I'll try not to think that of ANY girl to prevent it!

I'll probably go see HERBIE RIDES AGAIN out at the Princeton next week. Another long bus ride.

NOTES: Sid Caesar is, of course, one of the great early TV funny men but he never really starred in a  lot of movies and the ones he did weren't really very good. The one I saw today was most likely THE BUSY BODY, a 1967 comedy noted today mostly as the first film of Richard Pryor...who plays  a police detective yet!


Come January I was just going to "quit trying," eh? Hmmm...more like "quite HOPING." I really wasn't trying. Just hoping and moping. 

Friday, July 5th, 1974

Today I spent most of my afternoon in Cincinnati and I didn't get a thing except a 95 cent meal at McDonalds. Terry was there and says there's a good chance we'll see the movie this Sunday. I've heard that before but I'm hoping. I'm praying to finally see it!

IT.

I watched YELLOW SUBMARINE for the third time on TV tonight.

NOTES: By this point, I was pretty much just wanting to get seeing that #$$#!! movie over with! It didn't even occur to me that I had read so much about it that it couldn't possibly live up to its considerable hype by the time I finally got to it.


I generally credit 1968's YELLOW SUBMARINE as being the first movie I was allowed to see without my parents. I could be wrong but it was definitely one of the first. I enjoyed it so much that I insisted my parents come see it with me a week later! This was six years later when I saw it the third time. I got the DVD a few years back and have watched that who knows how many more times since.

Thursday, July 4th, 1974

I got up about 6 and listened to the radio then I went and read the newspaper. I went with Dad over to clean the office before 9.

Phyllis slept late.

Today is the 4th of July, America's 198th birthday. Seems a lot like any other day. Hope it's not like that in a couple of years.

We all went out to Kings Island and I think they, at least, had a grand time. My feet were so hurt when we got home I could hardly walk! I wore my white shoes. Mom got me a magic kit and a few souvenirs. It rained pretty badly this afternoon while we were there. We didn't have time for Lion Country Safari today. I got the first sunburn I've had in years on my arms. Tomorrow it's back to long-sleeved shirts.

Phyllis and Jim left about an hour after Midnight. I stayed up to watch Geraldo Rivera.

NOTES: This whole day feels like I'm reading about someone else. 


At the time, Geraldo was the hot, hip new face of journalism and he had a late night talk show called GOOD NIGHT AMERICA.

Wednesday, July 3rd, 1974

They left early and so arrived today. There are only two of them here--her and her husband. I'm sure glad of that.

I put 48 of my best pix into pages we got free with coupons.

The new Hammer Frankenstein movie hit the drive-ins today.

I haven't been able to get through to Terry all week. THE EXORCIST is still on, though. There's still time.

Because the SS people don't work tomorrow because of the holiday we didn't need to go over tonight.

Dad went to the doubleheader tonight. I stayed home and watched a Dick Van Dyke movie on TV.

NOTES: Looked up the kid that I was told Phyllis was trying to get us to take in. Looks like he has a long record of various minor issues going back about 30 years now. 


Here's the weirdest part. I do not for a second recall her husband being with her on that trip. In fact, as we hadn't been down South in a few years, I don't even recall meeting her husband.


I had developed a great fondness for Peter Cushing's films as Dr. Frankenstein from TV and was pleased to see they were still making them. It would be a few years before I would catch this one, though, when it, too, came to TV. The new monster of this film was played by an actor/stuntman named Dave Prowse. Later in the decade it would be Prowse inside the Darth Vader costume for much of STAR WARS. He would also be Christopher Reeve's personal trainer on SUPERMAN. About two decades later, my wife and I would meet him at a Con in Cincinnati.

Tuesday, July 2nd, 1974

I slept late again. We got our check in today.

Phyllis called again and said she was going to come and visit us. Boy! THIS could be terrible! Maybe not I guess. Hmmm...Maybe SHE could take me to see THE EXORCIST. She's got a lot of kids and she's sure to bring some. I hope not all!

I moved all my good stuff so they can't find it.

Had to help George again today.

I convinced Dad to take me to see THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTFOOT. It wasn't half as bad as Mom made it out to be.

I got DRACULA LIVES and TV GUIDE and found an old tape of The Carpenters that didn't work but does now!

Mom got a new vacuum but had to return it as something happened to it right away.

I have now seen 24 R-Rated films. Would love to make THE EXORCIST # 25. I doubt it will go off tomorrow.

IT.

NOTES: I wasn't privy to everything going on regarding my older cousin Phyllis from North Carolina but the gist of it seemed to be she was having some prescription drug-related issues and problems with her youngest kid or kids and was trying to convince my Mom to take her kids in the way my Mom had taken her in when she was a teenager. This, of course, would have been nightmarish to me. Luckily, there was apparently never any chance of it occurring. 


The top song of the day was ROCK THE BOAT by The Hues Corporation. Disco was rearing its ugly head. 

Monday, July 1st, 1974

The first day of Mom and Dad's vacation. For the first time, I went out with them to Value City and the new Twin Fair. I got the Carpenters hits album and the soundtrack of HOW TO SUCCEED...for only 39 cents! At Twin Fair, I found a dollar! On the way home, we stopped and got some ice cream at Dairy Queen.

NOTES: The Value City stayed there until about 4 years ago when it was turned into a Burlington Coat Factory. The Twin Fair moved there form it's prior location which is, in 2012, just a couple of blocks from where I write this. It stayed for years in the new location but sat empty for quite a while afterwards before reopening as a carpet store which is still there.


The Dairy Queen is still there on the way and on rare occasion, we still stop there hut since we have no money and David doesn't care for ice cream, not often.


Hard to believe that you could get a record album--ANY record album--for only 39 cents in those days but you could. Many large department stores had whole bins of cut-out albums like that.


THE CARPENTERS album I bought was the one seen above. Years later I replaced it with their box set and sold off this album. I have long said that Karen Carpenter had one of the best female voices in late 20th Century music and Richard was an amazing arranger and producer. People made fun of them even then and more after Karen's tragic death but give their music a listen and you can still feel the magic!


As far as vacations, even when we didn't go anywhere, Mom and Dad always took their vacations at the same time--the first week in July.

Sunday, June 30th, 1974

I watched the Democratic National Telethon most of the day.

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I had  areal MEAL! Corn, beans and hamburger, too!

Mom read a review of THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTFOOT and now she says she won't take me. It's no worse than any other R-rated pictures. It's not fair. In a few years, I can get into see them myself. I hope she changes her mind. If not, maybe I can get in myself. I'm very resourceful.

Yesterday, I hard a new record by Donny and Marie Osmond.

Today I'm crazy about Linda again. been looking at those new gorgeous pix throughout the day. If she doesn't write me in a few weeks, I've decided I'm going to write to her again.

Tonight on the radio, I heard an episode of NBC's X-MINUS ONE, a once-monthly radio sci-fi series. Weird!

I realized two things today. One was that I can't draw sadistic pictures anymore. Apparently I've left that stage of my young adult life. The other was that I can't draw...period!

NOTES: The "sadistic pictures" were horror comics-style images of rotting corpses carrying bloody bodies through dense swamps and such. I drew those a lot in the 7th and 8th grade, often being paid ten to twenty-five cents by other students to draw them for them. 


Sad that I decided I couldn't draw at all because I really could and had I pursued it, I could draw even better today than I can!


Come on, admit it. Marie was a babe!


Surprised it was my Mom planning to take me to see the Eastwood flick as he was always my Dad's favorite modern movie star.


Surprised also that i discovered X MINUS ONE this early on. It became and remains one of my favorite OTR series. Of course, I was wrong with my "monthly" remark as it was, like most shows, on weekly in the 1950's. One radio actor who appeared in a few episodes was Bob Hastings with whom I would become friends many years later. A few years back, I purchased two CD's with the entire run of the series in MP3 format. 

Saturday, June 29th, 1974

Had to help George again as soon as I got up this morning. He paid me fifty cents.

Mom bought me the mag with a lot of the most beautiful pics of Linda I have ever seen!

Later, Mom got a call from her niece, Phyllis.

We all went over to the Skywalk to see Henry Fonda and Terence HIll in MY NAME IS NOBODY. It was hilarious!

On the way back, i picked up an X-MEN book I had missed a few weeks back.

I did NOT go to see EXORCIST today but there's still hope! Today's paper very explicitly clarified that under 18 COULD get in with a parent! Maybe this week.

I had pains in my chest this evening so I exercised some. Need to start doing it more.

Tonight, Mom and I stayed up until 11:45 to see SWEET CHARITY.

NOTES: SWEET CHARITY is the Shirley MacLaine musical which apparently ran long on the network. 


Phyllis, as stated, was my mother's niece. Her sister Mickey's girl. To hear my mother tell it, she practically raised Phyllis herself as her Mom was...not always around. 


I knew Terence Hill from the two Trinity spaghetti western comedies. Terry and I had seen them in theaters a few years earlier. Henry Fonda was one of my Dad's favorite actors so we all went to see MY NAME IS NOBODY which was and is not just a funny picture but a good, atypical western and an excellent example of the Italian Western. With the rise of the Web, I've been able to see scores more of them since '74 and NOBODY remains a favorite. Fonda still had an Oscar win ahead of him in the eighties. Hill enjoyed much success in the international market with and without sometime partner Bud Spencer and, in the nineties, starred as LUCKY LUKE in a US-shot , european-distributed TV series based on the classic French comic book cowboy. 

Friday, June 28th, 1974

 I got 3 books with facts and pix of Linda and Roddy including the ever-awkward CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I also saw Roddy and Steffie in TOPPER RETURNS again.

Terry and his friend Dwight whom I met today plan to make a movie and they want me involved, also. We spent a couple of hours looking at material for research. We'll have to wait for Terry to get a movie camera, though.

Mrs. Pritchett brought her grandbaby down again. I gave her one of my stuffed rabbits.

NOTES: I never had stuffed bears. I always had stuffed bunnies, big or small. Once, a stuffed chimpanzee, quickly purchased after I threw up on a stuffed bunny, but mainly stuffed bunnies.


Dwight was the friend we wrote of in the '76 Journal. He would die from accidental drowning in just a couple of years. We never did make any movie.


TOPPER RETURNS was actually a surprisingly lackluster pilot carried only by star power. It was based on the old TV series about ghosts starring Leo G. Carroll from the fifties which had, in turn, been inspired by three movies of the thirties, the first of which had starred Cary Grant. In this case, Roddy played the nephew of the original Topper, haunted by his Uncle's ghost friends. 


Stefanie Powers wrote me a letter at one point. I had asked her what it was like to work with Roddy McDowall as it seemed she had been appearing with him a lot at that point in various projects and she said, "I adore Roddy McDowall!"

Thursday, June 27th, 1974

I was up about 3:30 AM with a sick stomach so I slept an extra hour to make up for lost sleep.

I gota  strange letter with the wrong address. I didn't open it but I don't think it's mine so I'll give it back to the mailman tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, Sutherland and Gould will be on PHIL DONAHUE.

I looked at my Linda scrapbook several times today and I got lost in my Simon & Garfunkel records several times.

No time to work on my story again.

I'm going to ask Mom to pick up SEVENTEEN for me on Saturday along with the new SPEC if it's out.

NOTES: No recollection of the letter incident so I have nothing to report there I'm afraid.


I had gotten my first S&G album---their Greatest Hits collection--about three years earlier, followed quickly by BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, their final original album before their initial break-up. They remain favorites to this day. Wanted badly to see them a few years back here in town but the CHEAP seats were $150.00!! Screw that.


SPEC was a companion mag to SIXTEEN which itself was essentially a movie, TV and music mag for teen girls. Lots of boys I knew bought it, too, though, myself included, as it covered shows like DARK SHADOWS, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and other shows enjoyed by both genders. SPEC was created so that in essence SIXTEEN could come out twice a month. There was no real difference.


OOPS. Apparently I had my timeline wrong regarding Gould and Sutherland on Phil's show.

Wednesday, June 26th, 1974

E-Day! THE EXORCIST finally started uptown. Terry's mother says now she wants to read the book before she'll take us, though. SO CLOSE! I hope we can go Saturday. I read the screenplay today. In Cincinnati, I got the new SIXTEEN with some stuff on Linda. It says she gets more fan mail than she can answer. I hope she answers MY letter!

I also got CRAZY with two spoofs of THE EXORCIST.

I saw another magazine, SEVENTEEN, with a gorgeous pic of Linda!

Didn't get to work on my story today because I went to see S*P*Y*S. It was good but I don't see it making my Top Ten.

I helped George this morning and Mrs. Pritchett tonight.

According to TV GUIDE, dumb ol' Channel 12 has cut off MIKE DOUGLAS! Starting next week!

Terry says he actually did go back to Showcase yesterday!

NOTES: S*P*Y*S was a so-so movie reteaming Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland for the first time since 1970's M*A*S*H. The pair had appeared on DONAHUE plugging it and that convinced me to see it. That hour with them being their eccentric selves was funnier than the film.


The picture of Linda on SEVENTEEN was the best I ever saw.

Tuesday, June 25th, 1974

I got the new Bud Plant catalog. Always a treat!

I made myself a "London Fog" and ended up throwing out half of it.

Been having trouble sleeping lately.

Article about Roddy and the TV apes in tonight's paper.

THE EXORCIST is definitely starting at the Madison tomorrow but Terry's mom may be having second thoughts. She HAS to take us! I've been waiting ever since December for this and I can't have it taken away from me now that it's SO close!

I worked a lot on my new story today. It's very, very good and there's not an element of horror or sci-fi in it at all! At least not after I rewrite the bloody cancer scene. A few other scenes will need a rewrite, also, but offhand I think it is my best story since SITUATION SIX. I hope so!

NOTES: The only non-alcoholic London Fog I can find is a drink made with coffee or tea and vanilla extract. I know I never had alcohol or coffee until years later but I'm pretty sure I didn't have tea either so I'm at a loss as to what I sampled that day or as to why I was prompted to make it in the first place.


Bud Plant, as I've mentioned before, is a close friend of my sometime employer Craig Yoe and, as such, I've had dealings with him in the 21st Century in relation to Craig's books I've worked on! Seen here is one of his 1974 catalogs--maybe the one I got that day!


Oh. ON MY JOURNEY was THAT story. Basically a LOVE STORY rip-off, I tried to one-up them by giving the girl not Ali McGraw's mystery illness but breast cancer. Only what did a 15 year old boy know about breast cancer in those days? So in my version, when she gets cancer, her breasts start spurting blood! Who said there was no horror in it? Yes, I still have it and no, you can't read it.

Monday, June 24th, 1974

We got our new Encyclopedia yearbook.

I started a new Marvel themed notebook. One of my best!

Had some major stomach pains tonight that weren't helped by the bad fall I took at the Social Security Office. Luckily my "Pain does not hurt" zen philosophy worked. Well...with the fall, not the stomach pains. At least my cold was mostly better.

I started writing a new short story. It's called ON MY JOURNEY but I may change that.

NOTES: The "Pain does not hurt" thing is a mind over matter/positive thinking thing whereby you distance yourself from the physical pain until the body becomes used to it and accepting of it. I still do it and have taught it to my son, also.


I'm not 100% sure of which story ON MY JOURNEY was but I think I still have it buried in a box upstairs. Maybe I'll try to find it. 

Sunday, June 23rd, 1974

My cold was some better today. I went with Dad to get chicken and hamburgers and took some pictures, too.

Mom and Dad went to the ball game later but I stayed home.

IT.

The paper had ads for about five movies I want to see soon.

Didn't get to sleep until very late tonight because there was a big flying bug in my room. We never got it either. All we did was get it out of there.

NOTES: I think this was one of the photos I took that day. If so, then it must have quit raining before the Reds game. 


Sometimes, like today apparently, we'd get a combination of Famous Recipe Fried Chicken (on the left one block ahead in this pic...and still in 2012 come to think of it--and White Castles. We only lived 4 blocks from the chicken place so we only drove if we were getting the hamburgers, too, as they 7 blocks or so further up from this shot.


I hated those flying bugs---big ol' things supposedly brought back from Florida by other tenants. I'd bounce around my bedroom from the bed to the desktop swatting at 'em with a broom and making sure everyone else in the house was awake to help! Haven't seen one in years luckily. In fact, nowadays we just get the occasional bat!

Saturday, June 22nd, 1974

Picked up Dad's virus. Just sat around and read most of the afternoon and even that hurt my eyes.

There were some terrible storms today--one really early this morning and one this evening. We were listening to WKRQ when it went off the air. Later we heard it was struck by lightning and the disc jockey knocked unconscious.

NOTES: That particular DJ was new on Q-102, the big Top 40 FM FM station in town, that year. I remember we were all worried and later stunned to read about the lightning strike. We were stunned more some years later to read about his arrest for soliciting sex from a minor on the Internet (who turned out to be a police officer).

Friday, June 22nd, 1974

Dad was home again. A slight cold yesterday had expanded greatly today.

The paper once again lists The Madison for THE EXORCIST. Just another week.

It may be just an idle thought but I think I'd like to be an actor.

I got the new SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

Saw a TV commercial for DEADLY WEAPONS. Seems "Chesty Morgan" is not just the character bit the actress!

IT twice today. Wish it would just stop.

NOTES: In time, my wanting to be an actor modified a bit. I wanted to be a voice actor! It's never really happened. I have been able to indulge the fantasy by performing with pros and talented amateurs onstage at the Old Time radio Convention since the late eighties. When I was working at the Public Library, I was tapped to narrate a segment on canine visits for kids. The interesting part was that I recorded the narration about a week before the event. Then scenes from the event were edited together to match my narration! Not exactly acting but fun.


SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN was Marvel's black and white, more adult version of the Conan character. Most issues were epic length tales written by Roy Thomas with an eye toward the overall continuity and timeline of the character. Drawn by John Buscema, Ernie Chan and other illustrators who were really given their head and allowed to run with it, these were well-done stories! BUT...in the long run, they were a bit repetitive and my enthusiasm for the title wore off. On this day, though, it was the very first issue that I bought. Bolstered by the Ah-nold film adaptations, the title overstayed its welcome by running into the mid-1990's!

Thursday, June 20th, 1974

I had to give up several mags to get a copy of WILLIAM PETER BLATTY ON THE EXORCIST. For $1.95, I got the complete screenplay of the film , inside stories and pages and pages of pictures! Some of Linda I never expected to see and lots of behind the scenes shots. It was worth the price!

I also got all the new comics and the new SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN TREASURY EDITION for a buck fifty!

Dad stayed home sick today. I felt better today myself after yesterday's unexpected workout. Terry maintains he's doing it again on Saturday. Not with me!

Still haven't gotten that Hammer book in the mail and now we're expecting the 1973 Encyclopedia Yearbook also.

NOTES: EXORCIST screenwriter William Peter Blatty had been in Hollywood a long time and knew his way around a screenplay but this one turned out to be a phenomenon. Assuming he wrote the book himself, he did an excellent job. There were a lot of behind-the-scenes books on particular movies in the seventies but this one remains one of the best in my opinion


I never did invest a whole day in walking to that Showcase Cinemas. Soon enough we were going to get one of our own in Northern Kentucky and it was, in its own way, just as hard to get to if you didn't have a car! What were they thinking?


We had a complete set of Funk and Wagnells' Encyclopedias, purchased one per week at the local supermarket back in 1968. We also purchased matching yearbooks for every year since which started taking up a lot of space. The idea was that I could use them for my homework. Only I rarely actually had homework! We continued getting the yearbooks until. I believe, 1982. By that point there was nowhere to actually put them except filling the top of the mantle all the way across. Around that time, I canceled the Yearbook and we boxed them all up, to be donated to...somewhere...a dozen years on.

Wednesday, June 19th, 1974

We got paid today.

I met Terry here at 11 and then we went over the river.All the new stuff was out but we didn't get any so we wouldn't have to carry it. We caught the bus at 12:40. A little over an hour later, about 1:45, we finally arrived at Tri-County Shopping Center. We asked some people for directions but no one knew exactly. So we walked across the street to a gas station and got directions there. We started walking but after about 10 minutes, we had to stop and ask for directions again. We finally found the right road but we had to walk all the way to the other end to find the theatre! It took us so long that we literally arrived just moments before the picture started.

We did get to see THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, though and it was marvelous!

At first sight of the Showcase Cinemas I was very elated! I never thought we'd actually find them! I was in the same building as THE EXORCIST, too.

Took us forever to walk back, too, and then we had to wait on the bus and take the hour long bus back to town and then the TANK bus back to Kentucky! By the time I got home, I had a bad headache and stomachache and had to skip work! It was late enough that Mom and Dad were already at the Office by the time I got back.

I felt terrible by the time the day ended but I wouldn't have missed it. Also saw three more theaters along the way--The Alpha and the Princeton 1 and 2.

NOTES: The Showcase Cinemas in Tri-County had been open about a year at that point I believe but I had never been there. They had 6 screens at a time when 2 was the maximum anywhere else. The ads in the paper always said "Near Tri-County Shopping Center" so, of course, it made sense to take the bus to the Center and then walk. Only it wasn't THAT near the Tri-County Shopping Center! It took nearly 90 minutes to get there down a long country road about half a mile North of the Mall and it was an extremely hot day!


So about 90 minutes to get to Tri-County from Kentucky, 90 minutes to walk to the theaters, arriving just in time for a 90 minute movie, followed by a 90 minute walk back as the sun started setting, then waiting for the return bus and another 90 minutes to make it home. About 8 hours to see the new Ray Harryhausen film!


Now here's the thing. If one is driving, it really is about five minutes away from the Shopping Center (now called a Mall). Only two geeky teenagers would walk it! For many years in the nineties, the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention would be held just across the street from it. I often looked out at the theater from the hotel parking lot and remembered that hot, looooong day.

Tuesday June 18th, 1974

I saw a couple of EXORCIST stars on with MIKE DOUGLAS but not Linda, sad to say. I don't believe in the devil. I believe that men's own minds hold the keys for all "devil"-attributed phenomena.

Got kind of crazy and did IT differently today but now I'm over that weird feeling I've had for the past few days.

There are several good movies starting this week. Some I've done seen (MAGNUM FORCE) and some I most likely won't see (CHESTY MORGAN'S DEADLY WEAPONS) and then there's THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD. It's out at the Showcase Cinemas but if Terry will come with me, I'll go. It's rated G and I remember the bus number form when me and Dad tried to go out there to see THE EXORCIST. I really hope we go. Terry says his Mom might take us to see THE EXORCIST which means there's a better chance that Dad will take us to THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTFOOT. I saw both advertised on TV tonight!

The guy was here today working on the furnace and I had to stay home to let him into the apartment when the time came.

I read this very book today and realized just how often IT has happened. Wish I'd never discovered it!

I recorded an old SHADOW radio drama on tape.

NOTES: That last is obviously another early example of my building interest in old time radio. Last year, 2011, I worked as proofreader for Martin Grams' extensive and definitive history on THE SHADOW radio series. Today, in 2012, son David had a friend over and, without any hint for us, she told us how much she enjoyed listening to OTR when she could find it! One of us!


Don't ask about the crazy IT. I don't remember. The mind boggles though, doesn't it? 


Remember a time when you didn't think twice about a 15 year old boy being left at home alone to allow a strange man in to fix the furnace?


Still have never seen DEADLY WEAPONS but I've read extensively on no-budget filmmaker Doris Wishman who made it and the painfully endowed stripper who starred in it, Chesty Morgan. Chesty actually was appearing in nearby Newport to promote the film when it opened locally and was interviewed by THE CINCINNATI POST's Mary Wood. 


As far as taking the bus to the Showcase Cinemas, I believe I've touched on what happens before. Check back tomorrow for the full story.

Monday, June 17th, 1974

It's official. Today's paper says that THE EXORCIST will show up at The Madison on June 26th! Now the only problem will be if Dad changes his mind about taking me.

I switched my chair with Sidney's this afternoon and then watched a Martin and Lewis film.

I tried on my entire white outfit and tested my singing skills on tape.The outfit's great! The singing needs work.

As far as I know, my great horoscope for today didn't come true after all. Too bad. That would have been a marvelous thing. At least someone who would like me for who I am. Other than Debbie, so far only Susan was like that but that relationship was extremely short-lived and we ended up as just friends. She's gone now anyway. All the ones I liked go away. Cheri, Susan, Debbie, Phyllis, Regina...Every girl who ever liked me in any way is gone form my life now. But I sure wouldn't mind for a minute if I had someone now. Someone I like who likes me. Someone smart, pretty, funny...not necessarily Linda but...just someone, anyone, I can love. Adoring someone like Linda from afar is alright but I need someone I can see, feel, touch and talk with. And that's what my horoscope kind of promised. And I foolishly believed it. Now the disappointment sets in and it's love that's lost again.

NOTES: Sidney, you may recall, was Sidney Australia, the human-sized stuffed rabbit who had his own easy chair in our living room for several years. I've mentioned him here before and also on the '76 blog. He had been left behind by another tenant and we took him in. MyDad called him Cedric Weehunt after an old LUM 'N' ABNER radio character but I maned him Sidney. The Australia came later on.


The white outfit was in emulation of Elvis. I loved his Nudie suits and bought white bellbottom pants, a long-sleeved white shirt and white shoes. Didn't help my singing one single bit.


As for the last paragraph---who says "emo" wasn't around back then?