With prom season upon us (already over?) here’s Ms. Betty Jane Lowrance, Kennett High School Prom Queen of 1965. Pictured with Ms. Lowrance is Junior Class President Steve Mays.
Turns out I was the only one that didn’t know the junior class president was responsible for decorating the gym for the prom. (I thought the field of candidates seemed a bit sparse) Note the manly confidence with which I hold the prom queen’s hand.
I’ve been blogging since February, 2002, and for most of that time I equated the effort with keeping a diary or journal. I was wrong. I came to this conclusion after reading back through some of my journals from the early eighties. (Index below)
I was struck by the personal, private tone of these entries. I would not have wanted to share these thoughts with others, even if there had been a way (Internet, blogs, etc). I usually wrote longhand in a spiral bound notebook. Once in a while I’d type an entry on my manual typewriter.
Reading my thoughts from thirty years ago feels almost… intrusive. That was a very different person. He was anxious and prone to worry. He drank too much ( or thought it did. He worried about it). He lacked self confidence. I feel my shoulders tense as I read these entries. I suspect writing this stuff down was a way of coping. I wish I could time travel back and leave a “note from your future self” telling him to relax. It turns out great in the end.
The image above is from an entry on May 14, 1984. Just a couple of weeks after I accepted the job I just retired from (after 29 years). I’m putting all of this stuff in my Google Drive and sharing it with family.
After a dozen years of blogging publicly, I don’t expect to return to the the diary format, but David Cain has some interesting thoughts on the value of putting one’s personal thoughts down on paper:
“The simple act of writing out a thought keeps it still long enough for you to get a good look at it. Once it’s there in front of you, you can decide if it’s true, and whether you ought to do anything about it.”
Journal entries from 1983-1985
My brother introduced us to this technique during our visit to Penang, Malaysia. Took a high degree of trust but it works.
I posted these clips as I recorded them (on the iPhone) but it’s fun to run ’em through iMovie and get ’em all together. Runs under 3 minutes.
“With astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as your guide, go beyond the night sky and into deep space to find out how discoveries over the past 100 years have led us to two great cosmic mysteries: dark matter and dark energy. You’ll hurtle through Jupiter’s atmosphere, peer at the web of dark matter holding galaxies together, and watch the colorful remains of the universe’s beginnings unfold.”
I was fortunate to experience this at the Hayden Planetarium (part of the American Museum of Natural History in New York). The most amazing and wonderful thing I have every seen.
Next week I’ll be in New York for a few days. I don’t have much planned. Just walking around, soaking up the atmosphere. I’ve hired a guide for my first day. Ammiel has lived in New York City since 1960. He attended The High School of Music and Art and has performed as an actor and musician at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall. I found him on ToursbyLocals.com. Ammi has promised to show me the New York that only New Yorkers see.
One of the many treasures unearthed while cleaning out my parents attic was my high school transcripts. I scanned, filed and then forgot about them but they popped up recently so I decided to add them to this record.
I was a little surprised to see I was 8th in a class of 152. I take that to mean lots of folks were having more fun than I was. My grades in math don’t reflect what I really took away from those classes. (Thank you John Robison for letting my copy your work).
I vaguely recall taking some of these tests, in preparation for college but I don’t think I ever saw the results. With an IQ of 121 (high average?) I probably should have tried harder in life. Next time.