Sunday, December 31, 1972 - Page 366
LOCATION: San Francisco, Squaw Valley, Boreal Ridge
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| Boreal Ridge, Soda Springs, California |
Got up around 7:30. Windy & clear. We were moving by 8:15 and got to Squaw Valley at noon thirty.
[I have a memory here that YoungGrady did not mention but I will record it now: Mom was driving the Imperial and she was pulled over for speeding by the Highway Patrol. She was going maybe 75 miles per hour. While the officer was writing her ticket by our window, he turned to see a car zooming by at 90 mph. "Wow," he said, "I wish I had my radar on that guy." I asked him, "So how do you like working on New Year's Eve?" I could tell he was about to say, "It sucks" -- but in 1972, "sucks" was still a forbidden cuss word. Instead he said, "Not good." This brings us full-circle since I asked another policeman the same question at the beginning of this journal, and he replied, "Pretty shitty."(January 2) ]
Twas crowded so we went back to Boreal Ridge, ate at the lodge cafeteria and got skis. Jain watched, mom & Willie took instruction, and Jimmy & I skied at 2:30 or 3:00. Met Heidi and Martha, watched their Skis, left and tackled the T-bar with Willie. I skied down the slope around 4:30. T-bar closed, Jim & I took the chairlift to ski down the slope 3 or 4 times. On the last time, bout 5:30, I busted a ski, so I had to quit.
We drove home, stopping at the Ground Cow for food. Got home 'bout 10:00. Played chess, then Pinochle. Roark came by around 2:00. Me, Will & Mom played cutthroat while Jim got the car, driving Roark home. Chunk called, informing us he wasn't coming. To bed by 2 or 3.
Life is a near-death experience
[Here we have some spillover into 1973 for our return journey]
Monday, January 1, 1973
LOCATION: From San Francisco to San Simeon
I got up about 11:30. Were on the road by 12:30. Saw the whales. I dozed in the back seat for an hour or so. Got to
San Simeon, stopped for gas and food, and stayed at a motel bout 7:00. Went to sleep at 8:30.
[This is the half-way point between Frisco & LA: it's a 4- or 5-hour drive in either direction. On an earlier trip we had visited San Simeon's Hearst Castle.]
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| Casa Grande at Hearst Castle (wiki info) |
Tuesday, January 2, 1973
LOCATION: From San Simeon to Newport Beach
Got up early & left about 8:00 or 7:30. Passed through Santa Barbara, etc. Stopped at an
A&W. Got home about 3:00, after stopping at
[Grandma] Dot's
[in Santa Ana] around 1:30. Cat was okay. Dad came over.
Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament
Thus ends the 366th day / page of Leap Year 1972.
But there are three additional pages of photos pasted into this book. Here they are:
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| Page 367 |
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| Page 368 |
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| Page 369 |
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives
TIME REVIEW: Final 100 Days of 1972
LOCATION: Corona, California -- December 2013
The previous 100-day update occurred on September 22, 1972 (Page 266). On that day YoungGrady wrote: "We shall see if the next 100 mark is similarly out of synch. Since it'll be Dec 31, my guess is it'll be pretty late."
INDEED IT IS. Now, 41 years later, it is left for OldGrady to complete this final 100-Day Time Review.
So here we go...
BOOKS I READ
DINOSAURS by Edwin Colbert, "The Fossil Book," & The Golden Nature Guide: Fossils, which helped me to catalog my extensive fossil collection (Sep 24). Continued to read Michener's "The Drifters," but never managed to finish it (good book but too danged looong). Finished Something Wicked This Way Comes; The Magus; The Age of the Dinosaurs; early volumes of the Emergence of Man Time/Life Books series; Daybreak 2250 A.D.; Star Trek 7; Star Trek 8; Catch-22; & began Impossible Possibilities.
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CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
In 1955, the 1st chapter of this book was published in a magazine with the title Catch-18. For the book's publication, Heller's agent suggested he change the title so it would not be confused with a 1961 novel by Leon Uris called Mila 18. Catch-11 was considered, but that could have been confused with the 1960 movie Ocean's Eleven. Catch-17 was no good because of the film Stalag 17. Catch-14 was rejected because the publisher didn't think 14 was a "funny number." Finally they hit upon Catch-22 and it stuck.
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MOVIES I WATCHED IN THEATERS (USUALLY AT DRIVE-INS)
The Last Picture Show; Bless the Beasts and the Children; The Man; Hannie Caulder; Doctor Zhivago; me, natalie; A Clockwork Orange; Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues; King Elephant; Orson Welles' Treasure Island; The Wrath of God; They Only Kill Their Masters; The Candidate; The Groundstar Conspiracy; The Poseidon Adventure.
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THE MAN (1972)
Here is a made-for-TV film that was so good it skipped television and went straight to theaters. In a screenplay by Rod Serling based on an Irving Wallace novel, James Earl Jones portrays Douglass Dilman who becomes the first African American president -- by accident. In addition to being the first Black president more than 36 years before the actual occurrence, the fictional Dilman was also the first unelected president, foreshadowing the real-world elevation of Gerald Ford by less than 25 months. |
MOVIES I SAW ON TV
The Beguiled; Mister Moses; To Sir, With Love; The Odd Couple; Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster; Giant; In Cold Blood; Patton; Barefoot in the Park; Brian's Song; West Side Story; The African Queen; The Snow Goose.
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BRIAN'S SONG (1971)
Based on the tragic true story of football player Brian Piccolo, this ABC Movie of the Week was such a success that it was later shown in theaters with a major premier in Chicago. Many critics consider it to be one of the finest telefilms ever made. |
PERSONAL ACTIVITIES
Spent much of my time killing ants in our mobile home; began a maintenance-man job at The Ivanhoe Motel on October 3 for $1.75 per hour; did extensive preliminary work on my epic sci-fi series Tempus Fugitives; nearly expired from hypothermia after vacuuming the unheated Ivanhoe pool on November 21; late in November the local newspaper terrified mobile home residents when it reported that the Newport Beach Building Supervisor was threatening to shut down six trailer parks (including ours) as "public nuisances." The winter of 72 saw some record high temperatures in Los Angeles (85° on 12/1 & 83° on 12/20).
There was a big computer convention in December. This was the AFIPS (American Federation of Information Processing Societies) '72 Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Anaheim Convention Center, Dec. 5 thru 7. Where was Computer Science in 72? Find out here: AFIPS Proceedings 1972 Part I - Part II.
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| Archie Comics, 1972 - Visiting the future |
Apollo 17 represented the final manned mission to the moon; I bought a Honda 100 motorcycle for $80 with Chuck's help, but it had a perplexing electrical problem that caused it to stop running every 10 miles or so -- nevertheless, I used it to ride to my job a few times in 1973, but it always broke down; saw John Wayne & his son (probably Ethan) as we left Newport Beach on our way to San Francisco to visit my aunt & cousins for the holidays; finished the year seeing the sights in San Fran, playing lots of games to pass the time, then went downhill skiing & nearly broke my leg.
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THE IVANHOE MOTEL
was demolished in 1999 |
Final 100 Days: 72's NEWS
October 8: George McGovern chooses Statesman Sargent Shriver as his vice-preidential nominee, replacing Thomas Eagleton who admitted to having received treatment for mental problems. But the negative press had done its damage -- McGovern loses to Nixon in a landslide with the Presidential Election on November 7.
October 13: Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 carrying 45 people crashes in the Andes. On December 20, 16 survivors are found alive having resorted to cannibalism to survive. These events were told in the 1974 book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, and became a 1993 movie, Alive: The Miracle of the Andes.
October 25: First female FBI agents are hired.
October 30: A commuter train collision in Chicago kills 45, injures hundreds.
November 5: Native American activists occupy the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
November 14: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 for the first time.
November 29: Atari launches the first generation of video games with the release of their highly successful arcade version of Pong.
December 7 to 19: Apollo 17 is the final manned moon mission, following Apollo 16 earlier in 1972 (April 16 to 27).
December 25: The massive Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam provokes rampant disapproval of President Nixon. On August 9, 1974, Nixon would resign to avoid impeachment proceedings resulting from the Watergate coverup. This scandal began on June 17, 1972, when 5 White House operatives were arrested for burglarizing offices of the Democratic National Committee.
December 29: Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashes into the Florida Everglades killing 101 of 176 passengers.
December 31: Roberto Clemente, famed right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, dies in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico while en route to deliver aid to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. The U.S. ban on the pesticide DDT takes effect. The International Time Bureau adds an extra leap second to end of the year, following up on the first leap second that was inserted on June 30, making 1972 two seconds longer than any previously recorded Leap Year.
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
-- John Lennon
The final 10 pages in this journal exist only as very brief daily descriptions written on five sheets of 3.75" x 6.75" notebook paper. Apparently I didn't want to carry the book on our trip to San Fran. I'm sure I thought I would find time to elaborate on these short notes but I never got around to it.
Keeping this diary for an entire year was a big commitment in time & attention that wore me down toward the end. I was so discouraged by the results of my writing efforts that I just didn't care about APPOINTMENTS 1972 anymore.
In 1977, when the time came to discard excess junk as I was moving from Utah with my girl friend on our way to Idaho, I simply left it behind with no remorse.
It is only thru an unlikely twist of fate that this book was rescued from oblivion and returned to me. I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about it -- but now it's out here for everyone to see. Maybe this blog will stand as a useful document that preserves one person's daily memories of that bygone pre-digital era...
T I O L I (Take it or leave it)
I started out with nothin' and I still got most of it left
-- Seasick Steve
NEXT WEEK: Top 20 Entries from 1972 - Part 1 (1 to 5)
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