Saturday, September 7, 2013

Sep 07 - A long walk home in the dark

Thursday, September 7, 1972 - Page 251
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

3:05 AM
By my calculations, judging from the number of pages I read in the last four hours, it took me a bit over 18 hours to read that book. Must learn to read faster.

4:00 PM
Got up around 1:00 P.M. Got the mail, exorcised and took a bath. Measured my mustache again -- it is now 43 millimeters long, generally.

1:00 AM
Straightened out my room, finally putting the excess garbage in the attic, so a couple of drawers got emptied. Chunk came by around five and we went to his house (we stopped at a McDonald's on the way so he could buy a couple of Big Macs for himself, and while I was getting off I busted his tail light and license plate -- he tried to fix it there but on the way to the house it came loose so I had to hold it up in one hand to prevent the fender, which the light and plate hold up, from scraping the tire, and in my other hand I held his hamburgers & my hat) -- we played Hockey until the Olympics -- he won. We played a lot of chess but we came out even, drawing one, stalemating one, and winning two or three a piece. Murray came over around 9:30 and he beat me in one game. Watched the Olympics till 11:00, then I started walking home -- Chunk was too tired to drive me, and Murray didn't want to. I ran a little of the distance (about 3 blocks), just to be healthy. [From Chuck's apartment to my home was probably about 5 miles, but I was accustomed to long walks so it didn't bother me very much.]

A half a block from harbor high a guy came the opposite direction and said "Good morning" in a strange accent as he passed me. I said "H'lo" but stopped, realizing it was Tim Hourigan. We almost didn't recognize each other in the dark. He was coming back home from a girl's house, and I came home with him. He showed me his giant new map of Tarmland, and we engaged in mirthful conversation for a while, had a couple glasses of chocolate milk, then I departed.


Walking out thru the alley I passed a couple of kids, barely visible in the dark. One of them said, "Peace," and I said, "Same to you, fella!" It did my heart good to say that. Got home at 12:15. ---


TOMORROW: Seeing "Follies" at LA's Schubert

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