Jul 31 - A $10 bill in the mail -- HOORAY!**

Monday, July 31, 1972 - Page 213
LOCATION: Chicago

The pics on this page were actually taken earlier in
July when Sue was at Bethlehem, South Dakota 

(7:00 PM 8/1/1972)
Larry & Mark dropped by to see my sketch and they were satisfied if not impressed. Read Niven's story in the anthology -- he's still my favorite writer (he writes exactly like me -- I like him anyway). More happened on Monday but I can't recall what -- oh yeah, I got a letter from mom -- plus $10. That's helpful. I offered to paint an octopus on Ken's helmet. I'll be pretty busy here, artistically speaking.

FUN FACTS: UNITED STATES TEN-DOLLAR BILL (wikipedia)

A 10-dollar bill in 1972 would be equal to $56.50 in 2014 dollars.
Thanks mom! calculation

COUNTERFEITERS BEWARE

The redesigned 10-dollar bill entered circulation on March 2, 2006

TOMORROW: Being an artist

May 04 - TIME-JUMP: Letter to Dad from Europe**

Thursday, May 4, 1972 - 125
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

8:30 PM
The letter taped hereon was included a while back because it contains an encapsulated version of the Europe trip. It is exactly (give or take a small margin of inexactitude) a tenth of a decade old. So much for that.

Vidi, Vici, Ivi Domum = I came, I saw, I went home

I am now on page 100 in Cat's Cradle, and 215 in Sirens of Titan. Mostly I'm working on getting the choicest gems from my comic paper collection and mercilessly disposing of the rest. I washed the dishes today. Jordan hardly tormented me at all today -- only about 5 minutes worth, but he got the viewmaster and several slides for it.

A Sawyer model G View-Master viewer

Chunk called today, and it appears as if he & me are going to Ensenada, Mex. tomorrow. To cross the border, one must be 18, and I, alas am going to be 17 for the next 75 days. Therefore, I called Timothy to obtain Peter's number, so I could contact him in order to borrow some form of photoless 18-year-old identification of some sort maybe. Peter wasn't home, Tim noted. I called James Richard Fish I, but he wasn't home either. He did, however, return the call but, no, he didn't have any such identification except his draft card which he couldn't, of course, let me borrow because, you see, it is morally, ethically, and legally uncouth. From him I obtained Randy Hill's number, but he couldn't help either.

Chunk called back, and filled me in about tomorrow's excursion, and said he got George's ID, so I am now a 22-year-old ex-marine (Grrrrrr!). I have 10$ now, because Dad came by today with $5 and I already had $5 -- so I now have ten. I figured that out in my head. How's that for a hi-school dropout?

Mar 06 - As close as I'll get to time travel***

Monday, March 6, 1972 - Page 66
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

7:00 PM
I got to sleep last night at about 3:00 AM, after finishing "The Crimson Witch," the novel in FANTASTIC (OCT 70) -- it ended in a play for middle of the road leftist anti-establishment propaganda, without attaching any demeaning labels, of course. Woke up today at noon -- it's been over cast for the last couple of days, and today when I went for the mail it was drizzling imperceptibly. About the only thing I accomplished was getting my big red backrest sewed up before the stuffing fell out (I accidentally tore it a couple days ago) and I sewed a small tear in my gloves. I got Dad to pay me ten dollars, so I'm rich again.

7:51 PM
I reread the latest entries in the diary, and I jumped ahead to April First -- Time is intriguing. What will I know a month from now that I don't already know? Where will I be on December 31, 1972 (300 days from now), will everyone I know still be alive? Will I ? Will I have any stories published -- will I have my own home (preferably this here trailer) -- will I have been to Chicago -- will I still be as charming, virtuous, and dull as I am now? Time will tell, certainly. I wish I could see the future -- I wish I could go on and read the next 300 pages right now. Where will I be on January 1, Twenty hundred, A.D.???????????? [Note from the future: On 01/01/2000 I was in Corona, CA with my wife and daughter, waiting for the Y2K apocalypse that never happened] 

WHAT DO I KNOW NOW THAT I DIDN'T 66 DAYS AGO WHEN THIS YEAR STARTED?

By the end of this year things will pro'ly be pretty much the same. Dad will be gone for sure, living elsewhere, divorced -- maybe remarried. Mom may be gone too, by 1973, and I'll be on my own -- a struggling free-lance writer, living with Tacosumi (she'll still be here) and maybe a few of her grown kittens. Possibly I'll have a girl -- and maybe she loves me. A doubtful possibility. I'll have my own car (maybe just the Barracuda). I'll have a few stories published, and I'll be getting farther into art, having fairly mastered writing. I won't be perfect yet -- it may take another year, but I'll keep trying no matter how long it takes. My out-look won't have changed much -- unbridled optimism tempered with good-humored cynicism and despair -- but I'll keep going. Right?

This is about as close as I'll get to time travel.
[To see how this temporal experiment plays out, jump forward in time to April 2, 1972]