Top 20 Entries from 1972 - Part 1***

These are my choices for the Top 20 most interesting posts of 1972. Here are the first 5.

LOCATION: Corona, California -- Jan 07, 2014

Mom & Dad: Charmian Marie Lyda (Born 1927) & Grady Luther Lyda, Jr. (1927 - 1974)

01) Jan 01, 1972 - Happy Friggin' New Year

LOCATION: Newport Beach, California 

This introduces the Diary which is the first & last time Grady kept a daily journal. He describes events of New Year's Eve 1971 and New Year's Day 1972, mentioning girl troubles, cop problems, and an overall dissatisfaction with life. Normal adolescent angst.

In the following entry for January 02, Grady explains the circumstances of his unnecessary arrest on the morning of New Year's Day. This is a typical 17-year-old moaning about the world's frustrating unfairness. Same as it ever was.

02) Jan 10, 1972 - Shopping in Rapid City

LOCATION: Bethlehem & Rapid City, South Dakota

After "borrowing" my family's car (we owned two), I became a runaway with my equally disgruntled high school friend, Matt Gold. We were aiming for New York but we ended up in Bethlehem, South Dakota, where I had been invited to come for a visit by Father Gilbert Stack who ran the place. This was a popular tourist destination called The Shrine of the Nativity that had been installed in a famous cave. To see more text & photos regarding this historic location, please go to the July 18 entry.

Anyway, we soon learned that the police were hunting for us due to an All Points Bulletin (APB) on the "stolen" car (one of our parents snitched on me), so we were temporarily trapped there until the legal problems could be resolved.

That's me at age 17 shoveling snow in South Dakota

03) Jan 18, 1972 - Letter of explanation to Grandma Dot

LOCATION: Bethlehem, South Dakota

Here is the letter I wrote to my grandmother telling her why I had escaped from Newport Beach. Later I heard that she cried when she read this. She was well-known to the staff at The Shrine of the Nativity and was a long-time friend of Father Gilbert (born as Garrett Michael Stack in 1913): They both grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.

   

04) Mar 06, 1972 - As close as I'll get to time travel

LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

Grady, an aspiring science-fiction writer, speculates about the future and ponders the mysteries of TIME. "Where will I be on December 31, 1972... [Answer: San Francisco & Soda Springs, California], will everyone I know still be alive? [NO. There will be a death in the family on September 13] ...Where will I be on January 1, 2000?" [At an apartment in Corona, California, with my wife, Celia, and daughter, Elora]

March72Grady makes a series of completely inaccurate predictions, then sets up an impromptu Temporal Experiment designed to visit the near future with April72Grady: "What unimagined events will have transpired between now (Apr. 2), and when I wrote this (March 6)? We shall see." What could we learn from a trip thru time that takes us just one month ahead? Surprisingly, quite a bit... Find out in the entry for April 02 (Easter Sunday) - Tinkering with Time.

This bold experiment in virtual time travel extends even further as we discover in the entry for Sep 22, where we see this note: "Once again I ventured into the future from March 6, 1972, 8:12 P.M. What would I find? Would I be happy or sad?" That page provides the answers. 

You might say this is all just tricks with words on paper. There's no authentic scientific experiment here, it's just semantics. Let's consider the facts: At 7:51pm on Monday, March 6, 1972, a 17-year-old projects his thoughts forward in time to find out where he's going to be at the end of the year, and even at the end of the century. Now he knows. Mission accomplished. Then he invokes his nearby future-self to learn what will happen in less than a month -- and on April 2 he reports back to himself.

Today we have gone beyond any boundaries he'd imagined... 42 years later, he/I is/am connecting with memories of that teenager and filling in the gaps between him/me at 17 and him/me at 59. PLUS, amazingly, in the constantly shifting Present Moment, the entire world has instant access to the results of this exercise. It is a globally shared temporal-spanning experience among all parties concerned, including him, me, you, us, them, and even all the unborn folks who are reading this 42 years from now in the year 2056. We have literally gone Back to the Future, the Past & All Points in between.

Yes, of course it's all in your head: Where else would you perceive the effects of TIME? Okay, let's travel back to the past again... 

05) Apr 14, 1972 - Epic exploration of Newport Bay

LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

This is when I risked life-and-limb to explore the great wilderness that existed beyond my humble mobile home park. It took awhile. I got home late and learned that mom had already called the Newport Beach Harbor Patrol to search for my pathetic missing body. This extensive entry spills over into April 15.

NEXT WEEK: Top 20 Entries from 1972 - Part 2 (6 to 10)

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]

Jan 19 - Last day before Dad comes

Wednesday, January 19, 1972
LOCATION: Bethlehem, South Dakota

10:30 AM
I just got up, after Brad and Keith came in. Matt's still in bed (in the Abbott's cabin: bunk house). It snowed last night -- all the trees look flocked. At 6:30 last night the sky was clear, the stars were out, and the moon was visible -- at 8:00 it was snowing. At nine o'clock the sky was clear, the stars were out, and the moon was gone. Now the sky's overcast. Oh well, this is supposed to be our last day here. Dad's coming tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.

"Have you ever seen wethurr like this before?"
"I'd say that's the worst spell of weather we've ever seen."

7:00 PM
Just finished dinner. I haven't done much today. I finished Zelazny's "Moment of the Storm," read Kuttner's "Absolom," skimmed through "Have Time & Be Free" to get some words and theories about time, and I invented a few more temporal laws.

Yesterday I wrote a letter to Grandma Dot and mailed it. The sky is clear now, but a few hours ago it was overcast. Matt went out with his camera and took a picture. Phil got back today. I recharged the car's battery last night, so the car should work all right tomorrow. Matt slept until 12:30 -- the only time I can remember that I woke up before him. I had to go wake him up for lunch.

I wonder how I can fill up the rest of this page -- so far, I've been pretty good about that but I can't think about anything else to write. Perhaps a famous quote would be appropoeaux (let me try that again) perhaps a famous quote might be apropos.

Perhaps.