May 11 - Training for LA Games canoe races**

Thursday, May 11, 1972 - Page 132
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

12:00 AM
Goddup at 11:30 A.M. when Chunk came over. He & me walked to the Sea Scout Base, and embarked on a canoe paddling excursion at noon. We paddled and paddled and paddled. And paddled. And paddled some more. He seems to think he's training me for the 2-guy canoe race at Hansen Dam. Good grief. Oh well... I want to have experience at everything, I might as well start with something I don't want to do. So we paddled.

[See May 20 - Competing in LA Games canoe races]

Finished at 2:00, cause Chunk had to get Winnie or something. Ran home and saw Glenn driving out of Winnie's old community, so we chatted with him. As it was, we were blocking traffic, so he drove to the trailer, and I challenged Chunk to a race to Grandlydia (we were at the entrance of Eye Sore Park at the time). So we sprinted, he with the two paddles, me with the bag full of stuff. He won, of course, but it was all worth while when the office blared through the speakers: "The speed limit is 5 miles an hour... slow down!"

I believe, however, the admonishment was for Glenn who was following us in his car. They rapped in the trailer, and I wandered down the beach to swim to the raft and tan m' hide. Came back, and Jordan caught me, and we played a couple of games of chess. Then I got rid of him. Only minutes ago, I finished cutting up and disposing of the bulky comic collection. The work that now remains for me in that department is to organize what remains of it. 'Tis now 12:15:15 A.M.  -- THE END

May 10 - Childhood's End

Wednesday, May 10, 1972 - Page 131
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

11:08:59 PM
Went out in the boat, it being a fair day. I tried to get a fish with the lure, but after 'bout half an hour it got caught on something underneath and the line broke. So I paddled out to the islands of back bay. I found a good secluded spot to sun bathe. I'm reading "Childhood's End" like I was supposed to last year in S.F., Mary's class. Din't get around to it in those days. I've been working on my comic strip collection too -- still trying to get it finished. 11:14:07 P.M. ------- Tha's all

1953 Ballantine Books First Edition Hardcover

May 09 - Major mail delivery

Tuesday, May 9, 1972 - Page 130
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

12:00 AM
Goddup 'bout 11:00. Got mail at about noon. Got a letter from Soozwol today. Got five dollars when dad came over from a lunch break to drop off the mail (among which was Sooz' letter; vol. 1: Man, Myth, & Magic; a Time-Life Photography book and a Life mag). Today was sunny but too cool to go out so I stayed in, working on my comic collection, making great headway. I'll pro'ly have it out of the way by tomorrow.

That seems to sum up today... let's see... yes, I think that's it... hmmm... that does seem to be all... lemme think... uhuh, I do believe I din't do anything else noteworthy -- oh, the cat got another gopher. I don't know how she got it in, the windows and doors were shut. I tossed the clicking little fellow outside and it escaped safely. Well, that's about it... I think that about wraps it up... no more to put down... hmmm... yep, that's all. 12:08:00 A.M. --- Finis.

May 08 - Kayak-fishing with Mike in Back Bay

Monday, May 8, 1972 - Page 129
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

(1:09:00 AM 5/9/1972)
Goddup today at 11:00 A.M. when Mike came over. He took the day off, and we immediately went to buy doughnuts at Winchell's, riding on his bike. Then we went to Sav-on and he bought fishing lines, then we came back to Eye-sore park (I got the mail -- the Bible came along with a letter from Tom) and I bought a feather lure from the Bait Shop, and we went out, it being a sunny day. I wasn't out five minutes before I caught a fish -- a kelp bass, I do believe -- dragging the line behind the kayak. It was only about 8 inches long, so I threw it back. As it happened, however, after about 3 hours, that first fish was the only one we caught. Oh well. About 4:30, Mike left. By the way, I got hit by a big mullet today, right across the face. Couldn't catch it though.

Kelp Bass (Paralabrax clathratus)

I took a bath, mom came home and made food, and right on cue Chunk came over to eat it. Mom left for bridge at 6:30, and Chunk & I played chess. I couldn't find a board, so we used a checkered dish towel. Miraculously, I checkmated him on the first game, trapping his Queen deviously and doing away with her, then moving to checkmate the old guy in a complete set up. The two following games I lost, of course. So Chunk left 'bout 7:45 on his bicycle, returned 'bout 8:30 on Norton and he & me rode to Coco's where Winnie's working and we tormented her as I had a hot fudge sundae and he had a banana split.

He expects me to participate in the races at Hansen Dam. He expects me to win the Junior races. Good Grief [See May 20, 1972, for an account of this race]. He just finished Slaughterhouse Five. I finished Cat's Cradle yesterday. We got back by 9:30 and I watched TV and washed the dishes. Nixon's mining N. Viet Nam's harbors to keep out Russia & China supplies. More on that in the history books. Tis now 1:24:26 A.M. FINIS. 

May 07 - A family-fun day at Bayshore beach

Sunday, May 7, 1972 - Page 128
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

[This day is referenced in the April 30 entry, "The Past Challenges the Future"]
7:30 PM
I goddup today at about 12:30 when Mike & Laramée came over. They went to the beach to throw the frisbee. The day was sunny but fairly cool and the tide was low. They came back and M&L and me went along Back Bay Dr., and then to Bob's Big Boy to take advantage of the free hamburger coupon, then came back home and gave mom the free hamburger. She was working on the house again, and she finished the dishes.

Mike & I went to the beach to throw the frisbee, but it wasn't long before he threw it waaay out, so I had to swim for it. I stayed on the raft and we threw it back and forth alot. Then we went back to the trailer so he could get swimming trunks on, which he had in the trunk, then he, me, and Laramée went out to the beach again. He swam out to the raft and lost his sunglasses -- I swam out to look for his sunglasses and lost my Schwinn cap. We never recovered either of them. So we threw the frisbee around, and a crowd of bothersome kids collected. They brought a couple of plastic dishes out and tried throwing them. The hard, sharp dishes were a hazard so Mike tossed one out to sea -- and it sank. And the mother of the dishes was our next door neighbor, and she complained about it.

Any way, we eventually abandoned that activity, and started playing badmitten, since he had racket and a birdie in his trunk. We did fairly well at that, hitting fifty shots in a row (such excitement). He got tired and L&M left at 5:30. I went shopping for salt, ketchup, mayonnaise, milk & meat and got an Analog and Star Trek 6. Now, Barbara is here for sympathy [Barbara was Larry's wife -- they split up].

May 06 - Chuck & I go paddling in rough seas**

Saturday, May 6, 1972 - Page 127
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

11:30 PM
Chunk called at about 10:00 A.M. and said we could go out in a canoe for Laguna at two o'clock. He's got a week off cause there's no work at his place of employment -- he's a ditch digger and there aren't any more ditches to be dug. So at one thirty he came over (prior to that I almost finished reading "The Sirens of Titan" -- I was on page 308, of a 319 page book. I'll finish it before I go to sleep tonight).

Mom has been doing extensive house cleaning, and Chunk & I had to remove the big white cabinet from behind the Cabaña. We couldn't fit it in the trashcan so we set it outside like an out house. So mom drove me & Chunk to the Sea Scout Base where he procured an aluminum canoe and paddles. We didn't make it to Laguna. We didn't even try -- I was busy learning how to paddle a canoe.

We got out into the open sea among the liquid mountains and valleys of the ocean, and somehow we managed to stay upright. Some guy in a sailboat with two or three other people, and a beer in his hand, and a mustache under his nose, recognized me and verbalized several greetings. It must've been Matt. I was in no condition to recognize anybody among those waves. It was a rough sea, and an overcast day but the traffic in the bay was heavy. We paddled till 7:30, twice passing Eyesore Park (coming and going) so we stopped there twice.

Afterwards, Mom and I went to the Orange Drive-in to see "Buck & the Preacher" (Sidney Potter & Belafonte). I'm exhausted and have a headache. -- 11:41:35 -- FINIS

May 05 - Visit from OC Deputy Marshal

Friday, May 5, 1972 - Page 126
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

12:30 PM
At about 10:30 Chunk called: Norton is sick (that's his bike we were going to take to Ensenada), so we aren't going, which is just fine since I've got a lotta stuff to get done here. I went back to sleep (I've been awful sleepy lately when trying to get up -- I could stay in bed all day if I let me. Pro'ly because I don't eat enough -- just one meal a day. I'm still fairly healthy though), and at 11:30 or so, the doorbell rang thrice, but I was asleep so couldn't answer it. I eventually got up to get the mail (another rejection from F&SF for M-Q, naturally), and on the door handle was the card above [actually, below]. I guess they haven't caught Mike yet.

2:00 PM
I called the # above, he wasn't there. A little while ago he returned the call, and I told him I had last heard he was in jail in Pomona 8 months ago. They're after him for a minor traffic violation. [Mike McEvers was a good friend and former schoolmate of Chuck's -- in 1971, he often stayed at our home and occasionally got into trouble with the law]

9:00 PM
I'm now on page 150 in Cat's Cradle, and 250 in Sirens of Titan... I've been sitting here for a minute trying to think of something else to write, but I can't think of anything, so instead I'll just write down my perplexity at my inability to come up with something to write, and enlarge on that theme until this page is finished, an endeavor which, ironically, is being accomplished by... never mind, I just thought of something: A PERSON WHO USES METAPHORS IS LIKE A PAINTER WITHOUT A BRUSH --- (that's original... think about it) -- 9:07:33 P.M. -- FINI

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?

May 03 - BLAH!

Wednesday, May 03, 1972 - 124
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

5:27:13 PM

BLAH!

Tis now 5:27:24 P.M. Fini.


[From 2013: That entry is a bit brief so I will add something here]

Life is, in fact, a battle...
Evil is insolent and strong;
Beauty enchanting but rare;
Goodness very apt to be weak;
Folly very apt to be defiant;
Wickedness to carry the day;
Imbeciles to be in great places;
People of sense in small;
And Mankind generally unhappy.

But the world as it stands
Is no illusion, no phantasm,
No evil dream of the night --
We wake up to it again
Forever and ever.

We can neither forget it
Nor deny it
Nor dispense with it.

-- Henry James, 1878

Henry James, American writer, 1843 -1916

May 02 - A family gathering**

Tuesday, May 2, 1972 - Page 123

LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

11:06:46 PM
I finished "Slaughterhouse 5." How can they make a movie outa that? I'm now reading "The Sirens of Titan," and "Cat's Cradle," both Vonnegut's. Am on page 97 in the first, and 18 in the second. I've been doing tentative thought-collecting for the first phase of "Morrison Epic," and I'll pro'ly have the thing finished in a couple of months (that would make it July. Gad! I hope I go faster than that). It was another warm sunny day, so I had to go out. It's been that way every day for weeks! Maybe it'll change, I hope.

1969 Delacort First Edition Hardcover

1959 Dell First Edition Paperback

1963 First Edition Hardcover

At least today I was able to get the room superficially tidied. I sent "The Typewriter" to F&SF. They've also got "Moira Quest." Twice as good a chance of selling something, maybe. Jordan bugged me some more today (Uh oh, he's still got the radio. He likes to hear the short-wave buzz.), and tomorrow I gotta babysit for him cause his mom's going away for a day or so.

L&M [sister Laramée & brother-in-law Michael Sarason] came over today in their new Plymouth Duster. They were followed shortly by C&W [brother Chuck & his girlfriend Wendy Carpenter], so the place was full of folks. The whole family, s'matter of fact, including spouses, minus Pop. So that was today.
I washed the dishes whilst everyone was here so I'd have something to do, and Chunk wanted a book to read, so I gave him "Slaughterhouse 5," and "The New Centurions." Winnie brought me "Childhood's End" which I should've read a year ago, and "Cat's Cradle," but I found out I already had a copy of that, so she kept it. Tis now 11:20:03.

J. E. Hoover died today incidentally. And the North Viet's are winning the war. Rest in peace, Nixon.

FINIS  (MY PENMANSHIP IS LOUSY!!)

May 01 - SoCal Socializing**

Monday, May 1, 1972 - Page 122
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

MAY DAY!

11:25 PM
Took a bit of a (an?) hiatus. During which every darned day was sunny, so I, of course had to go out. I've been kayaking with Mike Sarason [brother-in-law] several times, and a kid adopted me (Jordan Sutton -- I was walking to mail a letter to Soozwol, and he noted the Star Trek Sciences emblem on my red Harbor High shorts. "Star Trek sign!" he shouted, and, as a fellow fan, I had to show him my souvenirs). He's sticking to me like fly paper, and that provides added incentive for me to be out and away in private Back Bay. Jord's mom, Tish, is a science fiction connoisseur too. She's a fairly nice person. GAD! My social life is growing.

The Wonder-Witch next door with the noisy parrots, wind chimes, and kids talked at me as I was re-patching Patch, so now I have to say "Hi" every time I see her. She's a fairly nice person too. Then there's the old robust gray haired good looking amiable character who I ran into on the Eye Sore raft a month ago or so, so we chat occasionally, mostly about Back Bay fish. Yesterday Mike and Me went spear fishing. We didn't spear one lousy fish, but as I was leaving after seven fruitless hours, one little grunion jumped into my boat. An obvious suicide. I'm using Chunk's Musky Mongoose now, Mike uses Glenn's.

Friday (or was it Saturday?) NO, it was Friday [April 28, 1972] -- Mom & I went to see "Puppet on a Chain" and "Straw Dogs," during which trip the transmission killed itself. Returning noisily to Eye Sore Park, it was learned the Reverse din't work, and eventually the car became wedged in the road, and we got Chunk to come over and at length managed to get it repositioned parallel to our trailer.

Earlier that day I had had the car to go to school in (no connection with the busted transmission). I went to school because of a call I got Wednesday from Timothy Hourigan who said Mary (Lyons) wanted to contact me. So I had to write a story to go to school with, so I wrote "The Typewriter" in a couple of hours. It is the best story I have yet written, and it has no plot. I typed it Thursday [April 27, 1972] whilst watching the Apollo 16 landing (on Sunday [April 23, 1972] Mike & I returned from kayaking in time to see the LEM [Lunar Excursion Module] lift off from Luna -- "Live from the Moon").

Apollo 16 LM Orion on the lunar surface

Sunday, April 23, 1972: LM launches "Live from the Moon." To see a NASA documentary about this mission, go to April 20 - Apollo 16 moon landing.

Went to school Friday [April 28, 1972] to see Mary, and gave her the 1949 Fantastic Mag I had -- the one with the quaint little article about "Raymond Douglas Bradbury, the Fair Haired Boy of S.F." On her wall, among other stuff, are my Martian Chronicles and 2001 drawings. I also let her read "The Typewriter," and she said it was imitative of Bradbury, which is what I was attempting (dumb premise carried to pointless conclusion). He gets paid for writing that stuff. Why shouldn't I? Mary told me about the LA Con for the World Science Fiction Convention in September. I saw the gang, but mostly ignored the females.

My room is a mess. So is this page. I finished Bradbury's "I Sing the Body Electric!" (YUCK), and Zelazney's "Dream Master" (Intelligentsia master Hugo grabber. Fair.) Am now on page 133 of "Slaughterhouse-Five" (hmm). I'll havta see the movie.

A YEAR AGO: Trip to Europe ended.

My tan is progressing. After I get my room reorganized I must begin the "Morrison Epic." I'll get "The Typewriter" sent tomorrow. There is publicity about some guy having discovered the tenth planet in our Solar System. Maybe so. Remember folks, you heard it first here! Tis now 120205 AM.

Apr 30 - TIME-WARP: The Past challenges the Future**

Sunday, April 30, 1972 - Page 121
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

Today: (see page 120)  Tomorrow: (see page 122)
Next week: (see page 128)  Last week: (see page 114)
One hundred days Ago: (see page 20)
One hundred days Hence: (see page 220)
Seventeen years ago: (see hospital records, Dayton, Ohio)
Seventeen years hence: (See "Life" magazine, page 34)

Photos from 1971 Europe trip

(1) Harbor in Capri. (2) Guess. (3) Tom Hildebrand truckin' down an Italian Highway (when our second bus got a flat tire). (4) This disheveled reject from a sleazy rider movie is none other than what's his name from Newport Beach, California. What can I say, besides "Yuck!"

Hold on here, that bit of time-manipulation at the top of this page presents an interesting challenge: From the perspective of the future (NOW), let me respond to this seemingly frivolous exercise in known and unknown temporal events...

Today: (see page 120)
This is a lame gimmick that keeps referring us back to the previous day until we arrive at the source: Page 112, Friday, April 21, 1972, where it reports, "Today: Nothing much occurred."
Tomorrow: (see page 122) 
Monday, May 1, 1972 -- MAY DAY! Yikes, there's a huge mass of text that I'm going to have to type up next. I wonder what's going on there... We'll find out tomorrow. See page 122.

Next week: (see page 128) 
Sunday, May 7, 1972 -- My sister & brother-in-law will visit Bayshore Park to spend a day of fun in the sun at our private beach.
Last Week: (see page 114) 
Here are multiple points in time mashed into one: It features a photo taken in Rome on April 20, 1971, which was pasted into this day (Sunday, April 23, 1972) on August 4, 1972, PLUS a photo of Sue Latka from Easter 1972, added to this page sometime in April 2013.

One hundred days Ago: (see page 20)
Thursday, January 20, 1972 -- On this day, my father arrived in South Dakota to begin driving Matt & Me back home to Newport Beach. 
One hundred days Hence: (see page 220)
I will now flip thru the Pages of Time to see what happened on this arbitrary date, 3 months & 1 week into the future: Monday, August 7, 1972 -- Hmmm... I was a guest at the Latka home in Chicago, and we all watched films & slides of our 1971 European vacation... OMG!  That night, Sue tells me a "deep dark secret" about her family. Whoa, I'd totally forgotten about that. Even now, after more than 40 years, I wonder if I should reveal the intimate information mentioned in this entry. Would it upset people's lives even now? Maybe. Oh well, I'll decide on that later...

Seventeen years ago: (see hospital records, Dayton, Ohio)
That's a reference to the day I was born 17 years earlier. 
Seventeen years hence: (See "Life" magazine, page 34)
Jumping 17 years ahead, here is the issue of LIFE magazine from April 1989.

Sorry, I can't tell you what's on page 34. If you have a copy of this edition, please let me know... [Update from January 2014: I bought this issue on eBay, so I can now tell you that on page 34 is a full-page photo of Mike Tyson, age 22, taking a punch in the face]

BTW, LIFE ended its run as a weekly magazine in December, 1972, when this "TrueTimeTravel" journal also ends (that'll be December 31, 2013, our time). LIFE continued with intermittent special issues until 1978, then as a monthly publication from 1978 to 2000. 

See every page of LIFE's final weekly issue:
Dec 29, 1972

It is interesting to consider that the apparently random dates conjured up by this 17-year-old version of Grady happened to hit upon (A) the most startling revelation in this entire diary (August 7, 1972), and (B) the most significant year in my entire life:

1989

That is the year when my only child was born. Nothing else I have ever done or ever will do can surpass the birth of my lovely, wonderful, talented daughter, Elora.

TIME-JUMP backwards 50 years: Here's "Life" in 1922