I am very fortunate to have a diary that I kept for the first part of 1980. I was eight years old at the time and was surprisingly faithful at filling it in…all the way up until April 5. What was so special about this date, I have no idea.
In reading through it, I find the information to be nearly invaluable to me, as it immediately opens a floodgate of memories with the simple scrawling of a few sentences. I find the entries to be a perfect representation of how I feel about this time period, while being incredibly hilarious and an amazingly accurate indicator of the interests that would tightly grip me in the future.
I will transcribe the entries here as best as I can read my handwriting. The entries – with all misspellings intact- will be in bold, with my contemporary comments in italics.
January 1: New Years day 1980 – Went to Bill and Dottie’s house. I liked the basketball game.
–This refers to my cousin Rob’s electronic handheld basketball game, with all the technical wizardry of a game of Pong.
January 2: Back to school today. I went to a Volleyball Game. I kicked the ball. I played Basketball. and I played air hockey.
January 3: after school Mark came over with his Big Trak Then Lee came over.
—In case you’re wondering, this is a Big Trak at left.
January 4: After school Mom wasn’t home so we went snow shoveling. But we didn’t get anywhere so I came home and played with Charcoal.
–Charcoal was our cat, not the grilling necessity.
January 5: I went to the Doctor. Then at 5:00 I went to see the “guess who” in person!
–We had taped the Steven Spielberg film Duel off of television. One of the commercial breaks contained an advertisement for the Guess Who’s Greatest Hits album. Based on the song clips played during the ad, I decided that the Guess Who was my favorite band. I’m not even sure if I had gotten one of their albums yet at this time, but my Dad took me to a car show at the Hara Arena and the Guess Who – in some incarnation – performed live. For what it’s worth (zero? nothing?), I snapped this shot of them playing.
January 6: Today I went sled riding with Lee.
January 7: After school mark came over with his toy helicopter.
January 8: After school I went over to Mark’s house.
January 9: after school Mark came over with his Big Track. Then I went to Mark’s house. The Lee came to Mark’s house. Then Lee and I went to my house.
January 10: After school Lee came over and we played with my tape recorder.
January 11:After school, I went to Kenny’s house. Then Lee came to Kenny’s house to play with me. But Kenny’s mom said I couldn’t go becasue my Mom wasn’t home. Later Lee came to tell me that my Dad was home. So me and Lee went to my house to play with my tape recorder.
January 12: I got up and called Sunil to see if he could come over and he said Yes. then Sunil went home. at 7:15 we went to see “Going in Style.”
January 13: at church I Baby sat for three babys and got a Quarter. after church we went to Krogers. Later on tonight we watched “That Darn Cat” on TV.
January 14: after school MoM’s cardclub came over. But MoM Didn’t want us to stay. So we went to Grandma’s house.
January 15: After school I found a kitten and took it to Kenny’s house and we Played with it till supper time.
See more diary entries by clicking here.
Bypass the diary and continue with 1980…
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