Wednesday, August 11th, 1976

Over the river, I ended up getting nothing but dinner for myself, lottery tickets for Dad and a belated birthday card for Mom's birthday yesterday that I forgot. Avoided HUSTLER.

There's a Columbus Con this weekend but rather than take the bus up, I think I'll order one of those Beatles "underground" records. The ad was back in TBG today. They seem so weird!

I wrote Chapter Two of my comics history, on Superman.

William Shatner appeared on STORYBOOK SQUARES...AS CAPTAIN KIRK!!

Terry says we're still on for the movie tomorrow.

I'm starting to consider college.

NOTES: I can't believe I forgot my mother's birthday. Dad usually made a real big deal out of it. Sigh...

STORYBOOK SQUARES had been a Saturday morning kids version of the game show HOLLYWOOD SQUARES for a while and it continued a few time a year on the regular version of the show. It featured the usual celebs only dressed up as fairy tale. literary or otherwise familiar characters. In this case Shatner was Kirk for the only time between the original series and the first film in 1979.

"underground" records were what we came to know as bootlegs. Although not comics, someone had been running ads for them in TBG and as a Beatles fan the names of these unreleased songs were magic to me. I decided to order the record. Over the years--especially after the arrival of the Internet--I've been able to hear hundreds of Beatles bootlegs, many of them excellent quality, others literally unlistenable. Seen above is my very first Beatles bootleg LP.

The line about college hurts. I didn't go. I was one of the smartest kids in school but I didn't know anything about getting into a college and neither did my parents. No one told me anything either. I kept expecting someone to do so in my Senior Year but...Finally, very late in the school year, a counselor called me to her office and asked me if I was going to college. Since I had heard nothing and had no idea what I should have been doing, I said no. At some point later I was told I had been eligible for a full scholarship as the second highest male grade average in the class and the outstanding English Student Award recipient. Sigh... A few years ago when I was working I took a single 12 week college course for my job (online). I aced it with a perfect grade point average.