Tuesday, May 11th, 1976

Back to school. I saw a lot of Marie today. more or less handled or made plans to get a handle on all of my make-up work. Got another "A" on my journal. Read two one act plays in preparation for writing one of my own. Had a really hard time catching on to the new Algebra I missed yesterday.

In the grand scheme of things, I'd have to say that at present it is "worse" which it must be before it gets better but I think now is the lull before the storm which precedes the "better" part. Weird.

NOTES: "Weird" was my own personal "cussword." At some point in the early seventies I began utilizing it to mean whatever I needed to to mean, much in the vein of what has long since happened to the dreaded "F-word." In surprise, I would shout, "Weird!" If I banged my thumb on something, I'd most likely say, "That's weird!" If something was cool, I'd nod approvingly and say, "Weird!" What can I say? I was weird.

Monday, May 10th, 1976

Weird day! Awaking with a stomachache, I chose to stay home from school. Even though the pain persisted, it didn't get any better or worse based on whether or not I ate anything. Weird.

Anyway, I got out my FF's and Spideys and spent most of the day working on my team project. It's pretty amateurish but at the same time I think it's pretty well done. It's always darkest before the dawn. Just another little ways to go and then freedom from the eleventh grade!

Speaking of "darkest," the whole block was without power for a while tonight. Never did hear why.

NOTES: Forgot to mention that last week's number one song in 1976 was John Sebastian's comeback tune, WELCOME BACK. Used as the theme song for--and I assume written for--the TV series, WELCOME BACK KOTTER, I still think it was one of the best songs of the seventies and is of a style that remains undated even today. Years later, I would become 'Net friends with Mark Evanier, one of the later writers on WELCOME BACK KOTTER and one of the first people to pay me for my work as a professional writer when I assisted with cartoon voice actress June Foray's autobiography.

Sunday, May 9th, 1976

Mother's Day. Mom got a flower at church. Janet Plummer was in the choir at church. Didn't even know she went there.

Saw a Cagney film on TV after we got home but spent the rest of the day writing and rewriting homework that I never was able to finish. It got me very depressed by that point.

Finally I felt some better and watched the Super Games of ALMOST ANYTHING GOES. Also watched the great Michael Dunn on WILD, WILD WEST and the great Patrick McGoohan on a rerun of COLUMBO.

I didn't have to take out the trash because I went ahead and brought it up yesterday.

Wings' SILLY LOVE SONGS is up to number five on the Top Ten this week. I still say it'll make number one!

NOTES: Michael Dunn, seen here, may well have been the best "little person" actor of them all. Throughout his career, he appeared on stage and on television in many challenging, non-sterotypical roles, notably on GET SMART, STAR TREK and in a recurring villain role on Robert Conrad's western spy series,. THE WILD, WILD WEST. He had passed in 1973 and this was perhaps the first time I had seen him since that point.

Patrick McGoohan remains one of my favorite actors and certainly my favorite COLUMBO villain (in at least three episodes!). His series, THE PRISONER has been a favorite for 40 years. His series, RAFFERTY, about an eclectic, grouchy doctor, was a prototype of HOUSE. He was also Disney's SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH and Agent John Drake, TV's DANGER MAN (known in the US as SECRET AGENT) which I received a DVD box set of just this year on my birthday.

Since I don't mention anything, apparently I didn't get my mother anything for Mother's Day except the card I spoke of yesterday. What a jerk I was! Sorry, Mom.

Saturday, May 8th, 1976

Another bad day started with IT again. Tensions ran high all day, in fact, and will probably be worse to tomorrow but I hope not.

When I went over the river later on, all I got was a Mother's day card. Meanwhile, Mom was out shopping and finally saw the Donny and Marie album so she bought it for me.

Saw the Laurel and Hardy pie fight sequence again...always fun. Then I watched the BRENDA STARR movie.

NOTES: The BRENDA STARR movie was a pilot based on Dale Messick's classic comic strip about a red-haired reporter always getting in and out of trouble. It was done tongue in cheek and was almost a continuation of the "camp" shows of the sixties. The best part of the film was that the titular heroine (pun intended I suppose) was played by my favorite "Bond Girl," Jill St. John. It still wasn't very good, however. Ms. St. John went on to marry actor Robert Wagner after a number of high profile beaus that included Dr. Henry Kissinger. Brenda Starr was given another pilot in the nineties, this time starring a miscast Brooke Shields. It was even worse. The newspaper strip itself ceased to exist as of the beginning of 2011.

Friday, May 7th, 1976

Basically another drab day. We got out early but, as usual, I still had to wait on the bus so I didn't get home 'til 3:15 and I had to stand all the way.

Terry Bragg accidentally killed himself.

At school, we had to turn our Journals in again. Today was the Prom. Well, tonight rather. Nothing to do with me, of course.

To complete my bad day, IT also happened yet again.

McCartney replaces Linda Blair on my wall at least for now. Makes a good change. In fact, the only good news today was I learned more about the Wings concert coming up. I couldn't keep the article but it said they were doing 26 songs in two hours and fifteen minutes...and 5 of the songs are Beatles tunes!! I just hope I can get through it as easily as I have such other crises as the Dayton thing which turned out wonderful. Boy, it should be great!

NOTES: The reason I considered this a bad day was really Terry Bragg.

Terry Bragg was a teenager a year or two younger than me. He lived at the side edge of the alley right behind the Social Security office where we worked doing after hours cleaning. He had three brothers, two a bit older and one my age who had long been what is now referred to as a "frenemy." Sometimes we would hang out together, other times he would beat me up for my lunch money. I didn't really know Terry all that well but his death kind of hit me hard...in spite of the simple mention of it here. It was the first time someone I actually knew had died of a drug-related death. His body had been found along the Licking River bank just past where it intersects with the Ohio. He was said to have turned blue from huffing PAM. I had never even heard of that and certainly couldn't even imagine anyone I knew doing such a thing. To this day, when I see the stuff in stores, I remember Terry...a boy I barely knew... and then buy the generic brand.

Thursday, May 6th, 1976

I almost decided to stay home today but I went. Talked myself into going. Not a bad day in the long run. More of an average day.

Mr. Spurlock said that three of his students made it into HORIZONS. I sure hope I'm one!

At school we watched a documentary on Dr. Sam Sheppard.

I wrote today's journal entry on Sherlock Holmes.

Saw an add for a new sci-fi mag paying for short stories--a penny per every two words. I certainly plan on submitting some of mine.

Hopefully I can get Mom to call Greyhound and make the arrangements to get to Louisville tomorrow.

Saw Vincent Price on TV tonight in "A Portable Feast(sic)."

NOTES: I am at a total loss as to what I watched with Vinnie that evening. I find several things entitled A PORTABLE FEAST but none with Mr. Price. I find nothing with Vincent Price that was listed as airing on a national level that evening. Not a clue. Enjoyed it enough to note it here, I guess.

Dr. Sam Sheppard was an Ohio man convicted of killing his wife in 1954. The conviction was overturned a decade later and he was controversially exonerated in a new trial after years in prison. What we actually watched that day was NOT a documentary but, in fact, a docudrama TV movie that had originally aired a year before starring future A-TEAM star George Peppard as Dr. Sam.

Wednesday, May 5th, 1976

Got a few things over the river after school including one comic I somehow missed at the Con.

Tonight I wrote an entirely new short story for English!

After the Physics Exam, seniors just slide out of the year.

Saw Linda on several EXORCIST commercials tonight. Funny how I had six months of anticipation and trouble to see it a couple years ago and now I have the opportunity and I don't need to!

NOTES: I'm not sure what that line about the seniors meant. Perhaps their school year ended earlier so they could spend time with graduation preparation?

I had become obsessed with seeing THE EXORCIST after seeing a write-up in TIME at school just before the film was released. This was not so much that I was a horror film buff (although I was) but I had immediately crushed on Linda Blair from the first pic I saw of her real self. The problem was that the film had not opened widely in Cincinnati and was nowhere to be seen either downtown, in Northern Kentucky or at any of the suburban venues on my bus routes. At one point, I had convinced my dad to go with me and figured out an elaborate double bus route...but one of the buses never arrived and it was cold so we slipped into a nearby theater to watch a DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER reissue instead. Finally, six months later, THE EXORCIST opened in Covington and my mom (of all people!) went with me to see it. By that point, it couldn't possibly have lived up to all I'd heard about it. It didn't. I did, however, remain at least a tad fixated on Linda for decades afterwards!

Tuesday, May 4th, 1976

Finished the Superman book! I sure hope they show some of the episodes at Omnicon...which we are going to if I can ever get them to write and make the reservations! Soon!

Mom got home early again and had dinner ready by the time I got in.

I went back to Sherlock for half a story today. I'll get it finished eventually. Never seen a thicker book!

MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS was back tonight after two weeks off and it was now in a later time slot. I see where it's going to be late again next week.

NOTES: I'm pretty sure I never did completely finish that Sherlock Holmes book!

My mother worked in an old-fashioned bag company, running dangerous industrial sewing machines to make sacks out of burlap and other coarse materials. I never did know exactly what they were used for. The company also was a barrel works but she had nothing to do with that side of it. They were based right on the Ohio River. She took the bus out every morning at 7 and had to walk down a steep road from the bus stop. Worked there before I was born, took a few years off, went back when I was four. She was a tiny woman but a tireless worker and they loved her there. A few years after this, when she had been off sick with cancer for six months, a planned return to work was felled by the disease's return. The company retroactively retired her (she was 67) and the big boss came by to present her a much bigger than it should have been retirement fund check!

Monday, May 3rd, 1976

They showed us part of an animated version of ANIMAL FARM in school today to go along with the book we've been reading. Had some slight trouble with a Physics test last period. Only 21 more days of school left.

Mom home early again today. I read some more of the SUPERMAN book after I got home.

For lack of better TV fare, I ended up watching and enjoying TRUE GRIT for the third time this evening.

NOTES: ANIMAL FARM is, of course, George Orwell's satirical look at communism as told through the eyes of anthropomorphic farm animals. In 1954, it was also the subject of the very first feature-length animated movie ever made in the UK. It flopped as it looked like a kids film but most definitely wasn't. The movie was made by John Halas and Joy Batchelor who were partners both in life and animation.

Sunday, May 2nd, 1976

On a slightly rainy day, I had a most enjoyable time rediscovering George Reeves' SUPERMAN from spending the whole day reading the new book I got yesterday. I have a feeling he'll stay a hero of mine for a long time to come. I just wish they'd rerun those shows. I haven't seen them in years.

NOTES: As I wrote yesterday, THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN had been an early TV favorite. This book revived my interest in it even though it hadn't been seen in local reruns for at least five or six years...which is a long time to a teenager.

In 1988, I attended my one and only San Diego ComicCon. It was the year of Superman's 50th anniversary. As part of a celebration (in spite of the fact that Jerry Siegel, the character's creator, had to cancel due to illness), a relatively small number of us fans gathered in an out of the way room to watch some of the first season, black and white episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN on VHS. After a couple of episodes, the lights came up and Lois lane and Inspector Henderson--Phyllis Coates and Robert Shayne-- had snuck into the room bringing a giant "S" symbol shaped birthday cake for the Man of Steel! Everyone got some cake and we all settled in to watch a couple more episodes...this time with live commentary from actors who were there!

****EXTRA****1976 May Calendar

This is the image I saw as I flipped over the calendar on my bedroom wall on this date in 1976. Ironic, of course, in that THOR the movie opens this next week so here, once again in 2011, May is the month for THOR!

Saturday, May 1st, 1976

Got a great new SUPERMAN book that's mainly about the TV series! Also saw the DC Origins book but didn't have enough money. I also picked up a new Wings poster in Cincy and then took the bus over to Newport to catch Hitch's FAMILY PLOT!

While I was out, Mom picked me up the third of those classical music albums.

NOTES: SUPERMAN--SERIAL TO CEREAL by Gary Grossman is still one of the best books on a TV series. This was part of a series edited by Leonard Maltin, some of which were mass markets and some of which, like this one, were trade paperbacks. All of them were written with the true fan/buff in mind.

The George Reeves ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN TV series was an early favorite and I was devastated when I learned that Reeves had, in fact, died not long after I was born. This book was the first place I learned of the controversial circumstances surrounding that death.

Author Gary Grossman has gone on to a have an interesting life, himself. See here:

http://www.caucus.org/members/Grossman.html