#83 - Don't Like Diary Snooping

No Stressful News

I call Dad daily. He's been on lockdown in his room for months now. He tells me how many birds are at his feeder and I ask what's on the front page of the Springfield paper. But not today. The news has been too much for him.  

Today, I pulled out my purple and green diary from 1967 and I asked Dad to pick a day, any day.

I remember when I was 10, asking my dad to fix the lock on this little diary. When he returned the repaired diary, I fretted that he had peeked. 

I'm sure he wasn't tempted back then. He probably already knew that my diary was filled with details about what I ate and watched on TV.

Dad picked October 5 and I laughed as I hunted for the page, written in pencil. "I was 10, Dad. I can't promise anything very exciting in this diary!" Then I began, "Dear Diary,"

There wasn't much to that day, but Dad and I could both visualize our home in Tallahassee. When I read, "Then Dad and I made pizzas." we both laughed. We talked about Dad's pizza making days. Dad seemed amused, so I had him pick more random dates. We were both reminded of so many good moments.

       When our family went shark tooth hunting at Venice beach and I found 94!
       Summer evening, when Dad took the kids to his rehearsal at Asolo Theatre.
       Mom and Dad went out to dinner and the kids made prank phone calls...
       We had a birthday party for our boxer, Casey

We went on for a little bit and then I grabbed another diary.  

June 3 1969

I told Dad I would open it up and see what our family was doing 51 years ago today. I tried to make him guess, but he had no idea.

June 3rd, turned out to be the day we packed up and left our apartment in Florence, Italy. Our family of 6, gathered at "The Villa" with all the FSU students, headed back to the States.

"The girls were all crying (sad to leave) and the boys were pitying them..."  Dad and I laughed and remembered the emotional day, with college students singing, Leaving on a Jet Plane.

My diary rambled on about traveling with the Florida State group to Pisa, then flying to NYC... Finally at JFK, Dad left Mom and the kids on the curb, with 6 cartfuls of boxes and luggage. Dad retrieved the car from storage and our Ford Galaxy convertible looked gigantic, after tiny Italian cars. 

Once the car was loaded, Dad barely fit. He headed off to Greyhound, while Mom and we kids followed in a taxi. (I guess we sent the stuff on to Florida, before hitting the road.) There was a stop for our first American hamburger in 6 months. Then we headed for Princeton, where we arrived at midnight, to stay with family friends. 

​Crazy! What a fun tangent with Dad. We both were transported back to a time, before the days of airport security or Ubers. No cell phones or GPS to help with travel logistics, and no car air-conditioning, for us. And long, long, long before Coronavirus!