Part II, starting October 15, 1978, begins the actual daily journal of Eric F. Magnuson. Degree attainments within arcane orders are reported without elaboration. The policy for "public affairs" orders within the Order of the Ten Rayed Star (TRS) is that activities are spelled out in public writings, but membership, for personal safety, must remain secret (1). Abbreviations following numerical degrees refer to attainment within various component orders of the Ten Rayed Star or other orders. For example, OYN pertains to the Order of Yggdrasil in the North. R+C applies to the Rosicrucian Order in San Jose California. All grade designations for events prior to 1977 were determined later.

In both sections descriptions of many things including living characters, automobiles, and houses are not included because of the great abundance of photographs available to the editor. Events recorded reflect only what the author considered worth recalling at the time of writing. This is usually just a small fraction of the total activity on any particular day, and represents unique or enjoyable events. Years of house restoration are not detailed, but a single day of mountain climbing or skiing may be elaborated at great length. Names are sometimes abbreviated for privacy.

In a very few places there is lewd and lascivious material. These entries are preceded by the designation: Warning - XXX Rated. The author has a well-deserved reputation for frolic with wicked, good-hearted, ladies in Boston and Salem and makes no apology for this. The reader pressed for time may wish to skip ahead to 1973 since the entire story is fairly commonplace up to that point.

Eric F Magnuson

3:32 PM, March 30, 1996

The Witch House, Lake Wildwood, California

________

The Copper Years(2)

1945

Spring. Pa builds antique shop attached to the red barn house in North Falmouth.

1946

Autumn 9:03 P.M., Hour of Odin, Day of Freya. I am born to Norma Johnston Young and Roy Carl Elof Magnuson at Toby Hospital, Wareham, Massachusetts, 9+ pounds (reports to the contrary are mythological). We live in white Federal house in N. Falmouth with a cat named Spike.

Fall. With Smitty we visit summer home of Theodore Roosevelt in Pocasset. I am bundled on seat of car. They smoke a lot.

1947

Spring. Move to the red barn house. Sometime hereabouts I get whooping cough.

Summer. Mike Todd and Joan Blondelle visit Pa's antique shop. I am in playpen outside. Mike Todd asks Pa and then picks me up and hugs me.

October 18. Age 1.

Yule. Enjoy wooden toy Dalmatian with wheels which makes delightful noise.

1948

Enjoy eating "slobabeeba" in high chair. Throw food. Also sit at kitchen table. Favorite things of mine are Gerber's Liver, pineapple upside-down cake, Carnation Evaporated Milk. "Choo Choo" usually prompts either parent to carry me to the window to see passing steam train. Joyfully sing "Dobadee, Lumalee" while looking for plums in the oven. Blue spatter-ware interior matches coffee pot. Find dead mouse in trap. Feel sad. Look for "figament" in my shoe. Play with wooden "cob coy" which reminds me of smoke stack at Woods Hole Oceanographic. Tilly, my baby-sitter, whose husband is a seaman, makes me a beanbag. Enjoy siting in sun on towel watching Ma hang out laundry. Have secret stash of slab marble under table in antique shop. Am amazed by umbrella stand with three carved bears (3). Grandma and Grandpa visit. While riding tricycle get a cut. Nurse Billy Burke, who rents the white house, looks at it and puts on bandage.

October 18. Age 2.

Fall. Get stickaburs all over me during grim adventure in back yard. We move to a trailer in Lincoln, while constructing house. "Back up, fly." Friends with Ben and Bunny Iris. Effie staying in Pompanesett. Hunters shooting near her house.

December. Go to stay at Grandma's house in Lexington.

Yule. Visit Curtis family in Reading.

1949

April. Priscilla(4) gives birth to Linda.

Spring. Move into Lincoln house. Spike is gone for 2 weeks. Pa makes sailboat from a piece of wood and we send it down the stream all the way to the sea. Play with Poison Sumac with no effect. Noise from Bedford Airport is intense. Eat at "Howdie Moonin" drive-in. I sing "Carousin down the riba on a Sunday apanoon." Mr. Green buys the red barn house. He is a quiet man. His wife is nervous and takes her own life. He remarries and buys carpet store near Shopper's World. Mrs. Quartermarsh sells the Turnpike house in Natick to Pa.

Summer. At Uncle John's farm I am singing "Lonely Little Petunia in the Onion Patch." See Silver Zephyr locomotive at Wood's Hole. Teddybears Pinnin, Ginnin, and Bobbie. Marvel at huge yellow-green stone in collar of one of Pa's merry-go-round horses. Splash in wooden tub on front lawn. Visit "Mrs. Cooodit," who gives me a summer squash. Enjoy when Hervy Hood says "Uga Boo Boo Uga!" Pa gives me an anti-aircraft shell and tells me the red, white, and blue also stands for "blood, bone, and guts." Also gives me reflectors off the old Ford truck. Ride with Pa bringing stuff up to Turnpike house from N. Falmouth. Move into Turnpike house. Tom at the little store across Speen Street has gray tiger cat named "Gray Glue." John Amobile has gold tooth.

October 18. Age 3.

Thanksgiving. Entire Clan Johnston visits for Yule, that is Effie, from Peoria, Priscilla and Hudson with Erk, Ralphie, and Linda. From Reading Massachusetts, Arlene and Bob Curtis with Carol Anne, Allan, and Joanie (5). Cousin Erk is a story unto himself. At age 17 he gets the flu, falls behind in his studies at MIT and leaves. He applies and is rejected by the University of Alabama (6). Next he steals a car, drives to El Reno, Oklahoma, and shoots a man during a robbery. He plans to have a fling in California and then take his own life. Is sentenced to 6-10 years and spends his 18th year in a penitentiary. Pill gets him paroled to St. Mary's where it turns out they can't help him because he needs more freedom. Pill contacts and visits Freda Fromm Reichmann (7) and gets Erk into Chestnut Lodge in Maryland at age 19 where he gets intensive therapy until age 21. He is diagnosed "sociopath." The problem here occurred thusly: Just after Erk is born, Pill develops pneumonia. In the hospital, they separate Erk from Pill until she recovers. Frita says that proper mother-child bonding did not occur (and thus the normal bonding to others).

1950

Spring. With little red hoe, help Ma with garden.

Summer. When Pa finishes building new antique shop, there is a huge bronze head from a Pilgrim statue. Pa gives me a garnet from an old sea chest. He has nice glass paperweights for sale. At one point he sells a pair of blunderbusses from the Tower of London.

Fall. Start nursery school. Play with sword canes in the shop. Watch Cisco Kid and "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain." Pa puts nice Delft tile around fireplace. Play in sand pit behind the house. Hide secret poison bottle with red skull and crossbones. Wrestle with Nathaniel. Show him the secret bottle. Watch Kookla, Fran, and Ollie. Build houses with white plastic blocks, red windows.

October 18. Age 4. Receive cowboy stuff.

Fall. Pa suggests to Shopper's World people a sleigh with reindeer be put on top of the Jordan Marsh dome. They agree and he sells them the sleigh. This becomes their traditional holiday trademark for decades to come, and probably still is.

1951

Spring. In woods near Turnpike find police woman's handbag containing badge, loaded 38 Special, and a bottle of sleeping pills. Run and tell Pa. At a later date, Pa gives me a dried gourd.

Summer. "Captain's Chairs $25" soaped into shop window. Move to 18 Purington Avenue. Pa buys puppy Spottie who dies of distemper two weeks later because seller lies about the shots. We get in the car and go back to his house. Pa raises Hell with him. Ma has good friends in Mary MacIntosh and neighbor Jenny. 

Visit Crane's Beach in Ipswich. Long boardwalk, horseshoe crabs. Visit Cape Cod. Uncle John's hotels, the Cape Codder on Buzzard's Bay and the Park Beach. Old Silver Beach. Chatham. Pa and I go fishing in boat and catch perch, which Ma cooks for lunch. On one occasion I drop my teddy bear out the car window when the fog horn blasts. Pa refuses to go back. This helps to teach me not to over-react to irrelevant stimuli.

September. Around this time Ma and Pa are among the founders of a Presbyterian church in Natick. Start Kindergarten at the Brown School. Wear blue jacket with stripes down sleeve. Build with huge green-stained hollow wooden blocks. Thrill to the touch of little girl sitting behind me. Friends include Michael Kelley, Jeffrey Ferber, Susan and Peter MacFarland, Bobby, David, and Teresa Cline, Earl Webb, Jimmy Hall, Janet Delong, Steven Kannell, Timmy Gilbert. Ma and Pa are good friends with George and Selma Case. Pa lets me sport with cavalry sword at the Turnpike house.

October 18. Age 5.

1952

Winter. Hike in blizzard to Janet Delong's house.

Spring. Get cat named Mimi, who later leaves home. One hot day, skin my knee on tar. Miss Leonard helps with bandage and kindness. Get giant Newfoundland dog Susie.

Summer. Crane's Beach. Pa and I take Cousin Freddie with us to Cape Cod. Fiddler crabs everywhere. Inner tube in surf.

September. First Grade. Fall in love with Elaine Wiltenberg the minute I see her. Bring pickled pollywog, fiddler crab, and aquamarine to school. Questions from stupid boy in front of me gets me made into a dunce for talking. Miss Novak is a very angry, strict woman and seems to dislike me intensely. Good early lesson in the value of not bringing things to school and the acceptance of unfairness.

October. Visit Curtis family in NH.

October 18. Age 6. Receive microscope and Golden Treasury of Natural History. Burt Martin gives me minerals. Create museum in cellar. Neighborhood kids contribute stuff, like a Civil War canon ball.

Halloween. David Tanner breaks the six faceted lantern with a rock. I retain the shards to this day.

Fall. Go gall hunting with Pa. Parents frequently go shopping on Mondays in Boston with lunch at Peroni's. Smoke reed near dusk. Streetlights come on.

December. Ma starts a painting class with Mary MacIntosh. Here she meets friend Betty, also Evelyn Donnelly.

1953

Winter. The Great Snowball Fight. First trip to Florida. Stay at Martha Washington and Gamecock Motels. At Stuckey's on the way down, papaya juice and pecan pralines, plus novelty items, especially moonlight ocean palm tree scenes done in iridescent butterfly wings under plastic (8). Visit Marineland, St. Augustine, alligator farm, Seminole Village. Stay at CCCC in West Palm Beach. Fresh orange juice. Morrison's Cafeteria for roast beef and little spuds. Visit Parrot Jungle. Mask and flippers is a tradition I will carry on for a long time. Begin collecting seashells.

Spring. Seek hatchable galls with Pa. Benson's Wild Animal Farm? Learn to ride bike. Triumph over my first bully, Georgie Bols, by scaring him with a wooden ball stuck in my sleeve to look like huge bicep. I tell him that I just ate spinach, his eyes nearly pop out of his head, and he runs all the way home. Atrium 1 LR

Summer. Crane's. Cape Cod. Bobby Cline shows me pet newts. Visit NH. Ride tram cars to the top of Mt. Cranmore, seek newts at Polar Caves. Ma notices that I have trouble expressing normal anger. I allow it to build up inside, so takes me to a child psychiatrist named Doctor Hayes for some fine tuning. I see Dr. Hayes once a month for about two years until she says I am fine. (When I am eleven I go back for a full round of projective tests, Rorschach, MMPI, etc. Testers tell Ma that I will never need any type of counseling ever again as long as I live. They are right).

The Tin Years   

August. Move to 18 Bretton Road in Dover. Peabody's Woods is Wonderland. Learn to shoot old Remington 22 in back yard. Atrium 1 OYE. I become ill. Ma takes me to Dr. Rosenburg and Dr. Gallup. He prescribes Avamol. Burt Martin gives me chemistry equipment. Grandpa gives me minerals. Pa paints things with phosphorus: cardboard skeleton face, bottom of green glass hexagon, inside of peanut butter jar. The food during these years is very excellent. Pa is good with fried stuff like fish eggs, liver, kidneys, swordfish. Ma is good with broiled chicken basted with evaporated milk, and cakes. Both excel with broiled steaks, pot roast or beef stew in the "pressure cooker," stuffed roast birds, steamed clams and lobster so frequently that we get almost tired of it. Pa occasionally bakes Pipperkocker. Effie bakes cakes and cooks excellent fish chowder. Summer evenings, when Effie is staying with us, sees the three of them playing Canasta in the dining room. Walace's or Bubbling Brook for fried clams. Weekends a little beer with John and Eleanor Chandler, Roger and Betty Convey, or Loretta and Carl Priestly. I enjoy "4 saltines with butter," Delmonte bottled figs, boysenberries, and the frequent mixture of Welch's Grape Juice and lemonade.

September. First critical thinking. Atrium 1 CO. Debbie Chandler and I get naked. Atrium 1 CW. Second Grade with old battle-axe Mrs. Sullivan. Hurricane Carol devastates Massachusetts. We close shutters and use kerosene lamps. Smell in air afterwards is amazing. Leaves and twigs everywhere. Power out. Boil water to purify it. Big oak in yard and one in woods blown over. We drive around and survey the damage. See big tree completely split. Telephone and Electric trucks everywhere. Men with chain saws. Visit Purington. My new love is Margy Clark. Friends include Chris and Ricky Bates, Pam, Elzbeth and Dickie Stewart, Adele Priestly, Johnny and Debbie Chandler, Jeanie Convey, Jerry and Judy Wilson, Tuckie, Allan, and Annie English, Sue Sanderson. At school Robert Reilly, Joe Devine, Brucie Elmer.

October 18. Age 7. Receive bronze dinosaurs.

Fall. Boston Museum of Science? At some point hereabouts Pa sells corner lot to Mr. Finklestein who builds drugstore. Pa rents the Coach House to The Lowe's Theater people, Lockwood and Gordon. They have Pa's friend Tom Barron, a candy making genius, as manager (9).

Halloween. Pa paints my skeleton costume with phosphorus.

Yule. Harris and Cheevie Pratt have the annual eggnog party on Yule mornings. At one of these, the usually quiet Chet Stewart distinguishes himself by swinging from the rafters.

1954

Winter. Florida. Silver Springs, orange groves, Cyprus Gardens. Lantana Lodge. Hot Hoagie sandwiches in Lake Worth. Africa USA. Key West. Monkey Jungle.

Spring. Franklin Park Zoo?

Summer. Atomic Bomb Ring. Crane's. Sometime hereabouts I get chicken pox. Visit New York State. Adirondacks State Park. Nearly get blown off mountain in very high wind. Santa's Workshop  Ausable Chasm

Vermont. Susie gets out of car and chases a farmers horse around and around a choral. I sit on fence treating this as a rodeo. Get samples at a marble quarry. Polish them with Comet cleanser. Build the "Moon-o-scope."

September. Third Grade with Mrs. Griffin, a dear loving woman. Friends include Donna Flood, Matt Schmidt, Billy Garlick. Enjoy Captain Midnight on Saturday mornings.

October 18. Age 8. Receive fluorescent kit.

Fall. Cub scouts. Star Sawyer on my mind constantly. Fix up playroom. At her apartment in Brookline Helen Pinkson tells dirty jokes in kitchen with Ma and Pa when I am not in the room. She delights me with what she calls "the codfish face." Her daughter Audrey liked me as a baby, and is now mother of twins in Germany. She is plump, pretty, and spoiled. Pill is helping alcoholics and drug users. One poor chap, filled with Jesus, acts out the crucifixion in church and spills amphetamines all over the floor. Climb Diamond Hill with Pa? We find a small amount of Quartz crystal.  Visit Peabody Museum

1955

Spring. Norembega Park. Draw several grazing sheep pictures each showing the different seasons. Win blue ribbon award in the Ladies Club Art Fair. Jeanie Morse is my new love. Crusader Rabbit. Build secret fort in front yard woodpile. Spy on Debbie and Jeanie. Dicky Stewart and I create Secret Sewer Agency. Type intelligence reports on the activities of neighborhood girls. Visit Washington D.C. Dinosaur skeletons at Smithsonian.
Lincoln Memorial. Jefferson Memorial. Virginia. Monticello. Lurray Caverns.

Summer. Enjoy Uncle Wiggly books. Crane's. Florida. Silver Springs, Lee of the Sea. See the red tide with dead fish everywhere. New black puppy Muttsie joins our family.

September. Forth Grade with another dear woman, Mrs. Green. Friends include Tony Pond, Chickie Alling, Danny Cooper, Chris Tillman, Finley Perry, Diane Furlong, Marilyn Hubble. See "Blackboard Jungle" at the Natick Drive-In. This movie has a profound impact upon my attitude development. Of the family TV shows my favorites are to be "Lassie" and "Father Knows Best."

October 18. Age 9. Receive Lionel O-Gauge trains. Visit Canada? Accordion music. Laughing with Ma in restaurant probably because of "Coony Lady" (black circles around her eyes give strange raccoon-like appearance).

November. Read Call of the Wild. Children's Museum? Dickie Stewart always comes over to watch Walt Disney with us.

December. Eastern Dog Show.

1956

Winter. Parents call me in to see Elvis on TV for the first time. Hard, long trek through snow in Peabody's Woods. Enjoy my first 45 rpm of Gene Vincent.  

Spring. Kid in little clam joint in Wellesley looks around grinning with delight when I put "Heartbreak Hotel" on the juke box. It seems like we both know that some big changes are coming. Enjoy Little Richard. Visit New York City. Rockefeller Center, Chrysler Building, Mandrills at Bronx Zoo. Moose Hill Area? Sports car races in Thompson CT with the Bates family. See "Rebel Without a Cause." Enjoy Everly Brothers.

Summer. Around this time Ma reads me Escape by Night about the flight of slaves north via the Underground Railroad. This is a good early influence on me and helps to develop my Libertarian values. Crane's.

Florida. Dobson House. Friends include Stanley, Johnny and Debbie Martin, Billy Cummings. Enjoy Chuck Berry. Pa calls me out of the water and as I walk up the sand he points casually to where I had just been ten seconds earlier. Seven sharks pass.

September. Fifth Grade. Mrs. Green again. Friends include Debbie and Becky Jackson (10), Mary Lou Respis. Girlfriend is Jackie Maxant. Watch American Bandstand and Mickey Mouse Club most days. Now that I am all grown up, begin going out to dinner at the Beacon Terrace with my parents. Live piano, Fillet Mignon w mushroom gravy. Then a movie at the Cinema.

October 18. Age 10. Receive Tekno Toy sports cars.

October. Enjoy Jerry Lee Louis with Jackie Maxant.

Halloween Week. Decorate backyard with corn stalks and pumpkins.

Fall. Bedford Airport?

November. Davy Crockett hats on many heads including mine. Enjoy Ricky Nelson.

December. Eastern Dog Show. Bring Jeff Wilson. He and I get all kinds of vitamin samples and form our own Dog Club. I create a beautiful flag for this.

1957

Winter. Skating at the Dover Skating Rink. Bill Justice song "Raunchy" on the radio a lot?

Spring. Powisett Farm? See hog with testicle bag the size of a volleyball. Am impressed by this animal's vulnerability because of this. At a later date Tuckie English tells me that he shot one of these hogs in the scrotum with a BB gun and that the hog died later from infection. I don't believe it. Moose Hill ? Sometime hereabouts I get an award for attendance at school because I haven't missed a day in three years.

Summer. Chemistry set. Enjoy V-Jex, Welchade, Old English Cheese Wafers, Cott Soda in many fine flavors - black cherry, raspberry, strawberry, orange, grape, creme soda. Visit Florida. Dobson House, Miami Seaquarium. Model building. Muttsie goes through transition. Scale face of Noanett Peak. Find fool's gold on the way up. Flame Rituals. Atrium 1 OYN. Nancy and Chet English invite us to join the Dedham Country Club. Ma demurs, worried that I might grow to think that I don't have to compete in the world because of too many wealthy friends who don't. Effie bakes an occasional orange "kiss-me" cake.

The Iron Years

September. Sixth Grade with Mrs. Folk, who inspires us in learning. She has us make paper and indigo ink. Start Miss Ferguson's Dancing School. Friends include Bob Farnum, Paul DeLong, Claire Tucker, Mary Alice Quinn, Judy Fryer, Andy Parker. "In them days it was generally conceded among the wise, that is to say, among the musical cognoscenti of the period, that there had come among men none such like unto the Elvi. And ultimately and inevitably there arose a lesser class of men, known as the Lesser Elvi. But many of these too are real cool cats and some even wear leather jackets to school, if their mothers will let them." Begin combing my hair in a DA. Paul Delong and I wear corduroy shirts with the collar turned up so that the girls will think that we have something of a spiritual nature in common with the Elvi. Chet and Nancy English give us the black poodle Gi Gi, Goat Killer, a true sweetheart with people, but a wolf in sheep's clothing with herd animals..

October 18. Age 11.

Fall. Much interest in WW I planes, Nazi Germany, and Barbie Kirk. Dance with her at Miss Ferguson's. Andy Parker sends Barbie a nasty letter and nearly gets me in trouble with Mrs. Folk. Walker Gordon's? Hike Purgatory Chasm. Enjoy hearing the Cricketts. Russians launch first satellite Sputnik. Kruschev says, "We will bury you." Get a pet hamster and name her Sputnik. Gi Gi sits watching her by the hour. Once Sputnik goes under the piano and gnaws a hole in the wall and goes inside. She stays in there all night, but when she gets hungry enough Pa is able to coax her out with cheese. Sometime hereabouts I get measles.

November. Planetarium. Children's Museum? Hunt for peacocks with Boy Scouts. Cider and Jelly doughnuts. On Thanksgiving Allan Curtis and I have classic 1950s confrontation with three juvenile delinquents. The leather-jacketed Griffin holds a knife at my throat.

December. Hear the songs Peggy Sue and Rumble on way back from the Cinema with Ma and Pa. Eastern Dog Show with Jeff again. Begin using Old Spice.

1958 The International Geophysical Year

Winter. Go home with Jackie Maxant and get choraled into helping her feed the horses. Read White Fang.

Spring. Benson's Wild Animal Farm?

June. Visit quarries in Franklin NJ for fluorescent minerals? 

July. Visit Florida. Dobson House.

One day while diving come face to face with a Moray Eel. Another time with a giant baracuda. Deep sea fishing aboard the Popeye. Ann White becomes my "big girlfriend." She is 17 and very beautiful. Lying on the chaise lounges, we kiss lightly, but sensuously for long periods and do this more than once. She traces my lips with her long fingernails. I am to this day very pleased about this. Develop a crush on Shea just before she leaves for the summer. She and sister Lindy return and end up going to a local parochial school. 

August. Move to Blossom Lane also on Singer Island. Dinner at Wert's in Palm Beach most every Sunday and a movie.

September. Riviera Beach High School. Seventh Grade. Miss Hawkins. Boys here wear chino pants in every bright color, except purple. Crew neck "beach shirts." Also there are shirts with thin gold stripes in red or black. Thin belts of either gold or silver. Friends include Mary Lou Schumm, Mike Higgins, Lorraine Baxter, Toodie Gunn, Skip Martin, David Wright, Darlene Early, Judy Phillips, Gloria Devore, Alice Anderson, Fay the Whore, Louise Mueller, Eddie Evans, Mike Phinney-Lester, Tommy Doolan, Russel Schmidt, Anna Elkins, Penny and Judy Brown. Develop crush on my first skinny witch, Sari Broken. Visit her aboard houseboat. Am smoking corn cob pipe utilizing tobacco pinched from Ma's cigarette buts.

October 18. Age 12. Receive first gun, Remington 22.

Fall. Enjoy Dos Pesos story about wolves. Buy knife sheath at The Gun Clinic. Hunt in the Everglades with Pa. We enjoy Knee-High Soda, Curly Pig Chips. Play handball in West Palm Beach. Carny cheats me out of prize when I win the bottle game. Tell Pa. Carny is gone when we go back. 

Thanksgiving. Rawlins University. Peacocks on Genius Drive. Dinner in Orlando where they still have some cobblestone streets. Lake Ocachobee and orange groves.

1959

Winter. Get my first switch blade. Enjoy storm surf with Pa. See dead shark on the beach. Ma discovers a story on the back page of the West Palm Beach newspaper about activities back in Dover. Three grown men, two with kids in the Dover School, have formed a "sex ring" with three school boys, ages ten, eleven, and twelve. There was one man who sold scuba equipment and would tell young male customers that a proper fit for the wet suit had to allow for the boy having an erection and would then offer to help the boy achieve this. The men were simply asked to leave town, or be prosecuted. They left.

Spring. Explore Egret territory at low tide w Anna's little brother. Visit Key West, Miami Sequarium, Miami University. Jerry Carlson cuts a kid with his switch blade on the school bus goes to reform school. Develop crush on Jane Henning. Slow dancing. Visit the Inlet. Move back to Bretton Road.

Summer. Meet Sue Callahan. Dougy Monroe and I visit the "Playground Thing." Buy Ketsugo book. Practice in cellar. Atrium 2 LR. Camping out. Dougy tells me about a queer scoutmaster named Bob Ratchdorf who attempts to induce several boy scouts at summer camp to suck his penis. I tell my parents. They tell Dougy's parents and the queer is fired from the camp at Loon Pond in Barnstead NH. A few months later Dougy sees the queer drive by his house and glare angrily at him. This is scary because the queer lives in Boston and is a quite a long way from home in doing this.

September. Eighth Grade. Mr. Howard. Friends include Carolyn Dunlop, Delena Cashen, Darlene Hagerty, Sue Hogg, Kim Lade, Bob Roween, Nelson Emmons. Sexy Mrs. Hawkins, with the tight sweaters, never hesitates to walk right into the boys room if she hears any horseplay. This is certainly good for a daydream or two. Return to dancing school.

Fall. Pa opens antique shop in Westwood. Whenever his phone rings, a shameful neighbor from Normandy Road, Georgie Schultz, also the tenant in the next store, turns down his radio and listens to Pa with his ear to the wall.

October. Dougy and I buy some Parliaments and smoke out in back yard. Model cars. Give Mrs. Mahan two flat tires.

October 18. Age 13. Receive Remington Fieldmaster, J C Higgins English bike, Gallant Knight Cologne.

Fall. Peabody Museum.

Halloween. Hide in leaf pile out front so as to frighten Martha MacCauley. "Buttons" fools me and never shows.

Fall. We join The Power Squadron in Newton, but drop out from boredom. Pelicot Gi Gi has four puppies. Two are stillborn. We keep Poodhie, who is short in the middle, but lively and smart. Cooma has "good ear leather" according to Madame Clark, who provided the stud, Sam.

Yule. Pull curtain for school play, The Taming of the Shrew.

1960

Winter. Send for material on the Rosicrucian Order. Develop horns for Miss Vanderslice. Read Autobiography of Heinrich Schliemann. Label coin collection. Bobby Snow smashes me in face with big ice ball. Chase him into the schoolhouse and beat him half to death, after years of being bullied by him. This represents one of the great triumphs of my youth. Atrim 3 LR. Daleena Cashen sees only the last part of this and starts screaming at me, so I stop kicking him, cussing her out in the process. This undoubtedly keeps me from killing Snowie, and probably from going to reform school. I should have apologized to Daleena, but never think of it until years hence. Later I get along fairly well with Snowie in high school. Sometimes the respect engendered by a good hard beating is all it takes to civilize a persecutor.

Spring. Reach puberty. Hang pictures of Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, and Gina Lolabridgeta scantily clad, on my bedroom wall. In these days our parents buy us Francis Bruce Strain books about sex. We have known about most of this stuff for a long time before this, of course. One day, to Dougy as we part company up behind the drugstore, "Hey Dougy, don't strain yourself tonight with that book your mother gave you." Visit Appalachian Mountain Club Cabin with Dougy? Discover Hellsprings with Dooley. Go to Nantasket for Graduation trip. At the graduation ceremony at Chickering School I am awarded a Third Prize for my animal poster of an eagle plus an Honorable Mention in the National Science Awards. Ruth Wilson congratulates me.

Summer. Build three-decker tree house in woods with help of Dougy, Dooley, and Charley Hitchings. Begin thumbing from place to place. Start stamp collecting. Dougy and I go to Needham once a week and spend our allowance on cheeseburgers and frappes or strawberry Cokes at Woolworth's, often with ice cream later at Brigham's. Camping out in Peabody's Woods. As Charley and I sit with huge fire on top of a rock, a fox hunt comes by. The field is so absorbed in picking their way up the stony slope that they don't even see us. Charley digs underground hideout. I buy three Calvert jiggers at the Country Store and salivate while thinking about sipping fine sherries, whiskeys, and rums. Smoke strong cigars in the tree house. Find many old bikes at the dump. Recombine parts. Have stripped town bike and fancy neighborhood cruiser. Ride on steel rims of a summer evening. Braking produces a shower of sparks. Pa buys Encyclopedia Britannica. Give Cooma to Chet and Nancy English. We keep Poodhie. Pa sells the Coach House (11). I advise against doing so.

September. Ninth Grade. Mr. Young. Begin spiking poles to collect telephone insulators. Friends include Evone Wilson. Parade down the street in Needham smoking "Rum Soaked Crooks" with Dougy and Dooley. Get drunk for the first time on cream sherry. David Jenkins and I then thumb over to the Carnival in Needham. Seeing guy ride a motorcycle inside a large barrel sobers me up quickly. Begin keeping tropical fish. Get one of the worst frights of my life while scaling stones along the ground to hit spokes of bicycle wheels with Hitchings. Jerry Hatch bends over to pick up basketball. Stone bounces up and hits him in the eye. He runs about 200 feet screaming and falls down. I apologize and offer to let him hit me in the eye for the sake of justice. Thankfully, he declines. He ends up in the hospital for a week. I call up his father and offer to work after school to pay the hospital bill. He says the insurance will cover it. After one of the worst weeks of my childhood, like a bad dream when you finally wake up, he turns out to be all right. Thank You, Odin.

October 18. Age 14. Receive watch with black face, silver intaglio ring, bone handled stiletto, blue swirled ball-point, H-O trains. Carry stiletto for protection against peculiar gentlemen when thumbing.

October. Hike Purgatory again? Harvard Medical Museum. Ma becomes addicted to amphetamine diet pills and voluntarily checks into Maclain's Hospital to kick them. This is quite a painful ordeal for all concerned and takes a full three months. Drug companies give commissions to doctors to prescribe their products. This is a clear conflict of interest and should be not be legal.

December. Polly Flagler and Sue Hogg share a barbecued chicken and cranberry juice with Bruce Elmer and I in a doorway behind the school in a snowstorm.

Yule. Pull curtain for Pyrimus and Thisbe. Play also at Medfield State Hospital.

1961

Winter. Skating at Walker Gordon's. See Journey to the Center of the Earth. Hitchings and I suspended for smoking.

Spring. Make out in the movies with Darlene Bagley's sexy younger sister, whose name I never do find out. Visit Gardner Museum with Mrs. Simond's class.

Summer. Pa gets 1961 Thunderbird. Collect insulators in profusion. Charley and I ride all the way to Framingham on our bikes collecting insulators. We cover the railroad tracks all the way to Medfield. Help Charley dredge vegetation from stream beneath tree house. Charley finally catches brown trout living in the spring house. Warren Healer happens by and Charley sells him the trout for 25 cents. Stock Car Races at Norwood Arena with Dougy.

July 4th. Spend most of the afternoon with Sue Johnson and her boyfriend at Needham High School.

Summer. Am influenced by the movies "All Fall Down" and the "Hustler." Friends include Bob and Dickie VanIderstien, and Larry Mahoney, throwing hatchets. Camp out way up the railroad tracks. Nelson and I set off train signal. Loose my virginity with 22 year old blonde, Pat Cocharan. See her at intervals for some years to come. She teaches me very well sexually, and fortunately is adept at discouraging romantic notions.

September. Start Cambridge School of Weston. Tenth Grade. Jim Kaptein. This coeducational prep school has the highest pregnancy rate in the USA. Last year, I am told, J.D. was expelled on the first day of school for having intercourse with a girl on a table in the administration building. Don Richardson nearly chokes me to death. Enjoy reading Beowulf. Friends include Marian Howard, Ellen Schaeffer, Sam Hightower, Jim Langstroth, Roberta Shapiro, Dick Davis, Lenny Robins, Gathie Wellhaven, Mia Von Hipple. Platonic appreciation of Emily Small. Seems too self-assured and good looking for me at this uncertain age. Smoke Yorks and Brandons. Enjoy Roy Orbison. 

Run on Cross Country Team. Up and down Cat Rock Ski Hill. With George Lloyd eat many sour crab apples. When introduced to Dexter Burley he says, "I would shake hands, but it's really too much bother." Many a day, the Sun frowns down to see Hank Lane disgrace himself by cutting across the quadrangle to avoid Sam Hightower.

October. Hack around with Tommy Hanna. Discover "The Bat Cave" with Hitchings. Enjoy Sir Gawain and the Green Knight especially because of the descriptions of feasts.

October 18. Age 15.

Halloween. Smash neighbor Tom McNealy's pumpkin. He is the heavyweight boxer, who lost to Ingamar Johanson, who in turn, lost to Sonny Liston. Glad Tom doesn't catch me.

November. Fright on cold night near dog kennels on Dedham street. Hands frozen. Cannot open stiletto. Visit Old Howard Burlesque House in Scollay Square. These are the days of Turkish cigarettes and pool at Bond's on lower Washington Street.

December. Pa and I visit Cousin Hepa in Norfork Prison for going AWOL from the Paratroopers and robbing a store. He later marries, and has no more such trouble.

1962

March. Sam and I get expelled from Cambridge for drinking whiskey on campus. Return to "the fold" in Dover. Friends include Bob Dowling and John Vander. See Cathy Dowling for the first time and am totally enthralled... but something is wrong here. Why is a such a grownup girl dressed like a six year old? I, of course, visualize her without the clothing. I don't know her name at the time. Am later delighted when I learn that she is Bob's sister.

Spring. Enjoy the Beach Boys. Begin to groom my hair this way as my interest in surfing increases. Visit Norfork County Jail on field trip. Prisoners lustfully eyeball Judy Fryer. Explore Acton. Parents buy Miller Hill House. Pa moves in to initiate work. Movie "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" influences myself and others at this age. Fancy cigarette case. Colored cigarettes. Brandy snifters. Exotic polka-dot door curtain for my room.

Visit Nags Head via Little Creek Ferry. At Casino become friends with Jamie and his sister Ann from Virginia. Lose Scarab of Kephera tie pin. Carolyn Dunlop makes me unbearably horny in study hall. Pa buys house at 22 Eliot Street in South Natick. Bat Cigars at the Mobil station before school. Visit Nantasket again. Pill becomes chairwoman of Society for Psychic Research in Chicago and meets J. B. Rhine. Enjoy Ventures, Surfaris, Booker T, and Link Ray (these last two seem to be reflected in Jeff Beck's playing on Yardbirds "For Your Love" album).

Summer. Fall desperately in love with Cathy Dowling. Help Pa and Cousin Billie with restoration at 22 Eliot Street. Parents divorce amicably. With Stanley Whitan driving, we run a junk car into the ground at Norwood Arena. Dougy throws a beer bottle into the woods and Dinny Lowe comes reeling out swearing, the bottle having struck him in the head. Around this time Charley catches gonorrhea from a 35 year old woman and has to ride fifty miles on his bicycle to find a doctor who will treat him without telling his parents. Stop seeing Pat Cocharan because of my feelings for Cathy. Visit Florida with Pa. Dobson House. Have Key Lime Pie on Key Marathon. 

Take Tamiami Trail to Sanibel and Captiva. See huge vultures. Win Cathy's heart [actually only her raging-hormonal interest ~ 8/7/12]. Go steady.

September. Begin DS Regional. Eleventh Grade. Mr. Overlock. Move into 22 Eliot Street with Pa, who is a good cook. Finnin Hattie. Bulkies after school. Butterscotch cookies from bakery in Natick. Help Donny MacTavish work on car before races (12).

October. Ma hits traffic light in Chestnut Hill and emerges from the totally demolished car completely unscathed. This is but one of many automotive miracles performed by this very remarkable woman during these turbulent years.

October 18. Age 16. Receive Aqua Velva.

October. Begin using Pinaud Lilac. Aid David MacTavish (Donny's cousin) and others in the accumulation of pumpkins behind gas station in Dover.

Fall. Ma moves into Miller Hill House to do the remaining work.

1963 

Winter. Ski Trip to Black Mountain with Youth Fellowship. Pair off with Susan Morris for the weekend. Make the mistake of confessing this to Cathy, who never lets me forget it.

Spring. Pa opens shop "22 Eliot Street Antiques". Visit United Nations on class trip. Nags Head. Read Brave New World. Body surfing in very rough waves. Bad undertow. In Dismal Swamp area we buy a car load of decoy ducks.

June. Work the Ladies Dog Show at the Stigmantine Fathers Retreat. Am put in charge of 52 Siberian Huskies.

Summer. Read From the Terrace. Begin painting with water colors during solar eclipse. Visit NH where I walk log piles to find slabs for my sculptures of nude women. Take a strong stand with Bob Hazard when he and Tucky harass Cathy and Cindy Marsh.

Ne~ 0 LR

August. Cathy's parents find out about our relationship and break us up for being too young. This is ironical since they themselves eloped and had an early marriage when they were young. This same week a WWII veteran and karate expert from Boston named Norman Forbes, who Ma has innocently befriended, has too much to drink and makes quite a jackass of himself brawling with a friend. Telephone calls to corrupt individuals. Atrium 1 ST. 

September. Visit Charley Hitchings in Marblehead on antique business with Pa. Twelfth Grade. Mr. Laucks. Get driver's license. My first car is Ma's blue VW with sunroof. Friends include Joanne Sears, Teddy Draper, Paula Marsh, David Foster, Freddy Dodd, Lance Cowan, Gene Bound, Joe Iorio, Peter Dyer. One day a fireman comes into my classroom and asks for volunteers to fight a forest fire. A long hot smokey afternoon.

Fall. Ma moves out of Miller Hill House. Parents decide to sell it.

October. Ma handles a scary situation very well in Boston. A man jumps into her car. Fearing violence, she drives at his request to Boston Common. He flashes his pecker and asks her what she thinks. She says "Sorry, but I can't help you with that." He says "Okay" and gets out of the car and presumably seeks new quarry.

October 18. Age 17.

Halloween. Raise particular Hell with the police this year. A well organized effort sees pumpkins and swans from some estate on Farm Street in the courtyard at the Regional H S the next morning. Picture of this appears later in 1964 Yearbook.

November. Hunt at Lookout Farm almost every day after school. While loading guns on Pagan Hill Road, hear on the car radio that JFK has been shot, down there to Dallas. While sitting in car in front of White Elephant Antiques hear that Jack Ruby got Oswald. Run inside to tell Pa.

Late Fall. Get pool table. "Nantucket sleigh rides" in Forty Acres. Am honored to represent the high school as one of five delegates to a big regional seminar on India held at Beaver Country Day School. Ned's root collection is also on display there. Spend much of the day with Cathy. Begin visiting coffee houses in Boston to hear folk singers. Run into Lenny Robbins from Cambridge School. Beetles invasion.

1964

Winter. Cathy breaks up with me, trying to sound morally superior, not realizing that I will eventually find out about Glenda. Bob, nonetheless, would have made a fine brother-in-law. Go on three day drunk, bourbon on vanilla ice-cream for breakfast, but do not posess the constitution to be a drunkard. Shush the face of Black Mountain hitting 90 mph (13). Mackay Thurston gives me a sample of Canoe, my first expensive cologne. Peter Dyer welcomes me to the "Bacardi Drinkers of America". Southern Comfort "Flasking on the Green" with David Foster. Seersucker and Madras. Dancing at Mosley's on the Charles becomes a weekly activity.

Spring. Run into Nelson Emmons at flea market in Gloucester. He is going steadily with a girl from Essex. Florida trip with Pa, Mrs. Gifford, plus her daughters Robin and Karen. Dobson House. Miami Seaquarium. Glen Varichioni probably saves my life by helping to avert a bad rumble in Framingham. Begin seeing Pat Cocharan again occasionally. Go swimming almost every day at Pat McLean's on Farm Pond in Sherborn. Have a nice talk with Jacey Wallace, an unusually pretty girl, during study hall.

Summer. Read Parrish. Meet the very beautiful and wise Ann Schumann at Rolland in Norwood. Mosley's closes because of fights. Begin aquarium with wild fish. Snorkel in crystal clear lake at Brewster on Cape Cod where there is a crawfish under every stone. Meet Dee Ryan. VanIderstien and I cruise West Roxbury and visit Barbara Gillis. Pete and I take the Schumann sisters to Brewster. See Kingsmen live at The Surf. Puerto Rican gang members with their dates make other dancers look like stumblebums. Freddy Dodd and I take Peggy Silvestrini and Loretta Santoro to Provincetown for the day. After we let them off, Freddy and I look at each other, he pulls the car to the side of the road, we get out, fall down on some one's front lawn, and laugh until our sides ache. Begin two years of constant parties with girls mainly from Norwood. Some that I date are Ann Marie Folan, Carol Foley, Janice Maffeo, Carol Downs, Kathy Horan. These parties become somewhat legendary and attempts to crash are made by unpleasant individuals on more than one occasion. In the Senate at Springfield, Illinois, Pill often sees Jesse Jackson with his entourage, over whom he has total control. He raises his arms frequently, as if to Heaven. They make the weak balcony sway as they lobby Martin Luther King style, parroting Jackson's every slogan. With the Rolling Stones, a Renaissance in music begins. Cathy Dowling calls "just to say Hi". Begin to groom myself in Stones fashion - mostly like Brian Jones.

The Quicksilver Years

September. Start Northeastern University. Friends include Gill Weiner, Danny Prouton, Pam Wright, Paul Newcomb, Karen Spanier, Randy Roty. 

One day a guy is playing chords from "House of the Rising Sun" on the steps in front of Richards Hall. Four big limousines pull into quadrangle each bearing one of the Animals fresh from England minus Eric Burdon.

Fall. Frank Strange and I have lunch with his girlfriend at the Museum of Fine Arts. The music now is the Stones, Animals, Manfred Mann, and Yardbirds. Also getting into all kinds of blues. Date the beautiful Anne Gorham from Needham briefly until she gets engaged.

October 18. Age 18. 

November. Decline an invitation to a party attended by the Rolling Stones in favor of a date. Which girl I cannot now remember. See the Stones with Ann Schumann at the Worcester Memorial Auditorium. This begins a long period of concerts. Groups I want to see but don't are Manfred Mann, Yardbirds, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. I will always regret this. Purgatory Chasm. Good party attended by Frank with Hydie, Jeff Ovington with Judy Brooks. Another party attended by Gil Weiner, who brings three carloads of friends, all Jewish. The Norwood girls are all Catholic and make many insulting remarks in their drunkenness. Gil and company simply occupy the third floor, while the Norwood crew stays on the second. Mac Thurston drops in uninvited and I am rude to him because he is wearing greasy coveralls from his job at Annis Morril Porsche. The next day I have to make a special run to the dump with all the empty booze bottles and beer cans. Visit Old Sturbridge Village with Lance, Joe, Ricky.

December. Leave Northeastern. Begin cataloging Neolithic artifacts. Start using Dante Cologne. Get new beige Karmann Ghia roadster with brown top. Pete and I go driving with the top down, scarves, flasks, snowflakes in the air. Get my first electric guitar. Teach myself to play "House of the Rising Sun" in two and a half hours [Jimmy Page would take two and a half seconds ~ 8/7/12].

1965

Winter. See the Beach Boys at Boston Arena.

February. Take Karmann Ghia to Florida with Pa. Catch very first wave on huge green Hobbie surfboard at Riviera Beach. Flagler Museum. Have my first real car race with a Volvo P1300.

March. Effie Johnston Young, World's finest grandmother, goes through transition at age 87. Pill and Linda visit us plus family home at 220 Lexington Street in Belmont. There is a new addition. The sun porch and dirt triangle out front are gone. There is $17,000 in Effie's bank book for Ma, but the Curtis family does not advise of this. Ma thinks they should have. Begin buying my booze in Nashua NH. The Massachusetts State Police park outside the liquor store and follow Mass residents over the state line and then confiscate the booze. I always head north into Nashua and then cut over a couple of blocks and backtrack past the liquor store.

April One night Freddy Dodd and I go rat hunting in Holly Magnuson's chicken house and visit her afterwards for milk and cookies.

Spring. Ricky's group The Footprints rehearses at the community building. Bob Terwiliger doing vocals and lead guitar. Carl Pease on bass [group still exists but with diffeerent personnel ~ 11/29/12]. Begin collecting pipes. Parents sell the Miller Hill House. When neighbor builds a house next door, the new owner puts up high cedar "grudge" fence for privacy. 

Summer. Ed Zalesky sees the Yardbirds. Somewhere hereabouts I run into Teddy Draper who tells me that Cathy Dowling had to drop out of school because of severe migraine headaches. Sports car races in Thompson Connecticut with Pete, Joe, and Ricky. Visit Ricky at his parent's house in Menauhant on Cape Cod. Dig cherrystone clams out back. Enjoy these on the half-shell with daiquiris before Chinese food and parties afterwards. Disgraceful drunken ordeals at Cathy Horan's house. Wake surfing behind the Macai I in Menauhant Harbor. Get good ride when I allow slack in the tow line.

August. Pete, Doug Tishler, and I see Eric Von Schmidt at Harvard. Stand next to Mel Lyman out for a cigarette beforehand in the lobby.

September. Return to Northeastern in the evening division. Pa gets a new metallic red Toronado and buys an eighty acre farm in Northbridge. Delicious onion rolls from bakery in Holliston. 

Begin to have my term papers typed by a very nice and glamorous woman, Nancy Gasper, at the Copley Sheraton. She has an autographed picture of Liberace on the wall and assures me that he is a very nice person. Whenever she runs into Mr. Dowling she relays news to me about Bob and Cathy.

October 18. Age 19

Fall. Get telescope. Write the song, "Hey there, Mr. Moon". See Jeff Muldaur, Mitch Greenhill with Eric at the Club 47. Buy Epiphone acoustic guitar. Begin playing "bottleneck style" slide in open tunings. Works well for me because very few others play this way at the time. Later I develop several custom tunings with improvised songs in each.

November 6. Army physical in Charlestown. Driver gets lost on Bunker Hill. We lose an hour. Pick up Colleen Schumann. We get to the Stones concert at the Boston Arena fifteen minutes late. Anne waits up for us and opens the door like a doting mother just as I kiss Colleen goodnight.

December. Get second electric guitar, very big improvement. Create custom "teardrop tremolo" from turn signal lever. Eventually end up doing rapid improvised exchanges between vibrato and tremolo. With Ethel and Ken, Cousin Debbie Weyant from Yorktown NY visits with Greg Bush. We have drinks with Peter Dyer and Debbie Seller, who is attending Pine Manor. That same evening see Spider John Koerner, Tom Rush, and Jim Kweskin at Symphony Hall with Pete and Debby.

1966

March 1966 Ann Schumann at age fifteen displays great maturity and wisdom by essentially predicting what much later turns out to be the actual future of three people known well to me. She does this, not precognitively, but simply through her profound understanding of human character. 

Spring: Peter Dyer and I drive to New York City and attend a party aboard an Italian luxury liner with Ken Day, Gail Estes and a friend of hers to see Bates off on a world cruise. Stay at the Taft. 

Visit American Museum of Natural History. Florescent minerals. London wax Museum. Bronx Zoo.

April 19. Meet Karen DuBois, later to be my second major love. I take her for a day of pistol shooting in Northbridge. Drinks that evening.

May. Take Karen lingerie shopping. She, in her youthful modesty, prefers to wear these dainties with me at first, even though I am wearing the pink tuxedo (14).

Spring. Bates and I go surfing in wet suits as sun rises over the icy Atlantic. Hear amazing soprano whistler in dinner at breakfast later. Visit Southwick's Wild Animal Farm in Blackstone.

June. Begin helping with the restorations at Northbridge. Adopt the wolf cub, Tooth, who can eat an entire can of Alpo in three gulps. Begin dog training course with Jack Cowley at Nether Lair Kennels in Wrentham. He breeds special aggressive German Shepherds and trains dogs for attack, police, and detective agencies.

July. Visit Menauhant. Footprints playing at the Yacht Club. More wake surfing. No success this time because I forget to use my right hand to achieve standing position. Drunken beach party on Gull Island with the entire Yacht Club crowd, even young teenage girls. Bates and I row across the sound singing "Alouette". A lot of marshmallow throwing and adolescent silliness. On way home I am attacked by a psychopath at a traffic light. Consult with Walter Baldwin. He advises to forget legal action - too dangerous. Build stereo cabinet. Take Tooth for hike in Peabody's Woods. She lags behind periodically exploring to the side and then runs to catch up when I call to her.

August. Find that a wolf cub will simply not be housebroken. Adopt the World's most handsome German Shepherd, Hector, a true lamb in wolf's clothing, from a chap in Framingham. Hector is skinny and has cuts on his body. The man claims Hector is a year old and that he got him when he was half-grown by rescuing him from a gang of Puerto Ricans who were beating him with sticks. Hector jumps in the car the minute we open the door. Take Hector for the last two lessens at Nether Lair. Jack is delighted to see that Hector has been completely trained already by someone somewhere. Find Tooth a new home with Steve Kieth, who has many Siberian huskies in Keene NH. He wants to breed Wulfshonden with Tooth as the mother.

September. Start Suffolk University. At one point I am proud when an efficiency agency chooses Suffolk as their model for the entire nation of what a small private urban university should be, both academically and administratively. Friends include Bob Zappi, Greg Wortheson, Cathy Leary. During a party one night, I take Hector for a walk on leash and am amazed by his strength. Begin Okinawan Karate class with Van Canna at the Matson Academy. Meet Walter Matson, who compliments me on my high kick, but cautions that this type of move will usually kill the opponent (15).

October. Visit Tooth in Keene. Hunting in Northbridge on Saturdays. Hector enjoys this, but German Shepherds are not good bird dogs. He runs too far ahead.

October 18. Age 20. Receive Kodak Instamatic. Begin photography.

November. Cast the Wolf Tooth Scorpio pendant from a cauldron of molten metals. Bates and I, in his Firebird, come up against a Griffith at a traffic light on Commonwealth Avenue. By the time he shifts into third gear the Griffith is doing 80 mph a quarter of a mile ahead of us.

December. Get new silverware. Throw big Yule party. Most of the older Menauhant crowd. Jody Canty, to my delight, gooses me with her foot. Sandy Vale is my date. We begin to date heavily.

1967

Winter. Hector begins to lose his timidity because he knows we love him. At Nether Lair kennels in Wrentham Pa and I get a black German Shepherd puppy, Nickie, for Ma (16).

March. Buy old Leica with two lenses. Pete and I photograph the Prudential Center.

April begin using Figaro Cologne.

Spring. Pa buys house in Holliston. People smile to see the world's handsomest dog and point at Hector sitting up with his big pointed ears in back of the Karmann Ghia with the top down. He jumps out in Milford center and I have to go back and round him up.

Summer.

September. Sophomore Year. Friends include Frank Adrissi, John Reilly. Discover head shops and fluorescent posters. Psychedelicize my room. 

See Country Joe and the Fish at Psychedelic Supermarket in Brookline. Dating Dossie Mae Boland.

October. Total Karmann Ghia. Get gray 1962 356B-S Porsche. Like riding on a leopard's back. Two weeks later, maniac running red light at Star Market in Wellesley nearly hits me broadside at 65 mph except for the extra acceleration of the Porsche. If I had been driving the Ghia in that situation I would not be alive today.

October 18. Age 21.

Fall. Ride the New Haven Parlor Car to New York City with Pete and Ricky. Stay at the Taft again. Pete has rendezvous with Debbie Seller. Visit the Natural history Museum again, London Wax Museum, Empire State Building. 

Amazed by Donovan at Symphony Hall. Become airborne on an uphill corner on Walpole Street in the 356 with Ann Marie Folan. Ralph Meany (18) lends me a huge drill to mount amber Carrello-Jod fog lights on the 356. Put toggle switch under dash. One night thugs put cement block behind my wheel. I see them and throw an M-80 out the window. They run. Ma moves to a beautiful private location on a lagoon of the Loxahatchee River in Jupiter, Florida.

1968 

Winter. When Pa visits Ma in Florida he brings back a huge whip scorpion which I pickle in alcohol. Other animals Ma notices early on are a swimming deer, a shark by it's tail only, a manatee. A water moccasin in her garage scoots away when she opens the door. Another time a skunk goes into the garage and she must wait for him to leave. She runs into Point and Howie Bates at the supermarket. Learn intriguing facts about Alchemy. One night as I come home from school during a heavy rain doing about 85 mph in the 356, a crate the size of a washing machine appears suddenly in my path. Swerve into adjacent lane, car fishtails for 200 feet. Thank Odin for the new Michelins.

March. Ed Zalesky, who I haven't seen since high school, stops to talk out front.

Spring. Humiliate tough-guy laborer who insults me from side steps at Suffolk University. He is so afraid of me now that he won't even get on the elevator when I'm riding it. Heavy rains. Flooding everywhere. Boating among the tree tops in Northbridge. Pete breaks up with Debbie. I date her once before summer vacation. 

Summer. Ed Zalesky sees Cream in Providence. Summer classes at Suffolk. Friends include Carolyn MacIntyre, tall blonde girl Bruce Cummings. Sleeping aboard the Macai II, Pete and I are disgruntled when guys crash into the cabin to pull the engines at 6:00 in the morning. Enjoy Quicksilver and Dr. John. Chicago Riots. Nickie tangles with rattlesnakes and always kills them, but Ma worries and buys an Iver Johnson 38 pistol. Pa exchanges it for a Nylon 66. Ma shoots a six foot rattler. Average size rattler is about three feet.

September. Begin Junior Year. Become friends with Rosa Nachlas. Interesting "slice of life" episode with instructive drunken man while we lunch at Beacon Chambers Hotel. I defend her honor with a butter knife.

October 18 Age 22.

November. Pat Cocharan breaks off our relationship. She's getting married. Pete and I visit Janice Maffeo and husband in Franklin. Pheasant hunting in Northbridge with Bates. 

Next day see the Doors at Symphony Hall. They are ninety minutes late because of rain. Debbie Seller visits.

December. Ma visits to get the rest of her stuff at Bretton Road. Outside I am about to take a picture of Nickie and Hector when they jump up facing each other, each with his paws on the other's shoulders. This is one of the most intense, almost frightening, things I have ever seen. They look unexpectedly human - like a living coat of arms for a werewolf fraternity.

1969

February. Debbie visits again. She is a very desirable woman, and although I try, I just can't get past thinking of her as a friend only. Huge blizzard.

The Leaden Years

Spring. Meet Victor Frankl at tea party after his lecture at Suffolk University. Become emotionally involved with Karen DuBoyce. Visit Southwick's. Make friends with elephant. Ma sells the Bretton Road house. Pa buys house in Bellingham.

June. Casual friends with Kippy Goldfarb, a very cryptic and enigmatic woman (19).

Summer. Peter asks invites me to a big party at the Du Pont estate in Newport RI. In retrospect I probably should have gone to this, for the architecture at very least. 

August. Woodstock Rock festival. A medieval Hell. I didn't see Cerberus, but he is the only thing I didn't see. The only thing I heard was helicopters, Canned Heat, and sick calls for hepatitis and bad LSD. 

September. Hear Led Zeppelin as I drive past Boston Garden. Photograph Pete's group, Soil, at K-K-Katy in Kenmore Square. Begin Senior Year.

October. Visit King Philip area in Northbridge with Karen. We have a picnic in a strange clearing beneath a huge pine tree deep in dense tangled forest with the Golden Wolf Hector. With her long blonde hair, it seems now like a German fairy tale.

October 18. Age 23.

Fall. Debbie is raped by a "black man" Ernie, in San Francisco. I am angry at first because she lets him get away with it. Shake my carburetors loose in a series of road races that take me all the way to Worcester on Route 9 in the early AM.

November 11. Admire peccary at Peabody Zoological museum with Karen. Heading into Boston with Dyer and Bates in his 356, a guy tries to run us off the road. I am swigging Southern Comfort and nearly throw the bottle at him, but do not want to waste good booze. Later I tell Ralph Meany about this and he says he has heard other stories about a guy of this description, and the victims are always in a Porsche.

1970

January. Friends include Ed Zalesky. Pa gets new green 914-4 Porsche on first boatload to America with Ralph Meany's 914-6. Within two weeks Ralph breaks all existing records going through pylons. When Pa drives his into dealership in West Palm Beach for service, everybody comes running outside and surrounds the car because none of them have seen one yet.

March Finish reading The Hobbit.

April 24. Karen has been behaving very strangely since December and now breaks off our relationship. Later she tells me she had severe hypoglycemia (20).

May 12. Visit Nantasket Beach.

Spring. Begin seeing Pam Benoint. Boston Fine Arts Museum? Cut classes for two or three months. Return to find out that there has been a student strike during this same period and that everybody else has been doing the same thing. Thank you, Odin. Pill goes to her 40th high school class reunion and finds that one third of them died in World War II. 

Pa gets a new red 911T Porsche. I sell the 356 and inherit the 914 and all the problems that go with it.

June. Ricky marries Charlene Thurston from Corning NY.

July. Attend a Porsche Parade at the Marriott in Newton. 

Pa and I visit Belfast, Maine to look at property. Hitting Route 1 in Mass on the way back seems like finishing the Mille Milia. Pa buys the Primrose Motel in Upton. Nice head maid Mrs. Ford. Cute teenage maids Candy and Risa, with whom I enjoy talking while folding hot towels in the laundry room.

August. Pam and I do an impromptu threesome with Carol Murphy who I also date for awhile. Lars Anderson Museum with Pete?

Pa and I drive Ma's old VW wagon up to Plymouth NH and Franconia Notch, then to Barton VT and Lake Willoughby. Nice flirty girl in restaurant on south shore of the lake. Think later I should go back to see her. Decide against this. Just what every Massachusetts man needs - a girlfriend 150 miles away in northern Vermont.

September. Begin renovations upstairs at 22 Eliot. Do first regular groceries shopping.

Find Bovaril while seeking V-Jex. Ricky and Charlene move into a little house on Haven Terrace. Enjoy riding Trail Ram motorcycle at Chickering Farm. This is so stable that I can ride through a field standing with one foot on the seat, the other foot and one arm in the air.

October 18. Age 24.

November. Bob Terwiliger drops by. Begin dating Louise Taylor, starting with a day of skeet shooting in Upton. Pam introduces me to her cousin Debby who I begin dating immediately. Probably Pam does this to get rid of me because she has been getting interested in some army guy.

1971

Winter Janice Maffeo returns from California, now separated from her husband, one of the managers of the Beach Boys. I finally accept that she and I are going to be nothing more than friends, and end up having the nicest evening I have ever spent with her. She tells me about dating Brian Wilson and his LSD problem.

February. In Sherborn on Route 16, gas gauge begins to drop drastically in the 914. Smell gas, pull over, and see spurting gas from broken hose under hood. Turn car off, but then restart and drive at great risk to Ralph Meany's, luckily nearby. Some chap and I stand in an icy puddle and work on this problem for about two hours. In Spring, find a shorting out problem caused by arcing from split distributor cap to fire wall. Consider myself lucky to still be here.

March. Run the motel for three weeks while Pa visits Ma in Florida. He isn't gone two hours when the furnace conks out. I have to bleed all the radiators twice.

April. Interesting early morning ride with Louise in the 914.

May. Eastham. Visit Sea Captains house with whale's wish-bone as the gateway. All in one day - a depressing call from Karen, a notice to report for an army physical, and I am informed that Louise has left permanently for Aspen. Bates seems to enjoy magnifying the importance of this last item by projecting onto me his own acknowledged reaction to Louise at an earlier period. His impression is undoubtedly abetted by Peter Dyer, who cooks up some nonsense about me which he calls the "Louise, Louise Blues." He refers to this on three occasions. I ask him what it means, but he won't say (21). All this ongoing silliness simply can't be dealt with gracefully by me without seeming to amplify it through protest. The error itself is insignificant. I have never been desperate about being perfectly understood, but this kind of furtive and slightly malicious "misunderstanding" of my personal affairs on a continuing basis has begun to annoy me greatly. I don't like busybodies, especially when they compound the insult by acting indulgent or condescending. These unspeakable wastrels, these great swaggering captains of dissipation and blasphemy worry more about my business than I do. The mind boggles at what these legendary princes of depravity and disgracefulness might be accomplishing if they were even ten percent as busy upgrading their own lives as they are criticizing mine.

June On the way to an Army physical have race along shore of Lake Cochituate with chap in a Z-28 Camaro. He goes through the red light at Speen Street at 110 MPH. Buy Raleigh ten speed. Do 60 mph through the Stigmantine Estate. In Cambridge Ed and I have a run in with three careless drivers. At a traffic light, they jump out and come after me. I discipline the leader with a tire iron, the police come, I explain, and we are on our way.

July 15. King Philip Area.

Summer. Pete, Ed, and I climb Noanett Peak from the steep side.

Aug 6 See Faces in concert on Boston Common with Pete [We sit with George Jung and his girlfriend, who we also visit at their apartment on a subsequent occasion. I eventually learn the bigger story of this when I see Johnny Depp playing George in the movie "Blow" ~ 8/7/12].

September. Youngbloods on Boston Common, meet and make a date with the very beautiful Joyce Dolphin. Later make an ass of myself with her by talking overmuch about music and politics.

October 8. Visit NH with Ed. Snopack Kennels, Steve Keith's house in Keene, Temple Mountain.

October 13. King Philip Area.

October 18. Age 25. 

October 23. Again visit NH with Ed. Hit 90 mph in Kinsman Notch. Have long road race with an old chap in a Mercedes 300SL Enjoy good ham and yams at the Bernerhoff in Jackson. Talk with nice owner woman from Munich. Visit Owlwood in Dublin. We are very well received here also.

October 29. Explore wetlands behind the Primrose with Hector.

Fall. See Jethro Tull at Boston Garden? 

1972

Winter. Visit Hammond Castle with Pete. See Frank Zappa and Chuck Berry at the Music Hall.

March. Kids smash a rear window casing at Eliot Street with a clock weight.

Spring. Awesome road race down past the Honeywell estate and Wellesley College on Route 16. In the 914 I am this time pitted against a Trans-Am Firebird and a BMW 2002. Without resorting to violence, manage to save the life of a Miss Barbara Volk from Bellingham, stalked by a rejected suitor. Atrium 1 OS. Hanging a hard corner in the 914 onto Route 128, the seat breaks loose. Luckily I retain control of the car. Test drive a maroon Fiat 124 Spider and nearly buy it. Buy Pa's 911 instead because he will need a station wagon soon and wants to keep me from buying a Porsche Targa from a friend of Pete's who took it through a sandstorm out West. Go into 4 wheel drift at 90 mph racing a Bonneville at 2:00 AM on Route 1 in Norwood.

Summer. Cambridge Common Concerts. Going down long hill in Milford on the way to Northbridge, pass a slow-poke. Couple in Corvette coming the other way does exactly the same thing. Our bumpers nearly touch as we regain our own lanes, each doing 90 mph. As this happens both drivers smirk with the casual satisfaction of a job not only well done but demonstrating precision of heroic proportions. Its fun to be an ace. At he Primrose, spend two or three hours counseling a very agitated paranoid schizophrenic. He was diagnosed this at a mental hospital which he left the day before and there are thirteen police calls out on him since morning. I am very successful in this and am proud of how I helped this individual. Do 130 mph in the 911 on Route 495. "The telephone poles look like a picket fence". My heart doesn't slow down till a half hour later. With Mr. Roberts from Hubardston, Pa and I look at various properties. One time I am startled to come face to face with an immense bullfrog under a house. We are accompanied by a Great Dane who behaves disgracefully, rolling in fresh horse manure for some esoteric canine reason. On another occasion we look at Old Robinhurst Manor in Barre (22).

August. Eastham. Truro lighthouse. Visit David Rimivickis and Mary Croft. Boozing on the rocks is Gloucester with Pete and Janet Swanson?

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