Last summer, about a week before vacation, I was cleaning out a closet and found my old diary from 1974 (age 16)! Most of the diary is from 1974-1978. I stuck it in my suitcase so that I could reflect on my life while relaxing on the beach.
It was so much fun reading it! I don’t have a very good memory, but honestly, there was so much written in there that I didn’t remember at all. It was strange, like I was reading someone else’s diary. I have no idea who that kid was! Most of it is just typical teenage stuff, but I will say that being a teen in the 1970s was very different from what it’s like today. It is an interesting snapshot of one teenager’s life in the 1970s. Some of it is pretty funny, some of it is embarrassing or boring.
When I got home from vacation, I typed the whole thing word-for-word (minus copious spelling errors). I added a few photos and other documents, including some newspaper articles, 70s memorabilia, etc. I then had books printed (at lulu.com) as Christmas gifts for the few people who might actually be interested in reading it, those who were there: my mother, father, sister, and my two best friends.
I might blog some of it here. I was actually thinking about doing a retro blog of “Cindy in the 70’s”, but I’m not sure if this is something I want to put online…
Here is what I was doing on this day in 1974:
We won our match. I forget what the score was. I missed the top five by only 5 points. I got a 95 prone and a 67 off-hand, for 162. I know I can do better, but I’m lucky I got that in a match, because I get so nervous. I think this was the best I’ve done in a match.
Jay didn’t come tonight because he went back to college. I hope he comes to some of the matches.
Tomorrow we are having action shots (photos) for the yearbook.
We got all these papers and things to fill out if we want class rings. They are letting us get them now, because next year the price is supposed to go up a lot. This year they cost about $50.
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The match was a shooting match. I was the only girl to ever make the Waltham High School Rifle Team. Funny that I really don’t like guns now.
I have a second diary that covers 1988-1994. This diary is not a day-by-day diary like the first one, just sporadic update-type entries. So, there is a black hole from 1978 to 1988. I don’t recall the reason for this gap; I guess life in the 1980s got too busy to write. I didn’t keep a diary after 1994, although I did some writing, and of course, now I have this blog.
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