Nothing Much Else Happened: March 29, 1978

"Today, the poor inmate must go back to prison for another 6¾ years (hours). He has another "hard" day in the torture chamber (Math class). He goes for daily exercises in the prison. (P.E.) He finally gets time-off for good behavior." When I got home, I found that the records I sent for. Only Carole's Donny & Marie record came. But I'm going to have to wait for mine because Columbia Records said it was out of stock.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 28, 1978

"Today was another day in the life of Mark Bailey: He goes to prison (school), gets time off (after school hours), so he has some fun. He goes out and bowls. After all, Tuesday is the only free day he has, because he has to do all those other dull things, such as guitar, baseball, oboe. He bowls a 133 and a 135, and some skimpy other scores. He goes back to his hotel (home), has dinner at the restraunt (dining room), and afterwards, goes to work on his taxes (homework). He finally decides it's time to hit the hay!" Goodnight!

***

You can really sense that I was getting burned out on the diary at this point and was looking for new ways to tell the same story over and over again. This new approach to the writing lasted only a few days before I abandoned it.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

What's this all about? This is what it's all about.

To view the next day click: March 29, 1978

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 27, 1978

Today: Can you believe it? It's already Monday! School is starting again! Boo-hoo. In math, we reviewed the things that we were studying before. So, I got it all pretty good. Mr. Farnsworth is giving us all these formulas to work on. He says we will of had to memorize almost 100 formulas by June. I already am trying to memorize 8 formulas so, we are just starting to work and its already the 27th week! (13 weeks to go: hurrah) I've taken a new attitude towards math, and now I like it alot more than I did last semester.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 26, 1978

Today I went to Sunday School. Afterwards, we went to a party in Granada Hills where my cousins, Mary Carol and Elizabeth Albright (Grandma Albright's grandchildren), live. They have a pool in the back of their house, but it was to cold to swim. It was a great Easter party and the food was excellent. Then, we went to my niece's and her mother's (my ½ sister's) house. (Huh?) Tina and I watched "Wizard of Oz" for my 5th time. Then, I came home!

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 25, 1978

Today I went back to my normal routine in Pacific Palisades. I went to bowling an hour early because they said it was going to be an Easter Egg hunt. But, nobody showed up, so they decided to do it after bowling. I bowled a 133, a 96, and an 86. Then I found 7 eggs at the hunt afterwards. I said "Bay Shore Bowl, and I got a 3 free games. Then in the afternoon, we played another baseball game. It was a close one, but we lost 7-6. I pitched 2 good innings, allowing 1 hit and 2 walks. The team we played (the Indians) didn't get any runs off of me.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 24, 1978

Today is our last day in San Francisco. We ate breakfast at the Hilton Hotel Cafe. Boy, was it good! Then, we came back to the hotel Mark Twain and checked all our baggage out. Then we went down to Ghirardelli Square. There was a mimist and she called me up and I rode a pantomime horse with her. I got a lot of applause and mom said it was real good. Nothing else happened until it was time to go to the plane. It was only 12 minutes late this time, and we got home around 10:30 that night.

***

One other majorly traumatic event happened at some point on this trip that I didn't document — and it's because my parents managed to keep it from me. Apparently on one night, upon our return to the hotel, we came across the aftermath of a gangland-style shooting in front of the Hotel Mark Twain. Mom and Dad deftly steered me around this without letting on what was happening.

Many aspects of this trip felt like a family of country bumpkins experiencing the "big city" for the first time. (Pacific Palisades hardly felt big-city to me, and before that I'd lived for five years in the quiet mountain town of Idyllwild.)

If you've been following this since the beginning of the year, it should come as a surprise to no one that I was a huge fan of mime. Sometime around this age, I actually worked for a short time with a mime troupe, performing at venues around the USC campus. It's hard for me to come up with more ways to exploit my full-frontal geekery in front of everyone who knows me, but I'm sure the future pages of this diary will do its best.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

What's this all about? This is what it's all about.

To view the next day click: March 25, 1978

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 23, 1978

Today, we went on a boat cruise for an 1¼. It was a very exciting trip because we sailed under the Golden Gate and Oakland Bay Bridges. We got alot of pictures taken. For lunch we went to a place called Lehr's greenhouse & pottery shed. I had one of the best hamburgers I ever had. Then dad went back to the hotel, and mom and I went on an underground-subway thing-a-ma-jig called BART. Mom said it was a very smooth ride compared to the Subways in New York.

***

BART was brand new at the time ... and having a lot of major problems. Our experience, however, was positive.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

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To view the next day click: March 24 1978

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 22, 1978

Today was a wild and wooly day! In the morning, we went on a 3½ hour tour of San Francisco and across the Golden Gate bridge it was very exciting and our driver was a laugh a minute. After the tour (which ended at 1:15), we went to lunch at Tadich's Grill. Then we went home (to the hotel) and I slept til 6:00. We got up and took a cable car to Chinatown. But we stopped in the middle of the street because a man had jumped on the car without giving a fare, and the driver called the police. They finally got it straightened out, and that night, I ate the best Chinese food I ever tasted at the Empress of China.

***

There is something I didn't reveal in this entry that happened -- something that had a pretty major impact on me. When I woke up from the nap at 6:00, I (or my parents) turned on the television to catch some news. One of the top stories that evening was the story—and disturbing videotape—of the death of highwire walker Karl Wallenda, the patriarch of the famous circus family The Flying Wallendas. Karl was attempting a highwire walk in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in high winds when he fell from the wire. The video was, of course, played over and over again, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. At the time, it was my most direct experience with death, and it surrounded me like a fog for the next few days. True to the style of this diary, I didn't really address my emotions that day. I'm sure I was still processing it.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

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To view the next day click: March 23, 1978

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 21, 1978

★ Highlight Day

Today was the big day! We flew to San Francisco at 9:00 AM. But, the airplane was 52 minutes late. We are staying at the Hotel Mark Twain and enjoying it very much. After we got ourselves unpacked, we walked around the city for awhile. After that, we took a cable car out to Fisherman's Wharf, and I went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, The cannery, (an old chocolate factory changed to shopping center), and we ate at Fisherman's grotto No. 9. After dinner we went to a pinball place. Then we took a trolley car back to the hotel. When I climbed into bed at 10:15 that night, I fell asleep in 3 minutes!!!

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 20, 1978

Today was the first day of Easter Vacation. I and the Jones' are getting very excited about the trip tomorrow (they are on the same airplane). This morning, I went to my oboe lesson. I was not progressing as fast as I would like to. My teacher, Lon Bussell, is a lot harder than I thought he was. But I want to work on it hard because my band teacher, Mr. Rupp, wants me to be the next oboe player in Intermediate Orchestra.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 19, 1978

Today is Palm Sunday. So dad got all dressed up in a maroon colored bow tie and a bright yellow jacket. I didn't think it matched but he said it was fine for Church. After church, we went to my guitar lesson. (We had to do it today because there was no other time to do it. I got the greatest new song written by James Taylor. It's called "Secret O' Life." My mother fell in love with it the first time I played it for her along with the record.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 18, 1978

Today, I finally came out of my slump in bowling. I bowled a 156, a 134 and a 141. My average was 144! That brought up my overall average to 106, and my Junior League average up to 115. I had a new high series of 431 pins. Afterwards, I went to another one of the Red Sox practice games. We weren't so lucky this time. We played a better team called the Orioles, and they won the World Series last year in the majors. (We won ours in the Intermediate league.) They beat us 14 to 5. Pitiful, huh? and believe it or not we did win the World Series last year.

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 17, 1978

Today is the last day before Easter vacation! Hooray! Yahoo! Let's skip school and get right to the best part of the day. Our first practice baseball game of the season! And boy, was it an exciting game. We played an exciting 4 innings of confusion. Since it was our first game, everything was not organized very well, but we pulled it out. I suppose you're waiting for the score? Well, do not get to excited because it was only a skimpy 3-1!

(Hooray for Easter Vacation)

***

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To view the next day click: March 18, 1978

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 16, 1978

Today was one — or should I say another one of those routine school days. Afterwards, a tutor named Rebecca Lippman came to my house to help me. (Mom jumped right onto a tutor as soon as she saw my D in Math.) Rebecca is really neat! She's a whiz in geometry, which is what I need the help in. She explained the formulas for getting the Area and Perimeter of different shaped objects, such as squares and trapezoids. That night, Janna Richert fell into her jet lag. (She's staying with us) But you would to if you had been on an airplane for 33 hours! Countdown: 1 day till E.V.!!!

***

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Nothing Much Else Happened: March 15, 1978

Today, I wouldn't of minded if I could skip it. Unfortuanetly, it was progress report day, and it's the first progress report out of 5 that I had a D (below average), or a U (unsatisfactory). I had a D and a U in Clothing and Stitchery (also known as sewing), and I also had a D in math. All the rest of my classes had lines, meaning I was above average. We didn't have a practice like we were supposed to. It was cancelled. But after dinner, we went to pick up Joe, Jennie Lea, and Janna at the airport because they just came home from Africa. (Remember on February 25th?) Countdown: 2 days till Easter vacation!!!

***

Honestly, I have to say that I'm pretty PROUD of a D in sewing.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

To view the next day click: March 16, 1978

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