Secret Spy Diary 1975, part 2

More from my Secret Spy Diary, 1975....

March 5

Roller skating is fun.

Tom called Mummy.

Oooh dear, Tom. Tom, who four years later married my mother and then eleven years later engaged in a scorched-earth divorce battle with said parent. In 1975, Tom and Mum met at a "Parents Without Partners" get-together and dated sporadically. They broke up in 1977, whereupon my mother took up with John the alcoholic salesman, a slick piece of sociopathy 13 years her junior. A romantic engagement followed, but my mother dumped John after he stole (and fraudulently used) her credit card. It also turned out that her lovely antique engagement ring had been stolen from John's mother's safety deposit box... by John! Anyhoo, four minutes after the dust settled from that debacle, my mother went back to Tom, and they got hitched in 1979. 

It all looks so innocent in my spy diary: "Tom called Mummy." Good thing I didn't know the crazy path THAT story was going to take! 

But I digress...

March 6

Chris C. sucks and chews his ruler alot. He also slumps over his chair.

 Ah yes, Chris C! He lived on my street and was one cool dude. He owned an awesome Evel Knievel action figure, complete with  teeny-tiny motorcycle. We kids of the 70s all idolized Evel, holding our collective breath as he performed stunt after death-defying stunt. Chris kind of reminded me of Evel, with his Madonna-esque facial mole and devil-may-care attitude.

Chris C. lived on my street, and I recall one particular warm summer evening spent with him and a pack of other local kids. This was back in the dark ages when children were sent to play outside after supper until the streetlights came on. Home computers and TV remotes were the stuff of Jetsons episodes. Instead of glueing ourselves to TV screens, we hooligans ran screaming around the 'hood, playing hide-and-seek or nicky-nicky-nine-door (try to ring nine doorbells in a row and run away before getting caught.) Good times! ,
We were milling about the middle of the road when Chris sent tiny Evel barrelling down the street. As we watched Evel skitter across the pavement, losing a layer of plastic to road rash, Chris turned to me conspiratorially. Quietly and hopefully he asked:

"Will you DO IT with me?"

Do it? Do IT? DO IT?!  Prim, proper, prudish me? It was only by chance that I even knew what "it" was, thanks to my Mum's recent "birds and bees" lecture, highlighted by a Kotex-produced "You're a Woman Now!" instuctional booklet and diagrams. Horrified that he considered me the sort of 11-year-old that would even consider such a request, I crushed his dreams and stomped home in a huff. From then on, I kept my distance from that ruler-sucking Lothario.

And then there was Brennan...

Brennan looks silly when he is serious. He fools a lot and chews his pencil numerous times during the day. He talks stupidly. He can't pay attention.

Poor Brennan. I remember him being the class clown and picking his nose a lot. Who knows why I assessed him so harshly in my diary!

I wrote about boys a lot. I liked hanging around with them, not so much for romantic reasons but because I was what they used to call a "tomboy." As much as I enjoyed Barbies and dressing up the family dog, I also loved hitting nails with a hammer and playing with Matchbox toys in the dirt.

Dawson goes "OH! OH!" and strains his arm when he puts his hand up. Eren chews her nails. A lot. Dean makes a lot of faces. Mr. Cane is a funny man. He walks funny too. Susan W. tilts her chair an awful lot. Wendy sits in funny positions. Elliott is queer.

  

Okay, before you jump to any conclusions, I should note that at that stage of my life, in 1975, I didn't know "queer" to mean anything but "strange." So I was not using it as an epithet or commentary on Elliott's sexuality. I just thought he was odd. Not long after, I unfortunately started seeing that word being used as an insult in the playground, and I found suitable synonyms for my writing!

Mr. Cane was one of my teachers. I was besotted with him and regularly baked and brought him lemon meringue pies. I had a major-league crush on Mr. Cane.

Suzanne G has bad breath. I feel sick each time I smell it. The snow is gone. I'm glad!
 

Well thank GOD I only told my spy diary about poor Suzanne's breath, and not Suzanne herself. I did exercise a modicum of discretion in my career as a judgmental junior spy.

More of this saga to come!

Secret agent at her Dad's bachelor pad