January 02, 2007
Memories
The other week, while digging into some old boxes that I've been dragging around for years, I came across some fascinating discoveries.
Item: one $25 U.S. Savings Bond given to me in 1966 by my uncle Curtis. A quick check of the Treasury's Savings Bond site revealed that this 40-year-old bond had stopped earning interest after 30 years in 1996 and that it is currently worth about $125. Nice!
Item: one transcript of the June 13, 1965, broadcast of Meet the Press, which featured Barry Goldwater as guest. Told you I was a big Goldwater fan in those days.
Item: one 1967 survey on values from Colorado State College with all my answers marked. This is fascinating in so many ways, as it gives me a handy way to see what I actually believed in those days without having to rely on sometimes unreliable memory. The questions cover issues like attitudes toward science, voting rights, war, education, race relations, crime, sex, and religion. I hope to write about this some more, so suffice it to say that in some areas my opinions have changed somewhat, but in other areas I still think the same way my 18-year-old self did.
Item: letters. Several dozen letters. Covering the latter years of high school and the first couple years of college. These are letters written to me by relatives and friends, usually (though not always) in response to letters that I had written to them. So it's sort of like eavesdropping on one side of a phone conversation, since in many cases I no longer recall the details of what I had written. For example, a couple folks mention a funny story I told during my first year at Penn State about my misadventures with a television set; I have only a vague recollection of those events. It sure would be nice to get a look at the letters that I wrote. Pity that I didn't think to keep copies of them. BTW, one of the amusing things revealed in those letters is the difference in prices between then and today. One letter-writer decided not to shell out $3.50 for a ticket to see Louis Armstrong, while another one refers to the exorbitant prices of Broadway shows--nine dollars for the best tickets!
Item: one telegram. This is the only telegram that I have ever received. The occasion was the opening night of Janus, the play produced by the Lebanon Community Theatre and featuring me in a lead role. The telegram was sent by Debbie, a friend of mine who also used to be active in the community theatre but whose family had moved to New York City the previous year. It reads: "WISH I COULD SEE YOU BREAK A LEG LOVE --DEBBIE"
Item: one photograph of me. I have totally forgotten any details of this photo--who took it, where, when. I'd guess that it was probably taken sometime in the early 1970's somewhere near State College, PA. But I really can't remember.
