Note from Jack:

In the original version of this I scanned, there are all sorts of notes left by Grammy’s teacher making recommended changes to tenses, verbiage, etc. I think almost all of those changes were pretty much junk. Grammy’s present-tense writing style makes everything funnier and faster.

For example:

“Gregg and Gary did go to Wisconsin. They came back with fish stories Tom is still telling.”
was suggested to be changed to
“Gregg and Gary did go to Wisconsin. They came back with fish stories Tom is still repeating.”

What kind of edit is that!? Yes, that is technically what was happening, but the idea of Tom telling the story, as if he was there, is much funnier and gets closer to the truth of how Grammy must’ve seen it (as you’ll see in the context of the entry)

So, for the most part, I’ve chosen to ignore Sister Jonella’s advice and only edit where I think a mistake really was unintentional.

Here’s Grammy’s 5-Day Journal From 1979:

5 Day Journal

Monday February 12, 1979

Sister Jonella asked the people in her writing class keep a diary starting tonight. Well, if I ever suspected I lived a life of dull routine, I can prove it now. (Where is that 20¢? I’ll have to use my last quarter.) I put the quarter in the phone slot. Now, the fact is that we can’t afford a car for me, and even if we could, I’d probably be too chicken to drive it. Trying to explain simple directions to a teen-ager is enough to put some mothers in a state of mental depression. Some who are weaker of strength and sheer stamina are unable to endure the cross-examination, and resort to walking home in the dark of night over ten-foot snow drifts.

In hopes of catching me in a philosophical untruth, the seventeen year old inquisitor answered the phone.

“Hello, Tom? Have Dad pick me up at the front door. Sure, you can if you want.”

“What do you mean, WHAT front door. Just drive up to the main entrance and pick me up. The same entrance I’ve been coming out of for three years.”

“…No, Tom. That’s the side entrance. No, Tom. St. Xavier is not standing inside the front entrance. He is standing inside the side door. Tom, trust me. I know for a fact that they put the statue inside the side door and not the front one.”

“…..How should I know why? I don’t care if it isn’t logical—it is a fact! I wouldn’t lie to you about a thing like that. Let me talk to your dad.”

“….Your dad. I know my dad isn’t there. He lives in another state. How could he be there? or is it here? or????? Just put Donald Yurachek on the phone. Thanks.”

“…..Honey, if you love me you’ll pick me up at the front entrance of St. Xavier’s as soon as possible. Never mind! I’ll explain later.”

I left the phone booth mumbling something about Socrates. I talked to Nancy H. briefly while waiting for my ride. She and a group of nuns from her house were going to attend a wake of a woman in their parish. (Probably some mother of a teen-ager who became so exasperated, she died.) I spoke to Nancy quietly, while my mind was racing toward supper and the realization that I had not left a note. They will think I’ve already eaten. Nothing will be left. The inquisitor eats more than he questions.

The hot dog wasn’t too bad, but the meat loaf would have been better. Blue looked a little guilty since he had eaten my portion. I really don’t like meatloaf but tonight it seemed a little unfair that I had to wash to class smelling like onions and dotted with the “blood” of tomato sauce. Furthermore, I had to spend half my break time in the bathroom trying to get the “blood” off my blouse, otherwise someone might think I had been badly wounded. Now, I couldn’t ever have any meatloaf that I had so skillfully put together. I get “no respect.”

Monday cont’

I’ve got to face at least fifty kids tomorrow. Other people’s teens-agers. Jr. High and high school teachers must be missing some of their marbles. To want to spend a life time working with teen-agers must mean I’ve really got a screw loose somewhere. Parents see them through the “stage” or the “age” then they can relax. High school teachers are in the grips of the “age” and the gripes of the “age” perpetually. I must remember to ask my cousin who married “well” to ask her psychiatrist husband about all that someday.

My lesson plan is done. Now I’ve got to look into my vast wardrobe and choose between the blue dress or the brown one. I asked myself which would go better with the plastic “leather look” boots that remind me of something a French street walker would wear. “Buy what you want,” my husband had said as he handed me $10. I felt like complaining, but remembered he was wearing over-shoes taken from a broken mannequin he found in his company’s garbage pile. Oh well! My wardrobe reflects my income–ZILCH! Practice teachers are underpaid and overworked (or is it overwrought). However, the inquisitor and his sister are dressed in the latest style. Yet, they never have a thing to wear.

I’m probably the ONLY thirty-eight-year-old college student in this village. Why am I doing this to myself? Instead of facing the junior high troops tomorrow, I could be puzzling over the color of my drapes. I could be reading the morning news instead of the Lippincott L. I guess I’m weird, but being weird isn’t such a bad deal.

Tuesday

Everyone was up bright and early. Nancy had Swing Choir at 7 a.m. and Tom had drum sectionals at the same time. When it was apparent that we were in for a full routine of “Hot-Line Hot-Line” before breakfast, I was over-joyed. Especially when Tom decided to accompany her on the hard surface of the kitchen floor, using two spoons Aunt Mildred had given me for a wedding present. Don was complaining about the Rock Island Line, which fits the rhythm of “Hot-Line,” and I was frantically trying to remember what I had looked up the day before on the Pleistocene Age. I knew the kids would ask a thousand questions once we were into the story. (I was right. They did.)

No use thinking about the Pleistocene Age with all this going on around me. “I got pig-iron! I got pig-iron!” The Hot-Line routine stopped. The accompaniment stopped. They all looked at me. “…The Rock Island Line carries a lot of pig-iron, gang.” “Ma, you need a rest,” the drummer said.

We all sat down to breakfast. The grape fruit was good. The toast was soggy—no one complained. Each person went on his way.

Tuesday con’t

I am lucky to be riding with Tony these mornings. It sure beats walking with all this snow on the ground. I was especially grateful this morning because of all the visual aids I was carting with me. I am prepared for anything that might come up regarding the Pleistocene Age. I hoped Tony wouldn’t ask what the stuff was and he didn’t. When I got to his house, Lisa’s tooth was hanging and her mother was panicking because she can’t stand the sight of blood. (I swear that woman gets the vapors just like women used to do before the days of Gloria Steinhem.) I yanked the kid’s tooth and saved the day, but found out later that I had made a mortal enemy of the girl’s grandmother since I had infringed upon her territory.

The snow drifts are so high that Tony can’t get out of his driveway without hitting Mrs. Holt’s car. It became my job to inform the friendliest neighbor on the block that she must move her car. Mrs. Holt wasn’t out of bed. She didn’t want to be out of bed, once she was. She most certainly didn’t want to come out in the elements. A woman her age could expire in this weather. She had to take care of herself. She gave me the keys and I moved the car.

Steven can’t spell “encouragement.” First period is going ok. Steven can’t even spell “parade.” He says he never saw one. He says his name is Steven Comparing—a kid named Comparing who has never seen a parade. It sounds phony. I come to the conclusion he is being phony. I firmly write B A K E R across his paper. From that point on Steve Baker and I got along fine. He tried to spell but with difficulty. The class periods are not long enough.

Second period and the Pleistocene Age went well. By the third class on the same subject, I had become quite expert on the subject of the pre-historic age. I left the junior high, to go to my seminar at St. Xavier’s College, then home.

No one was home. That would give me a chance to catch up on some quiet time. I thought about the morning and laughed, but the laughter turned to panic when I realized I had not taken out the only thing we had for dinner. The chicken was still in the freezer, frozen hard as a rock. The giblet bag was and bored in so tight that I would never loosen it. Besides my fingers were getting frost bitten. In an act of desperation, I tossed the chicken into the air intending to catch it in the pan as it came down. This wasn’t going to solve the problem, but it could add a little fun and games to the situation. It missed the pot. It fell on the floor with a thud so loud, the sleeping dog thought it was an intruder with a gun. Being the good watchdog that he is, he decided to attack the dead chicken. I rescued our dinner just in time. I quickly dusted it off, put the chicken in a pan and stuck the pan in the oven—chicken complete with giblets in a paper bag. I would take the bag out once the heat thawed the chicken.

Don called too late to change the cooking potatoes to rice. When I asked him if he really preferred “Stove Top Stuffing,” he hung up. Dinner was delicious. Blue ate giblets, paper bag and all.

Wednesday—February 14

St. Valentine’s Day has prompted Donald Yurachek to place a china rose on the mantle. He is the best husband a mother of two teen-agers ever had. Underneath all that parent image, there lies the lovable man I married. He left the kids and me sleeping today, as he marched off into the cruel world to earn our daily bread. He is the Dad in our house. He hides the car keys, the checkbook and the coffee cake. He sets up impossible rules that cause critical remarks from the younger members of our family. No one else in the whole world has to be home by 10 o’clock on a school night and midnight on the weekends. After all his daughter is 15 years old. He refuses to let her do what ALL her friends do. Consequently, she is the social outcast of Evergreen Park High School, allowed no more than one party a week and $2 a day spending money. She says, “Dad is old-fashioned. He never does anything.” And maybe she has a point. All he has done in her lifetime is:

1. Be the soul support of the family. 2. See a daughter through a critical and expensive disease. 3. Pay for braces for two cases of over-bite, put one wife through college, one son through high school, provided various pairs of eye glasses, contact lenses, year-round allergy shots, party dresses, special occasion suits, pianos, flutes, snare drums and lessons for each, been boy scout leader, Church volunteer, girl scout fund raiser, teen-club chaperone, and all around loving father who likes to play golf once in awhile.

The world needs more like him, and our family is lucky he is our dad, and we all love him dearly.

I attended my first teacher’s meeting today. It was not like I had thought it might be. Those sweet, loving, dedicated public servants became irate name-calling warmongers, when faced with controversial issues like teacher-cutback, increased class size, and the possibility of holding back graduation in hopes of having the most infamous Evergreen Park delinquent repeat 8th grade. “Pass him on—Who cares if he can’t read—That’s the high school’s problem now.”

The day went without incident, however on my way home I fell in a snowdrift. I felt like laying there in hopes that a helicopter or a St. Bernard would come to my rescue. With icicles hanging from my nose and hair, I arrived home. I heard great sobs coming from upstairs, and when I checked them out, I found Nancy in her room crying as though her heart would break. I suspected a new pimple, or a broken hair-dryer as the cause, but never what I heard.

…..“I’ve been asked to the dance!” (Good)

…..“Dad said I could go!” (Good)

…..“I can buy a new dress and shoes.” (Good)

…..“The cutest boy in the whole school asked me.” (Good)

………. “5 minutes ago I broke my contact. That means I can’t get a new one for two weeks. The dance is in a week and I’ll have to wear my GLASSES. Ken doesn’t know I wear GLASSES and he’ll hate me. I know it! My life is ruined!” (Now that IS a problem, and I knew who had to solve it. Well, what are mothers for….)

Thursday—February 15

Everyone was up bright and early today. Nancy was her old self again. It seems that Ken, her date for the dance, doesn’t mind her glasses at all. He wears contacts himself. This boy is a blessing in disguise. All the tears over the teen-age skin problems suddenly disappeared too, after Ken came on the scene. Fortunately, or unfortunately, his Clear-A-Sil doesn’t work either.

Nancy no longer has a problem for me to worry about. Now, it’s her brother’s turn. He needs the car to go to a chess meet all the way in Countryside. He has never driven further than Oak Lawn. My first reaction is to tell him “no.” Then he tells me he doesn’t really mind if he goes or not. His friends, Gary and Gregg are planning a fishing trip up to Wisconsin where the ice is thick and the fish bite better than anywhere in the United States, according to Gary Phillips, and they have asked Tom to go along this weekend.

“Tom, who would be driving?”

“Gregg. His folks bought a new camper van. He can use it anytime he pleases.”

“Where would you stay?”

“Gregg’s parents have a cabin. Heated and everything.”

“You wouldn’t have time to get there and back in 2 days.”

“Heck yeah! Gregg says he can push that baby up to eighty on this one road where the cops don’t look much. We can get there in an hour with no problem.”

“Tom, you can go to Countryside, wherever it is!”

Gregg and Gary did go to Wisconsin. They came back with fish stories Tom is still telling.

I thought having an oral surgeon’s son for a friend of my son might make us lucky enough to get a few free adjustment jobs on his braces. So far all Gregg is good for is constant frustration. “Why can’t I have my own car.” “Why won’t you let me go away by myself.” Tom says Gregg’s parents are liberal and really neat. I say they are flaky and know nothing about raising children. Seventeen does not an adult make! (to split my infinitives and dangle my participles).

Friday—February 16

I was late getting out this morning. If my kids are co-operative, then the dog isn’t. I get “no respect” in the words of Rodney Dangerfield. When I let out the macho dog, he climbed over the mounds and over the fence and into the territory of his arch-enemy, Lucky Pierre. Blue tried everything to pick a fight, but Pierre is a lover not a fighter. Unable to pick a fight with Pierre, Blue turned and chased Gladas, the neighbor’s cat, up the highest tree in the yard. I’m sure it is one of the highest trees in the entire village. Mrs. Holt was quite upset that we couldn’t get her sweet Gladas down out of the tree. Blue was standing guard to make certain she didn’t come down.

Student teaching went fine today. The kids and I talked about the importance of using precise nouns when we write. I also learned the adjective spiel from Mrs. Giampoli. She said the only way to teach Language Arts is to strip each part of speech down to the bare bones information. Give it to the kids in an outline, then fill in. Kevin can’t get adjectives. He can’t remember the rules. How are we going to fill in for him?