June 14, 1972 Wed.
Dear Diary:
We didn’t go shopping today. We recuperated. Well Becky & I got courage and went down & cleaned the boilers house sink. Gross. I watched T.V. in the morning. Some in afternoon & at nightime too. Mary & Aunt Helen came over. Went & saw the fish ponds. We all got a letter from Dad (1 letter for us all. I’m beat tired.
BYE!!
Note: We loved watching TV in English and seeing programs that we didn’t have in Nicaragua. My grandparents also had a color TV. We watched Captain Kangaroo some mornings if we were up early, along with Grandma’s favorites The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal. I occasionally got brave enough in the afternoons at 4:00 and watched “Dark Shadows," a soap opera with a really scary soundtrack. In the evenings we would watch Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Dating Game or whatever was on that evening.
Becky and I scrubbed the boiler room sink. David remembers Grandpa being mad at me for washing his coffee cup which he said was perfectly seasoned. I don’t remember him being angry (selective memories).
June 15, 1972 Thurs.
Dear Diary:
Today was my bad luck day. I getting a cold, losing my voice. We went to Revco & Sears. I didn’t sleep well last night. It was so doggone hot. I got my wrist slammed into Revcos door, my finger pinched in the umbrella, toes stepped on etc. I bought Grandpa bubble bath & mom a hair barret. Mom ordered me 2 pairs of short sets & 2 bras. Sure hope its not to hot tonight. Watched T.V. Talked to Mary.
BYE!!!
Note: It would get so hot and muggy in the bedroom. Grandma insisted on putting a fan in the window but facing the outside to draw out the hot air. In theory this might work but there wasn’t any cool air. We tried turning the fan around when she wasn’t around. She would find out, fuss at us and turn it back.
It wasn’t Friday the 13th or martes trece, "no te cases; ni te embarques" (bad luck day in Latin America is Tuesday the 13th, "don't get married or go on a trip") so I don’t know why everything went wrong that day.
June 16, 1972 Fri.
Dear Diary:
I got up earlier for a change 8:30. Todays cleaning day. I dusted, pasted stamp, washed dishes, made lunch (most). We didn’t go shopping today. I‘m horse. I watched T.V. Moms making carrot cake. We kids went over to Coveys to get a grater. She kept us there for awhile. Played darts. Watched T.V. “I Thank a Fool.” Got to take a bath.
BYE!!!
Notes: S&H Green Stamps was a reward program where retailers would distribute stamps to customers based on how much they bought, which could then be redeemed for free goods from their catalog. I helped paste the stamps into Grandma’s book. I remember she saved them up for a clothes iron.
Mrs. Covey was one of my Grandparents' neighbors. She was pretty lonely so she liked to talk a long time.
My Grandparents’ house had a huge basement with steep stairs and several empty rooms. The dart board was on the wall. My mom and her brother had a darkroom in one of the empty rooms where they developed photos. It was eerie down there, especially at night.
"I Thank a Fool" was movie with Susan Hayworth and Peter Finch from 1962.
My folks collected the stamps from cigarette packs...can't remember if those were S&H Green Stamps or not, but they smoked so much, we ended up with several kitchen appliances, before we left for Latin America.
The fan thing was a conspiracy....by placing the fan in the kid's window pointing out, it drew in cool air to the parents bedroom window. My dad admitted this years later....😏
Susan, great memories! We watched Dark Shadows in Chile and named our dog Barney for Barnabas Collins! I also remember using green stamps while on vacation in the U.S…. Did your grandma get her iron?
Tracy S
Dark shadows! That TV show made me afraid of bats, even today!!!
Oh Susan, I’d completely forgotten the mad fan theory about ‘pulling out the hot air.’ My own grandmother was a great believer in it too; but it never actually felt as if it did anything except create the impression you were living in a wind tunnel!
Kh
My sister loved Dark Shadows. Me, not so much. We also saved green stamps as well as blue chip stamps (but maybe that was just California). Was that the fish pond by the priest house? I had forgotten about that.