1970

1970

Woodbine Avenue

Overbrook

Philadelphia, PA

My age: 14- 15

School- Merion Mercy Academy- 10^th grade.  I had geometry this year and not one fact or concept made any sense to me. The only thing I remember about this class is side equals side equals side.  But I don't know what that means. I was now in my 4^th year of French and I was nowhere nearer to become fluent.  My skills seemed to be worsening. I did take typing class which seems to be the only high school skill I retained.

Work-

• I would babysit for $1/hour. Some nights, I made as much as $5. Sometimes, parents would leave me with their kids for 10 hours at a time and I would have to feed them twice and do all the dishes.  It was a dreadful way to make money.I worked one weekend night and then played with my friends on the other night.
• During the summer months, I was a candy striper at Lankenau Hospital.

Music- my sister and I were pooling our money and buying albums together. We paid about $3 for an album.  The turn table was in the den. We bought Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon and Neil Young’s album Harvest.

Books- in my high school, we had to read books in our English classes and our History classes.  I didn’t read any of these books.  It didn’t occur to me to read them.

News Events

•  The Beatles broke up.  How could they do this to me?
• We invaded Cambodia.  I wasn’t sure where Cambodia was or why we did this or if this was at all related to the Viet Nam War.
•  Four students are killed at Kent State by the National Guard. The country is stunned and people begin to take sides as to who is right and who is wrong about our war activities.
• Earth Day is celebrated for the first time. We begin to make half-hearted attempts to recycle our newspapers and to reduce water usage when we are brushing our teeth.

Family and Friends

• ·Brian is born, my parents’ 7^th child.  We were so damn excited.  At first, we only wanted a girl and so there was a minute of disappointment to learn that Karen Joy was now Brian Edward.  But the minute we laid eyes on him, we were in love.  We couldn’t believe such a precious being could exist.  We followed my mother from room to room as she moved from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen.  We couldn’t get enough of him.
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• At the end of 9^th grade, we convince the nuns to let our class spend the night in the gym.  One nun agrees to monitor us.  She pulls a big lazy boy chair in to the balcony that overlooked the gym. She no sooner sat down in that thing and she was asleep.  So, several of us went in to the locker room and shared beers that one girl brought with her.
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• Kathy, my oldest sister, graduates from high school. She started college in the fall at a local university and even though she lived at home, it still seemed as if she left us and went on to bigger, brighter things.