I’m reading about me in the autumn of 1979. It’s kind of weird that much of it I do not remember. Living with Shazrak, I recall.
I do know I was going to grad school at UAlbany in Public Administration. But I’m reading the names of professors and classmates who are unfamiliar.
In 1978, as part of my job at the Schenectady Arts Council, I was in charge of the Artisans Arcade in the Proctor’s Theatre arcade. That job ended abruptly in January 1979 when the federal funding suddenly disappeared. So I was surprised that I was again working with the SAC on the Artisans Arcade with a woman named Irma Hamilton.
I had an internship at the Albany Housing Authority. The thin, older guy named Frank, I remember, but others, not so much. I remember inputting data about potential residents. One of my presumed improvements was the merging of the maintenance crews, some of whom were paid by state funds and others with federal money. A unified unit ended unnecessary overtime; indeed, one of the units I observed stalling some tasks until 5 p.m. They knew I was RIGHT THERE frequently but didn’t think I would report it.
But other tasks – me going out with staff during evictions, collecting money for some function I cannot ascertain – no idea about these things.
Here’s Johnny!
One of the things I wrote down were two Johnny Carson jokes on the Tonight Show from around New Year’s Day 1980.
There’s a drive-in confessional on Long Island where you drive over the rubber hose, then the priest comes out and says, “Check your soul?”
How to get drunk and cure a hangover at the same time: drink vodka and Milk of Magnesia. It’s a Phillips’ screwdriver.
(How many of you have no idea about the reference to the rubber hose or Milk of Magnesia?)
It’s weird reading about your own life in your own hand but having no recollection. In many ways, I remember 1972 better than 1979. So why did I abandon the 1972 reportage? Because there are no diaries between the autumn of 1972 and the autumn of 1979 that survived my apartment flooding in the 1990s.
So no tales of the disintegration of the marriage between the Okie and me, or 1977, the lost year, or 1978, the found year. I remember SOME of that, of course.
The good news for ADD is I’ll get to the FantaCo years, which start in 1980.