Mon.  April 2, 1984—New York–I started off yesterday in pretty high spirits, striding to the bank, having my shoes shined, stepping fancifully around in the nice warm weather.  Things went pretty rapidly downhill though when I’d gotten home.  I was cleaning, folding and vacuuming for Dad’s arrival when I became inspired about taking C.B. out.  So I bought tickets over the phone to Sam Shepard’s True West and called the B.’s number.  T. (her sister) came on and immediately said that everybody had plans and suddenly I went from young man about town to kid in serious trouble.  The nadir was calling W. R., a tough but nice seemingly girl from Berryville, Virginia (scene of some interesting activity during the Civil War), and having her roommate answer and hear W. saying in the background to tell me she was talking a shower.  I had to hang my head at that one.

Earlier though, on the bright side, I signed and mailed my tax returns, completed, including my eye test, and mailed my license renewal and a contribution to William Westmoreland for his libel suit against CBS.

During the day, I got a flat tire (a big nail punctured the tire but it didn’t go down, it just would have) right near where L.B. lives, so I went and left her a note.  In general a hurried retreat turning into a rout on the girl front.

Fri. Apr. 6 1984—New York–A pleasant enough day weather wise.  Did business on L.I.  Had a nice lunch with E. R., P. B, and L. D.  I think half of the girls in that office love L., odd because he is a huge man and looks like a walrus.

I went to see True West tonight—all by myself.  It was kind of nice because in that stunned and appreciative moment when the play ends, you don’t have to start chattering to somebody about it.  I think I called twelve girls to go to it and not a one would come—nobody—nada.  I got to the theater early though and sat in relative comfort eating a bagel out of my front pocket and reading a New Yorker article about Mario Cuomo.

I bought a great pirate Beatle record tonight—File Under Beatles.

In 1984 I started what ultimately became I guess part of my life’s work—unbeknownst to me.  I bought a notebook at a stationary shop on the west side of upper Madison Avenue, probably in the upper 80’s, about three blocks away from my apartment in NYC.  It wasn’t special.  It was just a notebook and on December 31, 1983 I started writing in it–daily.  Again nothing special, just where I went, what I did, the weather, what I ate, what I heard, what I saw.  There was never anything, “dark night of the soul” about the contents.  It was a daily account of my daily days, good, bad, fun, boring, dull, dramatic, but not merely jotted down, rather a fairly full and carefully composed (for the most part) out line of my day with random thoughts and observations.

During those 34 years, I dated, I got married, I had three children, I met scammers and con men, faced financial ruin, rid a house of bats, stymied conmen and scammers, started a business or two, made maps, wrote books, gave numerous presentations on Civil War Maps and Mapmaking culminating in a nationally broadcast presentation on C-Span BookTV.  I used my wits, held a couple of political offices, wrote a few songs, served on some interesting boards, read a lot of books, wrote and published a few articles,  played guitar on the street, broke my leg—a compound fracture—and my wrist in Carcassonne, and stayed in touch with friends some of whom I had since childhood.

This year I got the flu right after the New Year and in my flu stupor I pronounced to my family that I was quitting, what I call, my daybook.

They would not allow it – “Dad,” they said, in unison.  “Your day book is not for you anymore—it’s for us.  You cannot stop.”

I agreed.

I thought about it….how many people can account on a day to day basis for everything they’ve done for 34 years, 1 month ….and counting?  That’s 300,000 hours, 12,500 days and 1,786 weeks.

So over the course of the next few weeks, months, whatever, I plan to post some of my daybook entries.  I will just use initials for most of the people I came in contact with – except maybe the con men, they might not remain nameless—we’ll see.

And stay tuned.