May 15, 2008 Summerside, Prince Edward Island

Today was another glorious spring day. I relaxed and slept rather late in the mid-week quiet of my rear bedroom. I am usually awakened by the bright sunshine which filters thru my old friendly tree, my white lacy curtains, and spring bird song. Goodbye winter-unlike any winter I have ever experienced, with as many as 4 major snowfalls per week. I thought of my childhood on the farm and those winters in the 1960's, but can't remember that much snow.

I walked down to the boardwalk at Green's shore, just a few blocks away as I sometimes do. Just to sit in the warm sun and still cold seabreeze, gaze fixed toward the mainland across the bay and straight. There is a little lighthouse at the entrance to the bay I hope to visit at some point. A lot of people were out walking themselves or with their dogs and little children. I picked a few tulips, that go unnoticed by the landlord, and put them in the case in my livingroom along with some daffodils Shel picked before she left for her long summer of work as a cottage manager near Borden. She seemed happy for it all, now with her future apparently secure for the time being. I will just go on missing her company, which is SOP now for to long, but I am afraid, a permanent time.

I spoke with Joey yesterday. It was very disturbing. He was going to a movie he really wanted to see (Iron Man,( and I think he had a date) But he misplaced his paycheck from "Your Place" restaurant and was having a fit. We talked it out and he seemed better. Hopefully mom gave him a few bucks so he could take this rare girl out. He was very emotional. I know that his high school graduation, mother issues, my long absence, as well as his now remote sister are all issues. Some of his mother's lack of confidence and financial paranoia has entered him. I am hopeful my visit and his start of college will help. I told him I was sorry I was away all this time, as other issues always seemed to take precedence. And his mother's annoyance at having me closer than 1000 miles was always an issue. It would seem this summer should address resolution of some of these things. With my separation from Shel completed this week after 4 years of effort to save our marriage, my heart is free to begin anew. At least much freer than it was.

I got a call from a company in New Brunswick that has a lot of work with the Canadian military. It is all pretty routine environmental assessment and remediation stuff, with some ordnance issues included. I am supposed to meet with them next week in Moncton, if I can arrange transportation. Its been a tight budget here most of the last year, with all the Shel issues and my generally falling pension checks. Tonight I will probably take my usual walk, toss in a few pennies at Queen's pier and say my prayers for family and a successful completion to this chapter of my life story., and now...(drum roll!)...

Tuesday May 15, 1979 10:30 PM
written at 92 Evergreen Drive, New Britain Pennsylvania

Mild today.Some sun in the afternoon.School was O.K.-things going along briskly in this second week It seems like 4 times I have been in Calc II. Did homework in the evening. Carol and I weeded her garden and and went to Arby's. I've been real hungry of late-I'm going to exercise daily instead of fasting. See how it goes. Most is O.K.

Monday May 15, 2006 Summerside, PE

It has been a few days since I wrote. I was a bit grumpy and Shel was snappy too.Today was warm, sunny, and nice -played chess, went outside briefly. Shel worked, came home, then went out again. She didn't seem well to me. She went to sleep while I was still playing chess. She softly said after a while, "Thank you for taking me all those places".

It was actually kind of touching, made me tear a little. She also got some good groceries and candy for me. She bought salt-water taffy and must have been thinking of our times at the New Jersey shore and elsewhere. Maybe she too is just a bit sentimental. On the radio briefly. A few CQ's, no contacts.

Overview

It had been my hope to eventually copy all of my diaries, going back to January 22, 1966 into this medium. Unfortunately, all but one journal (1978) were destroyed. So we are stuck with my memories as needed and the events of the day. This format places the most recent entry first, so the reader will again have to deal with my "non-temporal " writing style. I have been maligned by some for writing various stories in an "out of order" manner. Perhaps that's how my literary mind works, or maybe just how the past presents itself to my consciousness. Another problem is my slow typing speed and sometimes low back pain which would have made placing over 30 years worth of daily diaries entries here anyway. No doubt that the reader would probably had balked at having to read page after page of how many eggs the chickens laid that day, the weather report, or crude sketches of the position of the Galilean moons of Jupiter as seen by a 10 year old with a telescope.
Junior high school, high school and college might have been more entertaining. That original series of diaries, which had gone down to weekly entries at best, ended on November 4, 1989, when my son was born.

Michelle says there is at least one other 1980's journal in her stuff at her mother's home in Greeley, Colorado. So for these first few entries I will tell the tale of the day, and maybe add the entries from last year and 1978 on the same day, just to create a contrast.