Memoir Monday, Dec 30, 1966

The 'vacation' if one could call it that, was not yet over for there were still a few days to go. I went back to Flagstaff for January 3 as classes resumed.

 Dec 30, 1966

Already? Can't believe it. And would you believe snow on the ground this morning?! It snowed a good part of the day but all was quiet. We got our packages from California. I really dig the extra board station agent. he's a swingin' cigar smoking Oakie with a hot Chevy. I was glad yesterday to find that Sir James had a valid reason for standing me up. (I think his mother took ill in Tucson) Now perhaps he won't be back to see the New Year in with me but no matter. Perhaps I'd rather not commit myself to him for 1967 that way...

Will six (B&B that is) come in tomorrow by the by? Charlie Mike says yes but I am unsure. Now--what now my love? I am anxious in  a way to get back to NAU but a little sorry that there are only three more days left of my vacation. I can't do a lot of things I'd like to. That's life of course.  I've nearly finished  my two special dresses and done a lot of other sewing projects close to done. If I hustle I can finish them in time. Leave a few for semester break maybe which won't be long. 

The next evening Charlie Mike and I listened to the top 40 on KOMA and still boiled with pent-up anger at the injustices we cannot overcome. I wonder where some people are and how they are.  I wrote "Please God, may  this is the last New Year's I spend in this miserable hovel of a house in this ugly dump of a god-forsaken town."  What had gone so wrong the last day or two that I felt this way, I did not record. Perhaps that was for the best. Something must have happened or been said though, to awaken such bitterness. 

I fixed two skirts of Mom, didn't feel like  working on my simple dress or other projects. We played some records earlier and finally gave up the 'watch party' at 11:00 and went to bed. I drifted off to sleep with "These boots are made for walking" echoing lazily through the hallways of my weary mind. Nothing too fab about 1966; it is going and I am glad. I got a black eye, a few kisses, saw some beloved critters pass, finally changed my life in a huge way. It's over. That's enough. 

Indeed this was the last Christmas/New Year's I spent in Clarkdale although the final departure did not occur until the next late summer & fall. The next winter holiday--1967--I was back in Sacramento in a weird sort of deja vu. Again I left Flagstaff in the snow on the train and on December 16.  None of the family except me was in Arizona at that point as I will explain when the time comes. Rather than stay in Flag virtually alone for two weeks or more, I went back to visit the California Morgans with whom Charlie Mike was already staying at that time. All of that seems so remote and unreal now, looking back so very far.

I am not sure I can find any relevant photographs. We certainly took none of that holiday at the time. I may find some older ones that are not too mismatched but perhaps this will just be a dull text only post? Dull they say with no illustrations Didn't Lewis Carroll's Alice say that one time? .

Okay, here we go to prevent that--sorta. Desolate Clarkdale, probably prior winter as the last smoke stack came down not long after I started up at NAU. Then  a couple of years earlier but snow and a glimpse of the plain little house we lived in. Charlie Mike was not looking happy; he very seldom did in those days. And last the canyon corrals in snow, again an earlier time. Remembering chores in bad weather--not so much anymore.