1960s

January 29, 1967

I was far too quick to judge; I grossly underestimated the power of Nice’n’Easy. Under sunlight – any normal light, really – my hair blazed. You’d need to be blind not to notice and both of my parents were sighted. “You took out all the pretty darkness,” my mother lamented. My Wilcox cohorts assured me it was a vast improvement (not so hard, after 15 bad hair years).

To the best of my recollection, I was a natural brunette.

This was my first foray into the new world of multi-hued hair – a world I’d return to often. Addicts claim their first hit of cocaine is the one they chase for the rest of their lives. Likewise, my first rinse of permanent hair dye was the sweetest. Drugs or alcohol would’ve been redundant. Pounding down neighborhood streets on our secret mission was intoxicating enough.

sANDY + Kathy = KANDY — My secret mission ally Sandy Walker (Hegwood)

My Sunnyvale ally, Natalie Nilsen (pigtails, I know. I told you - 15 years of bad hair days.) — My Sunnyvale ally, Natalie Nilsen (pigtails, I know. I told you – 15 years of bad hair days.)

Due to the aerobic work-out we got from running all over town, our endorphins probably maxed out. Stir in the promise implicit in every Clairol commercial – by changing your hair color, you can change your life!- and we became unstoppable, the world was ours for the taking. If that’s not 20^th century alchemy, what is?

Dear me, whatever can I do with my hair?

As far as my parents were concerned, it wasn’t my finest hour. It wasn’t the worst, either. Still, even now – fifty years later to the day – bursts of our laughter and the pounding of our hearts echoes in my memory. We had so much fun it hurt – in an oddly pleasant way.

I remember it so clearly but I can’t recapture the feelings – the roller coaster highs and lows, intense moods and flooding emotions that were part and parcel of being fifteen. I couldn’t live at that fevered pitch forever – but I wouldn’t say no to another taste. After all these years, I’m chasing that fifteen-years-old high.

January 2, 1965

With grandparents (whose money I spent on pop records!)

Given the privacy concerns expressed in this entry, it’s ironic I post these entries on the web for anybody to read. I worried about others reading my diaries back then because I used them to vent my rage when I felt abused or insulted. To demonstrate my wrath in these early days, I appended Witch to my tormenter’s name – as in Jani-Witch, Joyce-Witch, etc. It was the worst I could think of to say.

Sometimes I wondered what would happen to my diaries if I died. I didn’t want anyone to read them but I didn’t want them destroyed either. Why bother to write all these careful entries if they’re all going to end up in the fireplace? On the other hand, some of my thoughts and feelings would be hurtful if read by the wrong person – and just about everybody I know became the wrong person at least once.

Occasionally, I willed my diaries to somebody I felt particularly close to. At the time, I regarded willing my diaries as a privilege to be bestowed upon some lucky person. In reality, nobody was begging me to bequeath multiple volumes to them.

After approximately 20 years, I switched from diaries to blank books. The photo below shows most but not all of them. Not only are they nearly impossible to read due to poor penmanship and weird abbreviations, they consume formidable storage space.

These are some, but not all of my diaries

So, what do I do with them on my deathbed? I still don’t know. It bothers me to picture them burning but I don’t know anyone gung ho enough to archive them – and I’m not sure it’s wise to take that risk anyway, since there’s something there to hurt almost everybody I care about. That’s not how I want to be remembered – but at the same time, I do want to be remembered – otherwise, why write these books at all?

After all this time, you’d think I’d have some answers but I don’t.

December 30, 1963

Of all my diary entries so far this is the one I most longed to rewrite. In my defense, it’s entry #7 of what now totals over 15,000 entries. When I wrote it, I was a 12-year-old amateur but that’s just an excuse, not the problem. The problem, obviously, is the stilted, cloying, artificial prose. “Anticipating lovely things of the future?” Please, who talks like that, outside of terrible Victorian novels?

The one redeeming quality in these early journals is my penmanship. My writing was larger, rounder, loopier with robust capital letters. This made it significantly more legible, which was darn lucky because for the first two years I wrote with a dull smudgy pencil – sheer torture to decipher fifty years later.

Reading the Diary of Anne Frank was my inspiration. I aspired to be as talented and profound as Anne, oblivious to the distance that separated my pedestrian prose from hers. Her diary inspired empathy as well as suspense due to her horrible (but historically significant) circumstances. Given my diary details the plight of a preacher’s daughter in suburban Santa Clara in 1964, the only thing our two diaries really have in common is they were both written by teen-agers.

My little town made history after I left, when Santa Clara became Silicon Valley. Even though most of my friends’ parents worked in electronics, I remained blithely oblivious to what that meant.

My world wasn’t much larger than my friends and family. As much as I loved Anne Frank’s diary, I couldn’t be her. I lacked her talent and the sweep and scope of her canvas. That said, what matters more in life than your relationship with your friends and family?

So even with my limitations, maybe I’ve got something to say – if that prissy judgmental twit who wrote today’s entry gets out of my way.

December 9, 1969

It’s difficult to reconstruct my thinking that fall because it was – to put it kindly – demented. I was assigned to the dorm I requested – Hedrick. The first night, I went to a barbeque with my new roommate. From the bleachers, we watched people below line up for food. My roommate and her friends playfully paired strangers – the ugly guy with an ugly girl, fat guy with a fat girl, etc.

Granted, it wasn’t nice but given a sliver of self-awareness I might’ve remembered I wasn’t always nice myself. Instead I unleashed my judgmental, self-righteous inner judge and jury. How could a sensitive soul like myself co-exist with such dreadful people? I needed to move out of Hedrick – now! This was brilliant reasoning compared to my next brainstorm.

My problem was finding someplace to live. My inspired solution was – go through Greek “Rush Week” and pledge a sorority!

Whaaaat? At UCLA in ’69, frats and sororities were as cool as Nixon and Goldwater. Inexplicably, it slipped my mind I wore jeans to school every day. I pictured myself 30 pounds lighter, in cashmere twin sets and designer suits with shiny straight hair and perfect make-up.

Closer to the correct "Sorority Girl" look for school (a slight exaggeration but not much) — Closer to the correct “Sorority Girl” look for school (a slight exaggeration but not much)

What’s wrong with this picture?

I hate groups, especially those that burst into song for no discernable reason.
I hate dress-codes and pantyhose (sorority girls had to endure both).
I hate setting tables, washing dishes and making my bed – chores pledges were required to do.
I hate sharing my space. Pledges shared a tiny room with six other girls as well as a communal bathroom.
I hate committee meetings, especially when they involve ritual.
Did I mention I hate groups?

Spotting a couple kinks in my plan, my parents urged me not to act hastily but – blinded by my vision of my secret sorority girl self – I plunged forward. Yes, I said, I’ll pledge your sorority! My new sisters sang a secret song of welcome.

"What do you mean, this doesn't qualify as a natural look?" — “What do you mean, this doesn’t qualify as a natural look?”

I moved my earthly possessions into the sorority. As I unpacked, sanity returned. With mounting horror, I remembered who I was – and who I wasn’t.

I told my sorority sisters I’d made a terrible mistake. They didn’t sing; they were too furious. I didn’t blame them. They kept their part of the bargain. I was the crazy flake who forgot who she was and what she wanted.

They were clear about what they wanted – me out of there. I got my eviction notice the same day I moved in. Luckily, Mary Bennett – my roommate from the prior quarter – needed a roommate. We arranged for me to move back into Sproul Hall – the same funky dorm where I started my college education.

I’m not suggesting my experience merits lines as profound as those T.S. Eliot wrote in “Little Gidding” but I’m going to quote them anyway.

December 7, 1968

Baby Boomers approached the SAT exam far more casually than millennials or gen-Xers. We didn’t hire tutors or spend Saturday afternoons in training seminars practicing multiple choice questions. We faced the exam armed only with our sharpened #2 pencils and took the darn thing cold.

Speaking strictly for myself, I didn’t even review fundamental math concepts[1] – how to determine the circumference of a circle, for example – even though that’s the kind of information I didn’t retain then, forget now. As Peggy Sue observed in Peggy Sue Got Married, my lack of knowledge didn’t hinder me in “real” life.

I didn’t score a perfect 1600 – nobody I knew then did – but I didn’t embarrass myself. Stanford and Yale weren’t going to ply me with scholarships but UCLA said yes (with no scholarship). My score wouldn’t get me through their door today.

Reading my acceptance letter to UCLA in the fall of '68. — Reading my acceptance letter to UCLA in the fall of ’68.

I was good at taking tests but not great like my sisters, both of whom the state of California deemed “Gifted”. Because of Janet’s and Joyce’s impressive IQs, the Board of Education invested considerable time and resources on the assumption I, too, might be a bit gifted. Alas, at best I was “above average” – which isn’t even in the same zip code as “gifted”.

Two of these three sisters are gifted. Who's the dummy? Hint - look for a vapid stare instead of a smile. — Two of these three sisters are gifted. Who’s the dummy? Hint – look for a vapid stare instead of a smile.

Did it bother me, being the dumbest Knutsen sister? Not as much as you’d think, since I was the oldest – so by default, the wisest. I suspect my IQ was sabotaged by my abysmal performance in “Spatial Reasoning”. How bad am I at Spatial Reasoning? I rank in the 20^th percentile, meaning 80% of the entire USA population is smarter at spatial reasoning than me.

There’s always a silver lining, though. I haven’t loaded luggage or groceries in a car trunk for decades. I smile and say, “I’d love to help but I’m terrible at spatial reasoning – and I can prove it.”

[1] I do not recommend this approach.

November 26, 1966

She didn’t wait till the next day; she called my father long-distance that night. She made Natalie trade rooms with her and didn’t let me out of her sight. I was supposed to meet Alan for church in the morning so we could exchange phone numbers and contact information but it was impossible. Since he thought my name was Natalie, I figured that was that.

Kathy and Natalie - which is which? — Kathy and Natalie – which is which?

Back at home, my father expressed mild disappointment but he didn’t make it into a big deal. I was home free.

A week later, my father knocked on my bedroom door. “I got an unusual letter at church.”

He unfolded a sheet of paper. “Dear Pastor Knutsen,” he read. “My name is Alan Sorenson.” He glanced at me. A surge of adrenalin left me shaky. He resumed. “I’m a Luther Leaguer from Pacific Palisades Lutheran who recently attended the “Get a Light” convention in Palm Springs. I’m trying to locate a young lady I met there named Natalie. She’s tall, around 5’9”, with shoulder-length brown hair.” He stopped. “Sound like anybody you know, Kathleen?”

Natalie and Kathy - which is which? — Natalie and Kathy – which is which?

Uh-oh. He called me Kathleen, not Kathy. “A little like me, maybe?”

“That’s what I thought – but your name’s not Natalie.”

I couldn’t concoct a plausible lie. “All right, Nat and I wanted to try being someone else. But it wasn’t to be mean.”

The right corner of his mouth turned up. He wasn’t angry – he was amused.

Although I am the pastor's kid, I couldn't help getting my halo slightly tarnished now and then — Although I was and still am the pastor’s kid, I couldn’t help getting my halo slightly tarnished now and then

Alan was not even slightly amused. He was mortified that he addressed his letter to my father. He didn’t appreciate being lied to, especially about being a PK, the likes of which he’s not really into dating. Tough luck for him, I’m a PK for life. So what if league sponsors spied on me and concerned parishioners gossiped? As long as the pastor in question was my dad, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

October 8, 1964

Even now, decades later, it’s easy to visualize this. In eighth grade, I played second oboe in band – and yes, there were two of us. Mike Moxley played first. There I sat at 7 AM, bored out of my mind, probably daydreaming about the Youth Center Dance and idly twisting my music stand without realizing what I was doing.

It was neither my first nor my last mortification in band. I had no innate talent and no hope of developing any since I hated to practice. I’m not sure why I didn’t quit in 7^th grade; perhaps Mr. Royer persuaded me to stick it out because Mike Moxley and I were the only two oboe players at Jefferson. I knew my tenure at second chair would terminate should another oboe player appear. This was hardly an imminent threat. Oboe wasn’t my first choice either but I was even more hopeless at flute.

The only song I recall from our limited repertoire was my favorite, The Green Leaves of Summer. I can still picture the sheet music and hear the melancholy chords.

“It was good to be young then – to be close to the earth”

It wasn't so good if you were wearing Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I'm not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity. — It wasn’t so good to wear Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I’m not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity.

At thirteen, mourning my lost youth brought tears to my eyes. Then again, it didn’t take much. I’m surprised I didn’t break down when I toppled the top of my music stand.

Another “Fashion Don’t” modeled by Kathy.

October 4, 1972

I don’t know where, when or even if Jack Nicholson made that comment but plenty of people relate. Consider all of the rock and pop songs about the anguish of running into your ex – Walk on By, I Go to Pieces, I Go Crazy and When We Were Young to name a few. The gut-crunching misery of realizing the heel who broke your heart is living la vida loca without you is timeless and universal.

When I find out an ex is getting married, my higher self wishes them well. My lower narcissistic self prefers they pine for me forever[1]. If that sounds heartless, consider this. How happy does the dude who shattered you deserve to be?

IMHO, the vengeful narcissist inside all of us roots for the bastard who dumped us to crash and burn in an epic fail. Anybody who acts overjoyed when their ex’s success far eclipses their own is a liar.

I wish you nothing but the best - as long as you don't do better than me. — I wish you nothing but the best – as long as you don’t do better than me.

My own encounters with exes occurred in or around Melnitz Hall at UCLA where our film major brought us together. Since leaving college, I rarely run into anyone I know, not even casual acquaintances. That’s life in the big city.

However, a motivated ex can beat those odds with an assist from Google and FB. The downside is the risk of being labeled a stalker and served with a restraining order.

I'm not stalking you! I just happen to be here. — I’m not stalking you! I just happen to be here.

I’m a crying fool for movies (Splendor in the Grass, The Way We Were, Wild Horses) in which ex-lovers encounter each other long after their breakup. It kills me how they make awkward chit chat to hide the depth of their true feelings. Does it work this way in real life? Sometimes, probably.

What gets to me is the message that even though it’s over – their great passion is gone and it’s never coming back – the remnants of love remain in a new shape. It might manifest as love from a distance or devotion to a memory. It could come in the form of compassion, affection, concern or the deep camaraderie of people who know each other to the core. It might not be the love we’re looking for or the love we want but a little love is better than nothing.

I'll always love the way we were. — I’ll always love the way we were.

Something about that always makes me cry.

[1] In the interest of full disclosure, even when I was the heartbreaker, I wanted them to pine for me forever.

September 30, 1965

To my mind, the Wilcox High cafeteria operated like a caste system. The highest caste – cheerleaders, athletes, homecoming queens and student government honchos – held court on the kidney-shaped Senior Lawn, an area so sacrosanct even their fellow seniors dared not sidle onto the hallowed grass unless expressly invited.

Descending castes fanned out from the metal tables under the cafeteria’s fluorescent lights to the picnic tables and benches surrounding the snack bar in the quad.

Inside the cafeteria, you could spot the brains by the books piled beside their trays. The low-riders laughed louder and indulged in more food fights. The hippies preferred the lesser lawn outside where they could skip in circles and blow bubbles. The surfers sunned themselves at the picnic tables.

Sandra re-enacts buying a sandwich in the snack bar line.

The Untouchables were marooned between the Special Needs table and the line of trash cans between the boys and girls bathrooms. They were the lowest caste, miserable souls yoked together by nothing more than the fact no one else wanted them.

Sandra finds a sign suggesting life will improve after high school.

Anybody and everybody could gauge your caste in a glance based on where you ate lunch. Once assigned to a caste, it was almost impossible to move up. Moving down was not such a problem.

Kathy re-enacts the loneliness of the Untouchables

Sandy and I flirted with the fringes of various castes without adhering to any for long. Something about the group dynamic just didn’t work for us. This was surprising, since my Scandinavian forebears are famous for their community-minded club and choir culture. A chorus of perfectly blended voices, none of which stand out or call undue attention to themselves, is the Danish ideal. Their sense of group unity is one of the reasons Denmark is ranked the happiest country on earth.

The Scandinavian joiner gene lies dormant in me. I’m acutely uncomfortable in any group larger than three and I far prefer one-on-one. That said, it’s easier to be an outsider if you’re lucky enough to find a fellow solitary soul with a huge imagination and quirky sense of humor – someone like Sandy. The truth is, we had a blast being outsiders together.

Changing my schedule in my sophomore year was a brilliant decision I’ve never regretted.

Besides, I was a dunce in geometry.

September 18, 1971

The universe as charted in Lloyd's mind. — The universe as charted in Lloyd’s mind.

Lloyd (not his real name) told me he had psychiatric problems when we met. Because of this, he claimed he could never have a romantic or sexual relationship with any girl. I didn’t want one with him so that came as a relief. Even though we didn’t live far apart, we started our friendship as pen pals.

His voluminous letters were the first warning sign. Ten hand-written pages a day were typical. A tiny warning light flicked on when he pointed out that the stamps on the envelopes his letters arrived in were never cancelled. In other words, he drove them to my mailbox himself late at night.

He loved photography and wanted me to model for him. He took the photos featured here on one of our two photo sessions. As a vain, shallow adolescent, I lapped this up – but not for long. His criticisms of me were scathing and increasingly frequent. In retrospect, I think one of the reasons I hung around was to win his admiration back. The desire to recapture something I thought lost kept me in a lot of relationships in those days. For that matter, it’s one of the reasons I kept a diary.

That’s why I can’t deny I saw Lloyd’s red flags long before our trip to Ensenada; I just didn’t heed them. There was that trip to San Francisco, when he threatened to swerve into oncoming traffic and kill us both. The fact that he didn’t follow through on that threat doesn’t negate it as a red flag.

I’d be crazed with fear if my daughter was dating a guy who displayed Lloyd’s character traits but for some reason I failed to fear for myself. Like other young, dumb adolescents, I believed I’d live forever. I didn’t end the relationship with Lloyd because I was afraid but because I was exasperated.

I didn't focus on fear for myself. — I didn’t focus on fear for myself.

1960s

January 29, 1967

January 2, 1965

December 30, 1963

December 9, 1969

December 7, 1968

November 26, 1966

October 8, 1964

October 4, 1972

September 30, 1965

September 18, 1971

Search

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archive

Categories

Administrative