Monday. March 31. 1980.

I dug out one of my old journals from 1979/80 this Sunday afternoon, just to see what I was doing on this date 39 years ago. Here’s my journal entry for Monday, March 31, 1980, word for word (with a few interpolations):

“Wrote a story at work about an Italian immigrant in the Wild West who is made sheriff and defeats all the bad guys by daring them to eat his spicy cooking.”

(I was working at the time at KGCX Radio in Williston, North Dakota -- my first broadcasting job out of Brown Institute of Broadcasting back in Minneapolis. I did the news, walking to the station at 4 in the morning to turn on the transmitter and starting with the pork belly futures promptly at 6 -- the station was called a day-timer; it was only .

on the air from sunrise to sunset. I was always very busy during the mornings, but after the noon newscast I had to stay in the office to take phone calls that might be news tips and there wasn’t much for me to do -- so I did a lot of my own writing -- Bill Anderson, the station manager, and Oscar Halvorson, the station owner, were impressed with my diligence as I sat for hours at the typewriter banging out page after page of stuff on thin and grainy yellow paper. I have no idea whatever happened to this particular story -- doesn’t sound like one of my best, does it?)

“At home I found a package from Holst (Tim Holst, my good old pal from the circus who baptized me and was at that time the assistant performance director at Ringling) containing a pair of baby underwear and a note telling me I’d need them soon enough. (Amy and I became engaged during that winter.) Also received a note from BYU saying I had been accepted for the fall semester. (I had applied for a theater scholarship, and got one for the fall semester only.) And Mom sent me an Easter card. I called Amy and told her about BYU -- she told me her phone bill for this month is $113.00. She asked for $20.00 to help her meet all her bills and I said I’d be glad to help her out.”

(Each morning at the station I called several towns around Williams County to get the temp and local weather conditions -- and I wangled it so I called Amy every morning up in Tioga, where she was living with her parents while she taught school. We spent fifteen minutes talking lovey-dovey on Oscar Halvorson’s dime -- the old Norsky must have seen the phone bill and wondered about it, but he never said anything to me about the expense. Then when I’d get home in the afternoon I’d call Amy again on my landline rotary phone and we’d talk the hours away -- so my phone bills were gigantic, too. Back then AT&T really socked it to you for any and all long distance calls. Sometimes Amy called me, and then her mom and dad got charged for the call -- which didn’t sit very well with them at all.)

“Typed up some more of the novel & hit the sack.”

(The novel was called “The Vita-Goodie Lady.” It was a satire of LDS beliefs in health supplements sold by mid-level marketers like Amway and Shaklee. I worked on it off and on for the next eleven years, and when I finished it Amy’s rich brother Benny bought the rights to it from me for 17-thousand dollars -- with the understanding that I would give him back all the money under the table so he could claim it as a tax write-off.)