Sunday. April 6th. 1980.

Here we go again -- I’m lifting another one of my personal journal entries verbatim for this date from 39 years ago, with interpolations as I deem them necessary. Enjoy!

SUNDAY. APRIL 6th. 1980.

Went up to Tioga Friday nite with Connie Howard & her brother Craig for Amy’s birthday party.

(Connie was the Animal Control Officer for the city of Williston, where I worked at KGCX. She was a new member of the church, but didn’t last very long -- she got involved in some kind of cultish End of Days group that convinced her the Mormon Tabernacle Choir -- as it was then called -- was delivering messages from Satan. I remember the last time I saw her, just before Amy and I moved to Provo, she seemed very lost and sad.)

On the way there I noticed how dry everything was. The snow is gone from all but the deepest coulees, but the vegetation is a uniform brown, without a touch of green. It’s a constant wonder to me that this dry country produces so much.

(Everybody had a garden in Williston. During the summer I was inundated with tomatoes and summer squash. The soil, apparently, was superb for potatoes -- everyone knew someone on a farm nearby who would plant half an acre of spuds for them while planting the wheat or sunflowers. I rented a basement room from the town barber, and he filled up the half of the basement I wasn’t using with so many red potatoes that they kept rolling over to the washing machine, where I’d accidentally smoosh them into raw paste. That earthy potato smell got into all my clothing; I smelled like a farmer’s market when I went to work each morning.)

When we got to Amy’s we found the whole family gathered around the kitchen sink, where Mr. Anderson was trying to unplug the drain. After he succeeded we sat down to dinner and then gave Amy her presents. I gave her a piano shaped music box. (I wonder whatever happened to that thing? I remember seeing it at our house in Mill Creek, but I don’t think it survived the divorce, unless one of the kids has it.)  She got a purse from her mom -- with her new initials on it -- ALT. We danced in the basement for awhile -- but I was very tired by 10pm and went upstairs and waited lying down on the couch, until they were ready to go back to Williston.

I got home about 12:30 and had to be up on Saturday at my usual 8:30 a.m.  

(On Saturdays I didn’t go on the air, just sat around the station office until noon to answer the phone, since the usual receptionist/secretary, Arvella, didn’t come in on Saturdays. The station owner, Oscar Halvorson, had hundreds of brittle old LP records from the 40’s and 50’s, which I would rummage through for interesting things to play. I recall one record in particular: “Ted Kelsey’s 40 Banjo Orchestra.” It featured a few circus marches, which sounded pretty bizarre when plucked out by nothing but dozens of banjos.)

After morning work I took a brief nap and then Amy and I went to the library to check out some music to record for the shindig we’re holding in Williston before leaving for Utah.

(We held two wedding receptions -- one in Williston and one in Salt Lake. My mom took the train from Minneapolis to our Williston reception and gave us a check for a thousand dollars. She called getting married in the Salt Lake Temple “snooty” because only church members in good standing would be allowed into the ceremony. Amy’s parents gave us their old blue Ford station wagon, but not as a gift -- they wanted $1900.00 for it, which we paid them little by little for the next several months. At the time Amy was the only one who could drive -- I didn’t have a driver’s license and wasn’t interested in getting one. I was under the impression, right up until we were presented with the station wagon, that Amy and I were going to go out to Salt Lake by bus and learn to live without a car. My mistake . . . )

I also got a letter from the MTC saying they had no openings  -- so I will have to find work elsewhere out there. Saturday evening I went to priesthood meeting at the chapel. We have a direct wire broadcast from Salt Lake. It seemed to me that each speaker emphasized genealogy work and I made a silent vow that as soon as I had the means I’d go home and bring back my genealogy -- I don’t know why I didn’t bring it out with me when I came. That was a serious mistake.   

(In the event, I never did go back for my genealogy files -- I had several boxes full of group sheets and letters from cousins detailing Torkildson family connections. But my mom threw it all away several years after Amy and I were married. She liked to throw stuff out. While I was on my mission I kept a big steamer trunk full of clown props in her basement, which she cheerfully informed me she had given to the Good Will Store when I got home again.)

I almost forgot. The novel is all typed up -- so it is officially FINISHED.

(This last sentence confuses me dreadfully -- I know I did not finish “The Vita-Goodie Lady” until many years later. So what novel am I referring to here? I think it may have been something called “The Further Adventures of Elder West” in which I made fun of returned missionaries like me who were too eager to get married right away. But I’m not at all sure about it. I also remember writing a murder mystery with a circus background, with a clown/detective protagonist and a bunch of dead teeterboard acrobats strewed around the lot. Gosh dang it! I can’t remember -- maybe it will come to me tonight when I go to bed. Clarity often comes to me just as I’m drifting off . . . )

This morning I have the disagreeable task of working instead of going to church. I have to record & broadcast the Lutheran Easter Service.

After that was over (church taping) I went to church and caught Pres. Romney’s closing address for the morning session. Then I drove up with Amy & family to MacGregor, where Amy’s aunt Janice lives on a farm with Omer. We had turkey, ham, lefse, potatoes, yams, pickles, buns, and 6 different kinds of pie. Whew! I drove back down with Uncle Jimmy -- who is taking the discussions with the lady missionaries, wrote a poem to Amy and retired.