Transcript | Annotation | Source: 89-4286-C-1(24-28)(PDF) | January 1978 Index
Got up at 8.00, having slept 8 hours, the first time in months I have gotten 8 hours sleep.
Rain, often heavy, all day.
Didn’t eat any breakfast.
Went down to Viola to see whether I could borrow a needle and thimble to do some mending. No one had a thimble. She proposed we have some breakfast at the Moulin Rouge about 2 blocks down on Geary. She and Ray often eat there. She said it was quite inexpensive.
We went about 12.30. I had eggs, ham, hash brown potatoes, toast and Sanka. Viola wanted to pay but I wouldn’t let her.
She had two letters from Ray in L.A. which she had me read aloud. He had been asked to drive up to Redwood Valley this weekend. He spoke as if he might not go down to L.A. again. The work which Archie’s crew has been doing on houses given to the Temple is about finished. Ray and Viola have three daughters, two of whom are in the L.A. area. Ray finds it hard to say goodbye to them. He seems closer to them than Viola is.
I offered to take Viola to see a motion picture, The Turning Point, which Dorothy had recommended to me. She accepted. I thought we should leave about 2.30 for the show, which started at 3.20.
I had about an hour. I reported all the articles I had with me in the tote bag and counted the money I had left. Then I sewed two buttons on my coat. I couldn’t find the dates and the nuts I had saved for the trip and wasted much time looking or them. Wanda returned and she did not know where they were either.
It is difficult to walk with Viola because of her crippled condition and it was worse because of the rain and the heavy bag I was carrying. We waited some time for a Geary bus and it was about 3.00 before we got one. I knew we would be late which made me nervous.
The picture had been on about ten minutes when we arrived. It was a story about ballet, which is not one of my favorite arts and I could not get too involved in the issue although the actresses were very good. Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine had the starring roles and the Russian ballet artist, Mikhail Baryshnikov, made his debut. Viola liked the picture very much but never did relax completely.
I was supposed to be at the Temple at 6.00. I thought we would be a little late. We left the theater about 6.10. I bought some face powder at a drug store. The rain was still coming down.
We arrived at the Temple at about 6.35. When I saw the crating room bottled up and few people around I was dismayed as I thought the party had left for the airport.
Then Sandy Bradshaw appeared. She had been trying to reach me. The group which was to leave tonight was delayed until Monday. The Guyanese Government wanted a group of six adults, so more people would be processed to leave Monday. I thought she said Mother would be with us. Sandy offered any help she could give but I told her, I had no problem. I was actually glad to get some more time to catch up on my letters and journal.
Gina was there to take us home and Viola offered to buy us all hamburgers as we had missed dinner. We found some for 99¢ at a restaurant on Geary.
Viola had told me that in the neighborhood in which she lived as a child, one had to resort to prostitution to get enough to eat. Her mother did housework for a dollar a day. Her mother had told her of the customary way men had intercourse with women. The first time she prostituted herself she was nine. She was shocked because the man, her mother’s employer, had her “suck him off”. He gave her 50 cents, which meant food on the table. Viola said she was in this cause to keep any more children from going through what she had gone through. “Tell Maryann Casanova to get her some work with the children, if it’s only to wipe bottom.”
Gina said her father had been a gambler, her mother a dancer. Her father later got a job at Lockheed and was fairly prosperous until the end of the Vietnam War. She said all the girls she knew had sex by twelve but she waited until she was 19, as she did not know how to prevent the birth of a baby.
We got in about 8.00 o’clock.
When Wanda came in I told her to get in touch with Sandy as her travel had been put off tonight until the Monday following mine.
Josie gave me back my radio that I had given her.
I ate a snack and read the newspaper till 12.00 midnight.