Perry L. Gardner: Private Journal #33
Tuesday Afternoon, February 19, 1991
Why this reluctance to write in my journal?—It all has to be neat and tidy for publication? I’m so afraid to mess up a clean sheet of paper. I have started a green journal, so this can be kept neat, but a lot of my thoughts are going into it instead of here. I was looking for a place to put my TBD’s for this week and finally decided to put them in the green book and not in here.
I have been reading At Seventy: A Journal, by May Sarton, that Bonnie gave me for Christmas—it gives me a model of what a journal can be. At Seventy was so appropriate for me this year. It is a significant milestone.
I’m sitting here at a pause in another day of “hopping” waiting to leave to see Dr. Kertzner. I made the appointment this morning because my blood pressure is up for some unknown reason, and I wish to do something about it, if possible. I’ve got a whole list of things to report to Dr. Bert hoping that maybe it will provide clues to the problem.
The march to Washington is constantly on my mind since I have to speak at the Sunday Service on the 24th on that subject and engage in dialogue with Herta Wagner, who has some differences with my opposition to this war. At this point, I am ready to use the words in this journal from January 24th, written before the march, instead of the ones I put into my first draft on the computer. It is funny that I had completely forgotten about writing that last piece in this journal. I thought my last visit to it was last fall sometime. How soon we forget!
I find looking back in this journal very interesting—such a wide variety of things that were on my mind—from the trivial to the sublime. I really must revisit more often.
I am also working up to a writing of memoirs on the computer. One chapter very much in mind of late would be called “War Stories from My Own Past”. One little story popped into my mind on Sunday when Bruce M. was giving his sermon and told about a piano recital he had given as a senior in high school and lost his way in the middle of a piece, and then went on as per his contingency plan and his teacher said afterwards, “A nice recovery”.
My story took place while I was at Buckley Field in Armament Officer school. I had progressed in flight training through PT-19s in Primary, to BT-13s in Basic, and AT-10s at Big Springs—each was a heavier airplane with a different feel to fly. At Buckley, all we had to keep up proficiency were BT-13s (restricted from acrobatics and instrument flying), and they were two steps backward on the heaviness ladder. Well, on my check flight, I came in for a landing and bounced up in the air again. So I instinctively pushed the throttle and went into a power stall from which I eased the plane back down neatly on the runway, and the check pilot said, “A nice recovery”.
Now I go see the Doc and hope for a nice recovery.