The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1953-01-07
HAL
BOYLE
SAYS

NEW YORK Up - Everyone
yearns to leave a modest hoof-
print in the sands of time.
There are two ways to do this:
/. Do something in the world
yourself to put your mark upon it.
This method is for the restless.
two-ulcer, go-getter type of indi-
vidual, such as Napoleon, or the
people who climb to the top of
the Washington Monument just to
scratch their initials there.
2. Keep a diary. Then after gen.
erations will honor you, not for
your great personal deeds but
because your shrewd insight has
given the real inside story of your
time.
AS the average man is born with
a strong inclination to rest on his
oars while he criticizes the other
fellows rowing, most people at
lone period of life or another start
a diary with the secret hope it
will win them ultimate fame.
Since / early developed an utter
appetite for leisure, that is the
path to renown chose. l suppose
l have started and stopped my
diary 20 times. Any future his
torian who reads it and tries to
figure out what life in the Twen-
tieth Century was like viii have
lot of gaps ito fill in from some
body else's diary.
The earliest entries are marked
by a sure judgment and a keen
observation:
agnes Stubble is the ugliest
girl in the class. Odd mcn Rob-
bins came home drunk again last
night. Ha, ha, hal"
/ Then came the dawning Of t.
old struggle between love
friendship:
Harry Banting wouldn't s >
and play marbles after sctoo'. !.
is goofy over a girl in the 70. i
grade, and he's in the fifth grade.
A cradle snatcher. eh?"
A lot of the entries are followed
by that word-Eh? In the books
l was reading then somebody was
always saying something like, 80
that's your little game, eh?"
In my last year in grammar
school I joined an organization
called S.S.G.P.-for Secret Ser
vice Girl Protectors" The entries
are in code. The code consisted
of substituting the number al" for
the letter "A" "2'' for "B"-and
so on through the alphabet.
The most significant entry I can
now decipher by counting on my
fingers-to crack the old code
says:
"Bill and / trailed three girls
home from school today. Every
thing okay. Following three more
tomorrow"
In the diary of my freshman
year at high school there Is a
notation that clearly shows the
growing disillusion of American
youth in the Prohibition Era;
algebra, Ughl What good is it?"
Another entry in my senior year
indicates the questioning spirit of
those faraway days:
''Why was / put upon this turning
globe at all since Mary Qast name
censored) loves another"
A brief scribble during my soph-
omore year at college reveals the
exalted grasp of poetry common
to the more thoughtful student
then:
"Ah, the moon is a wound
against the sky tonight. II looks
like a cold sore on a piece of
black velvet"
The impact of the depression of
the early 1905 on a fine, sensi-
tive mind is shown in the follow
ing:
Dad says a college graduate
without a job stiil has TO earn
his keep, so / mDst pass out hand.
bills for his grocery store tomor-
row. An, Shakespeare. An. Shelley.
Did you have to pass out handbills
for your bread?"
The scattered diary entries in
the years since / went to work
merely mirror the developing sor-
didness of sorry world:
what a day this has been =
Trouble. trouble. trouble.. to-
morrow is my birthday. /. That
tooth has been bothering me again
/. When am I going to have the
CUTS to ask the boss for more
money!"
| Gradually the diary just dwin-
died away in sea Of blank white
pages. Maybe II won't tell much
to the historians Of an after age.
but II tells a LOT TO me now about
what | was like when the world
was young.
| What's in your diaryg
O.