Got A Laugh Out Of An Old Diary Find....8th Grade Musings!!

I was in the attic storage in boxes of stuff from when I was in junior and high school and other assorted stuff to dig out my old concert tickets and posters...thinking about selling them. Found my old diary started when I was in 8th grade and continued a little into 9th grade. Turns out I had an interest in coins way back then that I really don't remember. Here are some excerpts from it that you might find amusing:

1-22-61: Today at about 15 minutes after 1pm I went down to Gilberts and got you (the diary). You cost me 63 cents.
1-23-61: Dennis Haynes came in with me and looked at my coins.
1-24-61: Picked up phone and talked to girls on the party line. (This was back in the day when your phone number started with two letters...not numbers...and we didn't have individual lines...you shared your phone line with several people in the neighborhood)
1-27-61: Went to bank and got some pennies and then went to friend's house and got 1909 VDB and 1909 penny for 6 cents each.
1-28-61: Got up about 10:00 am and found out might go to Mr. Little's house. He's a big coin seller.
1-30-61: Made out lists of prices and am selling coins.
1-31-61: Got 3 customers for buying coins, one $2.25, another $1.03, the third I haven't heard from yet.
2-4-61: Went to Mr. Little's house and got a 1932, 1932-D, 1933, 1913-D, 1921-S and 1928 penny for $1.54 all together.
2-10-61: Went shopping last night and got a 1955-D die break. Went to bank today and got some pennies.
2-11-61: Went to Mr. Little's house and got a 1908, 1911-D, 1898 and a 1916 Liberty Head Dime. I also got a 1901 and a 1904 Liberty Head Nickel.
2-13-61: Went to a coin seller's house and got some unc. pennies.
2-17-61: Went to bank and looked through pennies. I got 2 silver dollars and kept them. One is worth about 2 dollars. Every week I am going to keep 1 or 2 silver dollars. (Boy, don't I wish I had really done that and still had them!! We could buy tons of Morgans and Peace over the counter at our Pacific Security National Bank close to my house!!)
2-19-61: Nothing to do but look at coins. Tuesday I am going to a coin collector's house who might give me some coins.
2-20-61: Went to Sproutz Reitz and got some coin books. (Good old department store back in the day...some of you might remember them)
2-21-61: Went to the coin collector' house and he gave me a 1910-S penny, 1939-D, etc.
2-24-61: Went to bank and got a million pennies under 1940.
2-25-61: Went to Mr. Crutcher's house and traded for a 1958, 1959 nickels and bought a 1923, 1919, 1916, 1925 Mercury Dimes for my books. Got a 1923-S, 1926-S, 1931-D and 1911-D penny free.
2-28-61: Went to Mr. Clapper's house and got a 1915-S penny so only need 9 more to fill my book.
3-1-61: Made envelopes for coins and sold a 1909 penny for 25 cents which was a jip.
3-4-61: Went to Mr. Little's house and got a 1908-D Barber Quarter and a 1901 and 1906 Indian Head Cent.
3-7-61: Might buy a large cent tomorrow from Tom Brown for $1.25. Got a cigar box for my coins.
3-8-61: Bought the 1837 Large Cent for $1.10.
3-10-61: Went to coin meeting and got some coins and swapped and sold. Might go the 24th of this month to another one.
3-11-61: Went to Mr. Crutcher's and got a dark 1955-P nickel for my collection. I also got some other coins.
3-17-61: I went to the bank and almost got a 50 dollar bag of pennies. I will get it Friday the 24th.
3-22-61: Got $50.00 bag of pennies and got about $20.00 worth of pennies.
3-23-61: Went to Crutcher's and got a 1912-D. I only need 8 more coins to fill my no. 1 penny book.
3-24-61: Went to bank and got a $25.00 bag of pennies.
In "Special Events" I wrote: I got a total of $74.00 in pennies this week and got about $50 worth out of it.
4-7-61: Got some rolls of pennies and found a lot of old ones.
4-8-61: Washed and polished car and got a dollar. (Thought this was funny.)
4-10-61: Went up to B&D (local market by the bank) and got rolls of pennies.
4-11-61: Russia launched first man into space this morning. It took 1hr. 48 minutes to orbit earth.
4-14-61: Went to bank and got some pennies and nickels.

That was the last entry about coins. I have no idea what happened to the coins I collected back then. I also collected plate block stamps and other stamps. My father was a huge plate block collector back in those days, especially when we lived in the Mojave Desert where he could go to post offices that were in very small towns (late 50s). My coin collecting has survived on and off for all these years where for awhile I was buying all the silver eagles the mint put out, back to doing nothing for a few years and then finally where I am now, mostly Morgans, Peace dollars, a few odds and ends, selling bullion on Ebay and traveling whenever I can in retirement. Sometimes I work a coin show into my traveling.

I just thought it was funny all the things I wrote about. There was stuff about kissing a certain girl for the first time, being in love with some other girl at another time. I am sure many of us have the same kind of stories. I think my big interest in coins back then stopped when I took up surfing since we lived real close to the beach and we could hitchhike with our surfboards to the local surf spot easily and spend the day surfing and checking out the chicks in their bikinis!

Anyhow, I hope you get a laugh out of the entries I made. I remember vividly the older lady teller at the Security Pacific bank that used to sell us Morgan dollars over the counter. If I had only know then what I know now I would have spent every last dollar I had to stash the good ones.

 

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Good read. Your musings sparked some memories of my own. Thanks for the walk-back through time........

 

Interesting! I want to know what happened to the other $30.00... did they short change you?

 

Where did you live in the Mojave? Heck, we might have been neighbors.

 

"Thanks for the memories!"

You reminded me of my 1965 senior yearbook. My graduating class was 880 or so, and better than 30% of the entries from other students referred to me as the "hustler" or "pool shark". Some of these comments even came from teachers! Naturally, it was pool that got me started collecting Morgan Dollars.

Chris

 

I think I meant I got $20 worth of pennies that I thought were valuable, not short changed!!

 

I graduated in 1966. Yikes!!! Charmy lived right across from the Jr. High School I went to but I was just a few years ahead of her so didn't know her back then.

 

Ridgecrest. My father worked at China Lake and we used to watch the dummy tests of the ejection seat when they were working on it. Shoot down the track, shoot the dummy out and hit the water stop. Lived out in Cow Town, as we called it...only a couple houses spread around and an old guy that had some used military trucks that ran the water pump station and then moved into town on Helena Street.

 

What a great find! Maybe you'll find that old cigar box in the attic if you keep digging...

 

How long did you actually keep it up? I think I had one once and it lasted maybe two days.

 

Well, Amanda, this is in the attic of my house in NC and unfortunately those coins are long gone along with my stash of comic books from back then, stamps, baseball cards we used on our bike spokes, etc. I still have my Girls Club membership card from high school, though!!

 

I did the diary on and off until my grandfather died on my dad's birthday in Dec of that year. Then it's blank the rest of the way.

 

Not quite neighbors I guess. I live on the other side of the desert along the river.