January 1, 1965
Oops! Almost forgot! No more of this back of the book stuff.
I went babysitting for Os again tonight 1-10 PM. Got $5.00. Not bad! Bob comes home tomorrow. I called P the day before. We talked for 5 minutes. I have no idea what it cost me. Probably about 60 cents. It was worth, though! She sent me a piece of a box that Lenny of the Dave Clark Five threw from a train. Sweet of her, huh? In case you’re lost (serves you right for reading my diary) this diary starts November 18, not Jan. 1st.
January 1, 2023
And 58 years later, I did the same thing: turned to the back of the diary to read the next entry.
One reason I lost touch with my childhood friends was the cost of long-distance phone calls. After we moved from Nebraska to New Jersey, I was allowed one call to my best friend on my 10th birthday. She was two years younger than I was, and we hadn’t seen each other in a year and a half, so we had little to say. P, my Dave Clark Five fan, lived in New Jersey and made the trip to Connecticut for a visit the summer of 1964 and wrote occasional letters. Long distance calls were a rare treat. The going rate for babysitting was about what that 5-minute call cost me. According to Prof. Google, the current rate for a babysitter ranges from $15-18 per hour for one child.
P was a short, skinny girl with an unfortunately large nose. The first time I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, I immediately thought “The drummer looks just like P!!” She came to visit me in the summer of 1964, sporting a Beatle haircut and a Mod newsboy cap. P played the drums in the high school marching band, and her uncanny resemblance to Ringo Starr had created quite a stir. Within days of the Ed Sullivan Show, she had become one of the most popular girls in school. Had she been old enough to date, she would have had an amazing social life. I have a photo of her in full Beatle gear somewhere, but tossed out the scrap of Lenny’s cardboard box. Attempts to locate her on the Internet have failed, alas.