Monday – Nov. 4, 1963 

Last Tuesday I drove to Columbus to dig up some jobs. I found one advertised in the student paper at CSU and Sheri and I looked into it. I found that Hootenanny, the ABC Saturday night show, probably isn’t coming to Ohio State after all. Also, I looked in the phone directory f’or entertainment management agencies and found one that looked promising. I went over to the agent, who had the unlikely name of Howdy Gorman. He said he’d set up an audition at a TV station f’or us. The audition was tonight. We got the job f’or Saturday at the Fort Hayes Hotel, Presidential Suite, entertaining some drunken foot doctors and made another sixty bucks. This evening Dad drove Billy to Columbus, picked up Sheri, and then went to Howdy Gorman’s office. We followed him over to the TV station (Columbus Channel 10). 

Gorman had brought two groups for the audition. The show is called “Gather Round,” leans rather heavily toward folk. It is being aired once a month. Starting, in December they expect to air it weekly on Friday night.We went through a f’ew songs. They had told us that it was an informal audition without a mike, etc. They then wanted me to introduce a song, so I introduced Darlin’ Corey. They thought we were very good. There was another entertainment manager f’rom a nightclub called “The Gloria” there to hear the audition. Gorman said he was killing several birds with one shot by auditioning us f’or several jobs at once. Anyhow, our audition was successful and they thought that we did an excellent job.

Then came the other group. They brought along their manager and a public address system and they let them use it. The result was that they seemed more professional than we had seemed, because they introduced their numbers and didn’t adhere to the informal setup.

Live and learn. I don ‘t know the result of’ the audition yet. We had some fine comments, but it seemed as though the talk .liraS about the other group rather than ours. Even Gorman gathered around the other group’s manager. The TV man said that he wants to put us on the air and he will be getting ahold of Gorman. I don’t know anything about the nightclub. What’ll come of it,  I don’t know. I’ve got to talk with Gorman again Saturday and see what’s cooking.  Anyhow, this Gorman says he has recording contacts and can do us up right. He’s a very short little man, probably five one or two, with sandy hair and mustache. Things will either stand still or move fast now that we are pushing ourselves. 

Nov. 11, 1963 – Sunday

Dick T. is home on furlough. Friday night we went to Dayton so that he could hear the Osborne Brothers. Clark Crites, the Lemon Tree’s new manager, had called on Thursday and wanted us to see him. He had a job lined up and wants to, act as a sort of’ agent f’or jobs that come through the Lemon Tree, getting the usual ten per cent. 

We went to Dayton to tell Sheri’s folks, then went over to the Lemon Tree to see Clark. He was tied up with another man in the office and couldn’t see us right then. We sat through a set of the Canadian folksinger, Cedric Smith, then scooted down to the Bitter End––which is the new name for Charlie’s Bar––to hear the Osborne Brothers. After their set was over it was back to the Lemon Tree to see Clark. I found that Clark had just gone down to the Bitter End to see us. After that came a comedy of errors. We went back down to see Clark and found that he had just gone back to the Lemon Tree to meet us. We went Back to the Lemon Tree and found that he had just left to meet us at the Bitter End.

There we sat at the Lemon Tree waiting for him to come. There he sat at the Bitter End waiting for us to come back. Half an hour later, the phone rang: “Are they still there?” he asked. When told yes he said, “Keep them there, I’ll be right up.” 

Finally we get together and talked over business matters, then went back down to hear the Osborne Brothers finish up another set. Both Sonny and Benny Birchfield were in great moods tonight and we talked with them for a long time. 

Saturday, Billy and I took Dick to Columbus with us. It was the first time he got to hear the trio perform. It was nothing special, really, just an afternoon practice session in a cemetery, then Sheri’s dorm room, and an evening practice. Sheri got me a date for tonight and one for Dick too. Gayle was Dick’s date, the same girl who dated Fred the other week. 

Sheri’s been feeding me a lot of information about a roommate of hers that wants but a tall, good-looking, rich man. She sounded rather like a snob from the conversation about her. Once, when I called Sheri, she answered the phone. From her voice I could tell she was overly sophisticated and perhaps a bit oily. Well, suddenly, it seems, she turned an about face. She had heard us practice, though I’ve never met her, and she read my story “The Fantasy of Fowler’s Hill” last week. Sheri was shocked when she started questioning her about me and even more shocked when she asked her to set up a date with me. In fact, she was flabbergasted. The girl’s name is Joan. I was sure she was in for a boring evening and I was certain she was not my type. Finally, in the afternoon, we met. She’s a very pretty girl and looks much like I pictured her as looking––tall, well-groomed and collegiate. In the evening we drove around town and stopped at a bar which was crowded to capacity. We had tried several other places offering entertainment, but we ended up back up near the campus. The bars are filled with students on Saturday night.We bought a pizza next door and then got some beer to go from the bar and headed out in the country to eat. 

I found a nice little spot of a not-to-traveled road where we had a beer, ate and talked. Joan and I got along surprisingly well. Conversation seemed strained at times and things did not flow naturally, but all in all it was a fairly well-matched date. I didn’t go out of my way to impress her. I just joked along and acted like the hick that I really am––dropping the “g”on “goin'” and speaking in the normal Darke County dialect that sometimes makes me feel out of place in collegiate crowds. It’s not that my speech is a real dialect or that I do not express myself well. I really, I do. But the folks around Greenville do have a distinct midwestern twang in their speech. 

We were sitting at a deserted barnyard eating our pizza and almost ready to leave when a cop pulled up. He asked to see my driver’s license and asked what I was doing there, then told us that we were on private property and had to move on. 

Back in Columbus, heading to the dorm, we found a little park that looked rather inviting in the night. Everyone hopped out of the car and walked over to a lagoon that spouted water from a fountain in the center. When we got back in the car another cop saw us coming out of the park and the same damned procedure started all over again. It was against the law to be in the park that time of night. I was not happy about the interference. Why, then, have the fountain running? I thought, but I said nothing. I have learned that being overly civil near people who are armed is more often the best choice.

We all slept in a moth-eaten hotel on High Street––not the girls, just the fellows––and Sunday afternoon we met again and went off for another drive. We went to the art museum and walked through the halls into the velvet draped rooms viewing both the mediocre canvases and some masterpieces like Renoir and Monet. We took a drive through the city and went to the park that we had seen in last night’s moonlight––only this time it was lawful. I took them for a beautiful country drive by the Columbus Zoo, tried to get into the closed Olentangy Caverns, then drove for miles along a scenic little road that followed the stark autumn banks of the Olentangy. We passed an old stone mill that looked like it belonged in a page from European history, made of stone, now deserted with a little damn up creek and finally the observatory.
The time was spent talking and joking and taking in the autumn beauty. Dick had the time of his life and said that he would remember that afternoon for years to come. I don’t believe I will forget it either. Joan became very congenial and looked very pretty. 

Everything has been at a standstill for quite some time in my romantic existence. I believe I could be ready for romance myself. We parted company at 7:00. Joan made me promise to write her and send me some other stories. I promised that I would. Dick will probably never see Gayle again, but he will remember her. All in all it was a very pleasant, well-remembered weekend. I didn’t fall in love, but I feel as though I somehow made happiness possible somewhere––and it’s a good feeling. 

Friday – Nov. 15, 1963 

Mom and Dad’s twenty-second anniversary was today. In celebration, they did something that they would not usually think of doing––they went to the Bitter End to hear the Osborne Brothers. The boys were very friendly this evening and talked quite a bit. While Sheri, Billy, Mel, Dick, and I went down to the Tree, Mom and Dad sat and talked with Sonny and Benny Birchfield. It was a pleasant evening. Sonny said that if we wold give him a tape he would take it with him and try to get us some jobs so we decided to get a very good tape made on professional equipment. 

Sunday – Nov. 17, 1963

Yesterday it was practice. Dick went down to Dayton with us. We spent the night at Stein’s then came back to Greenville to make a tape at WDRK . 

We wrestled in the lawn and practiced in the park, then at 3:15 went out to WDRK to make the tape. The tape turned out very, very well. We have never heard ourselves on professional equipment, except perhaps on TV that one time. Then TV show qualitywas bad and the songs were not our best at that time, but we’ve improved so much since then. We were very pleased with the sound and patted one another’s backs for an hour. Sheri gave me a letter from Joan that she wrote to me just after receiving mine. Sheri said that Joan would be up next weekend. I also got called back from layoff at Corning for one week.

Thursday – Nov. 21, 1963 

I’ve been dumping cullet and hating every moment at Corning all this week. The job was only temporary. It gripes my soul to think that they can take or leave me at their discretion and I have to abide by their goddamn whims. I wrote a little letter to Joan this week expressing my views about this factory system of ours. Sometimes I think that it is a detriment to progress, rather than the aid it is usually considered to be. How many men––like me––are pushed and pulled by forces greater than they can fight, placed in degrading jobs, their potential wasted, their lives and happiness decaying around them. How many men have committed mental suicide while working the grind day in and day out, having no escape without the risk of losing everything––their family, their income, and the little joy they manage to reap out of their barren existence? 

Automation is taking over at Corning. Automation is taking over everywhere. They will be laying practically everyone off within the next few years. The bastards are getting by with it. They keep a man in chains economically, then turn him loose and knock him on the ground without fight, and without hope. 

Friday – November 22,1963

November 22,1963 

Some days you wish had never been,

That time be whisked away like dust

And a day that drips with grief be taken back, 

The hourglass started once again anew.    

This gloomy, drizzling day was such a day. 

The rain’s no longer rain, but falling tears. 

My heart is aching and my soul is sick.

I’ve cried out, cursed, and sorrow shudders in me.

There is no room for eloquence inside, only grief.

Today, a hand I’ve never shaken,

A face I’ve never touched,

A friend I’ve never met

Was cut down on the streets of Dallas, Texas.

A bullet through the brain that ruled the nation

And stilled the heart that loved

An undeserving world. 

Words do not tell the story well.

I shuddered when just three short years ago

The nomination turned from Stevenson to him.

And then with magic and determination

He fought his way through prejudice

To win and saddle greatness.

I longed for his success

And when it came,

His triumph was mine.

He caught a nation’s fancy 

With his mellow voice and new ideas.

He brought youth and life and color   

When things were rather stale and needed spice

Now his youthful smile will never age

His thick, brown hair will never thin.

A hundred years ago another man was shot

And another man named Johnson took his place.

There must have been an emptiness then as now

As fires dimmed and died in human hearts.

Words fail me.

I could not feel more desolate and grieved.

I could not feel more shocked or numbed with sorrow.

You and I, he never knew by name,

But yet he cleared a way through tangled webs

That we might see the clouds with silver lining 

And watch tomorrow’s light shine even brighter.

Friday – Nov 22, 1963

This is how I feel and how I will always remember feeling this tragic, horrible weekend. It is completely unbelievable. I will wake up tomorrow and find that it has been a bad dream. I was working when I heard the news, sitting in the cafeteria on my two o’clock break. A couple of fellows were talking about a ten thousand dollar reward. One said to the other, “I’d even turn you in if you had a ten thousand dollars reward on your head.” The other said, “I’d wait till it was twenty-thousand.” 

There was more talk about a reward. “Who the hell’s got a tag on his head?” I asked. “What’s this reward talk about?” 

“Somebody shot President Kennedy this afternoon,” someone said. 

They told me more about it, more or less jokingly. Some took it seriously. Some wouldn’t believe it. News trickled in. Actually, he was dead when I had first heard that he had been shot. I went back to work. After thinking about it, I finally decided that I must go home. I could not work any longer.

I asked the foreman to take the rest of the day off, but he refused to give me leave. Hurt and angry, I decided to quit the job and vowed never to work in another factory as long as I lived.

The car radio warmed tip just as I was leaving the parking lot. The first words I heard were “The late President Kennedy, who died in Parkland Hospital.” 

I drove on home, numbed, glassy-eyed, full of hate for a man who could do such a despicable, twisted thing.

Joan and Sheri were coming up from Columbus. Billy and I went on to Dayton, even though I knew I would be very poor company this evening. Together we got away from the tragedy the best we could. I called to make certain the concert was cancelled for tomorrow night. I could not entertain and do a good job. I have no feeling for it now. It is as though my father had died, for Kennedy was so personal a president to me. His youth and good looks made me like him from the start, then his speeches full of glowing phrases and ideas took possession of me. I became a staunch supporter, even though I really didn’t want him to win the nomination three years ago. He became a symbol to the American youth, that age was not a barrier and the world was ready for a young man’s ideas. He and his family captivated the news media and publicity poured into print and photographs. 

Life came to the country with Jack and Jackie––their touch football, the clannishness, their youth, their vigor, the rocking chair and stories that the press delighted in printing. 

When I think back about leaving the church where I used to be active and somewhat associated, I find that many of the clashes that came between me and the other members was my supporting of Kennedy and their opposite assurance that Kennedy was the devil’s instrument who would lead the way to the world’s end. It was this incongruity of faith with reality that made me stand and consider. I realized how little their minds were. My mind had expanded. I fully comprehended the fanaticism on the religious right, but I thought it was mere zealousness. It was logical to me for a time, but facts created a crumbling at the base of faith and I realized that it was not for me. I learned a bit about reasoning and I’m not sorry for my experience, but somehow, even though Kennedy himself, was enshrouded in the darkness of the Roman Catholic Church, he made me think. Perhaps because of him I have turned away from the religious. People used to call me Kennedy at work because my hair is so much like his. There was an identification for me that I suppose will never be felt with any other president. This free-style poem that I wrote is the only way I can think of even beginning to express my emotions.

Joan and I talked in the evening. We kissed and she gave me a letter she had written about how she thought that we were so much alike. I read it thoroughly and agreed, but knew through her actions that she feared me and there was something more unsaid.

Saturday – November 23, 1963

I awoke this morning and it was still true. Yesterday was reality after all. It was not a bad dream. President Kennedy is as dead as Caesar or Alexander the Great. All I can see is his cheerful grin and the way his hair blew as he stood before the television cameras speaking in some windy place.

I went to Dayton this afternoon. Billy and I got in late and Dad refused to let Billy go out of the house. I went alone. Mo was there with Joan and Sheri. We played our tapes and I made a tape with Mo, backing him with my guitar while he played the banjo.

We went down to the bus station to get Billy around 6:00. I had told him to catch the bus, but he was not there and Sheri was disappointed. She gave me a letter to read that she has written last night about her being in love with Billy. Sheri has a scheming mind. She’s been introducing me to girls and trying to get my attention hooked by someone else. Joan has possibly fallen in love with me without any pushing on Sheri’s part. Now Sheri thinks she’s ready for bolder steps with my younger brother. 

I don’t give a damn about it. I’m afraid that the trio just won’t make it because of other things. Billy is doing so poorly in school and he’s so young.  Dad won’t let him have any of the freedoms, that I’m accustomed to having, and rightly so. There would be travel, travel, and more travel if we should ever make it big, and I don’t think it would work out at all with Billy. 

I’m sure that Sheri would fly away too if it weren’t for him. Besides, he is necessary to the existence of the trio. He makes it sound rounded and full, we harmonize extremely well as brothers, and his guitar playing goes hand in hand with mine since we grew musical in the same time and atmosphere. I’m so uncertain of the future right now. There’s little reason to be optimistic despite our great sound.

We did do a set later at the Lemon Tree coffee house. Dad brought Billy down to the Lemon Tree later in the evening. It was the best set we ever did there, and everyone was very impressed with the strides we’d taken since they last heard us.

Sunday – November 24, 1963

Lee Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy, was shot to death over nationwide television today as they were transferring him to the county jail. The secrets of the assassination probably went to the grave with him. The murderer is being held in custody. No one could have foretold correctly the events of this weekend one week. It still feels impossible, as though it couldn’t really be happening.

Today the President’s body lies in state and mourners pass by. I had wanted to go to Washington so badly, but my money from the last week of work hasn’t come in yet. Yesterday, Kennedy lay in state at the East room of White House. After a moving, beautiful transfer by caisson to the Capitol––shown very poignantly on TV––he was placed in the rotunda for the nation to view. TV has suspended all commercial announcements and entertainment programs and have been giving minute by minute, hour by hour coverage since the news that the shot was fired on Saturday.

Once again I was in Dayton. Joan told me something today that made me understand her so much better. She and I can talk and be frank with one another. When she seemed to shy away from my kisses I told her that she was going to have to delve into her subconscious to find out she had a ‘kissing complex’. Her letter to me was delivered a few day’s ago. She had mentioned a date that she had had a week before she met me. She was with a boy who wanted to touch her before she had been able to know or like him. After our first kisses she said that she was trying to make up her mind whether or not her image of me had been broken down. She (in the letter) had referred to that part in my short story, “The Fantasy of Fowler’s Hill”, where I wrote: “I thought about the movie I had seen the night before, a tale of simpler days… when romance bloomed slowly and a simple kiss was almost a proposal. Sometimes I would long to go back in those days.”

I knew something was bothering her. She wanted to let herself go and enjoy herself, but could not for some reason. She is a very shy, quiet sort of person, very unusual for a very attractive girl. And then the answer came. She told me that when she was young her uncle had taken advantage of her, and that this had gone on for years. Finally, possibly in her early teens, she realized what was happening, and now the heartbreak and the remembrance of him is with her whenever she is around men. 

I can really feel for her plight, I can really understand her feelings when we kiss. After she told me as much as she wished to tell at the time she relaxed and we kissed again while she responded more warmly. She is a lonely person. If it be in my power to ease that loneliness… so be it.

Monday – Nov. 25, 1963

 Now he belongs to the earth.

Business is stopped. The nation mourned and watched the funeral. I watched with full attention at Sheri’s house until the actual funeral ceremonies were being performed in the cathedral. The Catholic ritual with it’s mumbo jumbo of Latin and changing of vestments was too much for my anti-ritualistic soul to bear. 

I took the girls and Mo back to Columbus where we stopped while I went in to see our agent, Howdy Gorman. I gave him one of the tapes we made and he’s going to talk with some record companies during the week. Maybe something will come of it, maybe nothing. 

We took a country drive and then I took the girls back to the campus. The folks want to go to Nashville to visit my great Aunt over the Thanksgiving holidays. Joan has invited me to supper Saturday night at her home in Cincinnati. I probably will go with the folks, although I would like to see Joan’s family. I think that they must be pretty well-to-do, as her father is a construction engineer and travels extensively in Latin and South America. Her mother teaches Home Economics in a Cincinnati High School.