One additional note: from September 1981 to January 1982, my only journal writing took the form of participating in the group journal writing project, THE GARBAGE MEMO, at our punk record store, Garbage Inc., in Kent, Ohio. These were typed on the huge, old, store Royal office typewriter. I am re-typing some of those entries here, including some written by other authors than myself. After the date, I will indicate my best estimation of the author of that particular entry. —Randy Russell
We woke up and got ready to go. We started driving home early. First we stopped at a Howard Johnson's to eat breakfast. Next we stopped at Tarpon Springs. We took a boat ride and watched a diver dive for sponges. Interesting. We then bought some stuff at a shop and started driving. We kept driving until we came to a motel. We ate and went swimming. We went to bed.
Today we had a lazy day. After breakfast this morning we, Mom, Jeff, and I went out on the beach and built things in the sand. [Mom added: Randy – Spanish fort and turtle. Jeff – castle. Mom – giant head.] We ate lunch in the room, Kentucky Fried Chicken. All day Jeff and I had races down stairs in the two elevators. We ate supper at Gigi's Italian restaurant, and came back, and went to bed.
[Mom added: Dad did some wash today at a laundromat while Mom washed hair. Dad didn't feel very good late today... must be “vacation bug”... we have all had it once or twice.]
This morning we woke up and got ready. We ate breakfast and started driving. We got to Cypress Gardens and took an electric boat ride, fun. We then saw a cool waterski show.
We then took a walk through the gardens. We got something to eat and left. We started driving, SW. We at lunch at Morrison's Cafeteria and got in the car again. We finally found a motel, Ramada Treasure Island Inn. It was right on the Gulf of Mexico. Jeff and I collected shells. We ate supper in the motel and went to bed early.
We woke up and got ready. We ate breakfast and went to the park. During the day we went on these things:
Hall of the Presidents – Educational, good animation, interesting.
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride – Cedar Point-ish, fun, pretty tame.
Mickey Mouse Review – Really good, more than expected.
We ate lunch and wanted to go on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The line was long and Dad wanted to go back to the hotel so he left. We then found out that it was broken down. Mom got her picture drawn which took a long time. It started to rain. Later we went on The Haunted Mansion for the second time because we thought it was our favorite ride.
After that we went to a trick and magic shop, bought something, and saw a little magic show. We took some pictures and went back to the hotel. We went swimming after we ate supper. We finally went to sleep, very tired.
We woke up and got ready to go. We got on the mon-a-rail and got to Disney World quickly. We ate things during the day. Through the day we covered these attractions:
1. Swiss Family Robinson family treehouse – fascinating, high, big great! I wish I had it in the back yard.
2. Jungle Cruise – fake but good, good animation, realistic, wet. (Our boat was named Congo Connie.)
3. Country Bear Jamboree – corny but great! Good, funny.
4. Haunted Mansion – GREAT, ghostly, scary, tricky, greatest!
5. It's a Small World – darling, small, crowded, cute, nice.
6. Flight to The Moon – fast, surprisingly realistic, made you feel like a real astronaut, cool.
7. Grand Prix Raceway – Hot, (Mom said conjusted), Hard to drive, slick.
8. America the Beautiful – Good, unique, nostalgic, fantastic, heartening.
Before we left we went to a magic and trick shop. At 6:00 we ate supper at a restaurant. At 7:00 we went to a movie, The Love Bug, which I saw for the second time. We all went to bed at 10:30, very tired.
We woke up, got cleaned up, ate breakfast, put the suitcases in the car and started driving. We took a bus tour of the Kennedy Space Center. It was interesting. We saw an Air Force museum. We saw launching pads and a place where rockets were built. We took many pictures. After it was over, I wasted TWO PICTURES! We ate something at a restaurant and started driving again. We finally got to Walt Disney World. We got our bags in our room and looked around. We were in the Polynesian Hotel and it was nice. We went on the Mon-a-rail around the place. Then we went swimming in a real cool pool It had rock on one side with waterfalls. There was a stairway through it and a slide. We ate supper at a good restaurant. We looked around some more and went to bed.
We woke up this morning and got ready to go. We ate breakfast and packed our car. At 10:00 we left. We got on Highway A1A and started driving. This highway is the scenic route along the Atlantic coast of Florida. First Stop, Marineland. Marineland was GREAT! We saw a show that had dolphins playing baseball, basketball, and football. They jumped over things and through hoops. We saw them being feeded. After we left we ate and started driving. We came to Daytona Beach and drove on the beach. Then we drove to Titusville and got a motel. We went out to eat. When we came back we watched TV and went to bed
This morning we woke up and ate breakfast. Then we looked around and took a ride on a horse and buggy through the town. First we stopped at a great big church. It was fantastic and fabulous. It had a great big dome on the top and a crypt room where the man who built it's coffin was. Later we went past a graveyard that had the stone coffins above the ground. It had a barbed-wire fence around it and the barbed-wire was pointing in! Next we stopped at an old store. It had a lot of interesting antiques in it. We saw a blacksmith and he boiled water in a paper bag! After the horse and buggy ride we went to a huge Spanish fort. It had many big rooms but they all had arched ceilings. We went into the dungeons and on the top of the whole fort. After that we went to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum. It was really interesting. We ate lunch at the motel. After lunch Mom washed her hair, and Dad, Jeff, and I went swimming. After that we went to the ocean and went swimming. We tasted the water. ECCH! The waves were strong and they went over Jeff and my head. A big wave got me in the mouth and knocked me down. Dad and I went down the beach to collect shells. Jeff came running after us and tripped on a rock and cut his knee. When we came back we were full of salt and sand and took showers. After that we went to a restaurant called the Santa Maria. It was out in the water and you had to walk out on a dock to get to it. The whole place looked like a boat because of all the ship things in it. You could throw food out of a window while you eat and feed the fish. While we ate we watched a drawbridge go up and we watched the lighthouse. We came home late and went to bed exhausted.
We woke up at about 6 A.M. this morning. We all woke up in the night. We ate breakfast at 6:30. We played cards for a while and then Dad and I walked from one end to another through the train. Boy was it long. 8:45 we went through Jacksonville, Fla. We ate lunch and watched cartoons. We got to Sanford at 11:00. We got our car and got it filled up with gas. Then started driving again. We got to St. Augustine and had something to eat. We stopped at a Holiday Inn. Later on we went swimming. After that we went out to eat and looked around town. We also went out to the ocean and waded in it and tasted the water. We went back to the motel and went swimming again. Then we want to bed.
This morning Mom and Dad woke Jeff a little before 6 a.m. It took us until a little before 7 to get going. When we finally started going Dad and I were in the front seat and Mom and Jeff in the back. After a while we stopped at a rest stop, went to the restroom, and ate at a Howard Johnson's. After breakfast Jeff bought a tiny duffle-bag for a quarter for his Big Jim. We got in the car again and started driving, still in Ohio. I was laying in the back seat and went to sleep. When I woke up we were driving through PA. After a while we stopped at a rest stop again and went to the bathroom. After that we got filled up with gas and started driving through PA again. At 12:00 we went through a huge tunnel. After a while we stopped at a Howard Johnson's to eat lunch. Jeff tried to buy something else in a machine in the bathroom but lost a quarter. After driving some we entered Maryland. After a while we wanted to stop and go to the bathroom. We went into a little messed up town and spent an hour trying to find a gas station. We went to a gas station and a drug store and headed out. Somehow we took a wrong turn and headed north instead of south. We had to turn around in another city and come out again. Boy was the traffic bad. We finally got to the Autotrain. The train was really nice. It had private sleeping cars but we decided to sleep in our seats. The train had a place to eat, a night club, a movie, and other things. The places to sit were in the top of some cars with a curved windows on each side. Below the places to sit were the restrooms and a little place to get drinks. Some of the other cars had little restaurants in them for supper and breakfast. We had supper at 6 and the train didn't leave until 8. In the evening at 9:15 the hostess told us the train would slow down and to wave at a man on the porch of a white house. She said that she would explain later.
Everyone waved. After that we went to see the movie (Brian's Song) in the diner car but it was too crowded so we sat in the lounge. Mom and Dad went to have a drink and Jeff and I went to another car for a movie. The movie started just as Mom and Dad came so we went to go to sleep in our seats. The seats leaned way back and leg rests came out. The long night ended at about 10:00.
My name is Randy Russell and this is my journal. If I should loose it, please return it to [address deleted] Sandusky, Ohio. I got the idea of making this from a book I read, Henry Reed's Journey, by Keith Robertson, which was about a boy who traveled across the U.S. with some friends and wrote a journal about it. He says that diaries are kept by girls so he is keeping a journal. I agree with him. I will try to write every day about my trip from Sandusky, O, to Florida.
I have kept various journals and notebooks since I was 12, or maybe before, but my 12 year old travel journal is the oldest one I still have. I'm looking through old boxes to see what still exists. Sometimes they were were written on scraps of paper, folded in my back pocket. I'm afraid many have been lost. This is all pretty much unedited, so sometimes it can be pretty mundane. But the everyday stuff if often what I value the most, for some reason. I like the simplicity, I guess, and the repetition. How many morning cups of coffee have I had in my life? A LOT - yet, there is no greater pleasure than the morning cup of coffee.
Randy Russell, 2016
NEWS
Home Page—notice of recent additions to this website. Occasionally, a link to somewhere else.
MEMO
This has been the home for various, infrequent weblogs or “blogs” (scroll way down—might be some interesting stuff). Currently (and more frequently), it’s a rundown of what’s going on now.
MEDIA
Individual pages for select books, movies, and articles, with links to take you there. Ongoing, and more soon.
MEMORABILIA
For now, consisting of three separate pages. SOCK MONKEYS: Images of favorite fiber-art sculptures/children's toys, most commonly resembling monkeys and often fashioned from old socks. PHOTOS: A few, random photographs, most of which spent time on the main page of this website before being replaced by something new. COLLAGE: Images of collages, made with paper and glue. Most of which are small, for sale, dusty, able to be dusted.
MEMOIR
Memoir is often a fictional account of personal experience, passed off as autobiography, but here it's used as a heading for the chronological pages that are home to my ongoing project of typing and posting my personal journals, usually written by hand, in notebooks. STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM SODA starts way back in 1972 (as always, the oldest entries are at the bottom of the page, and newly recorded ones at the top)—progressing through childhood, adolescence, and up to heavy drinking proprietor of a punk record store (in which I get some help from my friends). NOW IT CAN BE TOLD takes up the story in 1982, when things get serious, and will proceed (ideally) until 1996 in which NOTEBOOK JOURNALS commences, and will run until 2016, when the journey is taken up by NO MEMORY. The intention is to record notebook entries from that year until January 19, 2020, and the beginning of the final page: SEX DIARY (Sexagenarian Diary) (That's a joke.) (And the next memoir page, projected for the decade of the 2030s, will be titled “Deviated Septuagenarian.”) (God willing.) Please note: this is an ongoing project which depends on me living long enough to type and post the multitudes of journal entries. Half the time, I can't read my own handwriting, and there's very little chance that anyone else would have the interest or patience to take it up after my death.
LUNCH
PIE — Currently this is the place for the extent of my dessert intake, specifically; Sparking Water (I am on a quest to try them ALL). (In Older Posts: Memories, drinking, drugs, holidays, family, the forbidden, pipe tobacco, doughnuts, cupcakes, macaroons, tapioca pudding, mung bean and coconut milk, ice cream, incense, croquembouche, cookies, candy, pie, Sahara, strudel, Jello, flan, cannoli, fank, custard, halva, schweddy balls, rice pudding, schaum torte, and more!)
TACO — Near perfect concepts, far-ranging ideas, everyday breakfasts, favorite foods, local destinations, ongoing adventures, tacos…
COFFEE — Cafe, coffeehouse, espresso bar, cat cafe, tearoom, coffee shop, on and on…
DINER — Family restaurant, cafe, greasy spoon, hash-house, lunch counter, blue plate, cafeteria, luncheonette, diners, etc.
LISTS
READING is a reading list of books that I’ve heard about, read about, that have been recommended to me, and/or books that I’ve found, borrowed, or bought that I want to investigate to determine if I want to read—now, or in the very near future. BOOKS is where I post what I’m now calling “Book Reports”—as they are more akin to book reports from grade school than actual “reviews.” VINYL Now posting all review of vinyl records here, as well as my long-running blog: DJ FARRAGINOUS. STEELY DAN is the page where I write about individual songs by the band, Steely Dan, who may not be my favorite band of all time, but are definitely my favorite band to write about. MOVIES is the page for writing about movies. Currently, I’m trying to find, watch, and write about all existing Ella Raines movies. SOAP EXOTICA is reviews and musings on Bar Soap (over 100 varieties and counting!)—often overly extensive, and admittedly, somewhat insane. LISTZ-O-MANIA! is the new page for random lists and rankings. Currently there’s the revised ranking of James Bond movies, my 100 all-time favorite pop albums, and an ongoing ranking of Daniel Clowes books!
PODCAST
This is the home page for “The Randy Russell Podcast” in which RR talks to a guest for an hour or so. Each episode might have a rough theme, but overall there is no real focus (except for, naturally, the guest, and RR). You can listen directly from this page, or download the podcasts from Apple Podcasts and the Stitcher app.
CONTACT
On this page there are BIOS of contributors to this website, as well as contact information. (Though, there is no guarantee the contact information is valid. If you want, or need, to send an email regarding any of the contributors here, or anything on this website, please write to this address: RandySRussell at Gmail dot com (addressed in, you know, email form. Sorry, no hyperlink here). Please make sure to spell the name RandySRussell correctly. If you don't include the middle initial “S”—or spell the last name with two S's and two L's, your email will not reach who it's intended for. It's rough. But also, if you'd like to correspond that old-fashioned way, with paper, stamp, and envelope, first send an email, and if you can convince me you're a person, and not a bill collector, I will trade addresses, and communication can happen not unlike it's 1999.
FINALLY
If you've read this far, Thank You for reading!
