Second Grade Journal: 1985-1986

(Retrospection)

When I was in 2nd grade, our teacher gave us a journal in which we could write whatever we wanted to.
It was my first journal, and I thought it was a really cool idea. I spent a most of our free study periods writing away in the thing.
Looking back on it now, I really wish I had written something of value in it. Instead of being filled with my thoughts on the world, or childhood memories, the whole thing is just me writing about the movies I saw. And what's worse, instead of reviewing these movies, I just try to to retell everything that happened. (I don't know why I thought this was a good use of time.) So, as you can imagine, instead of containing a lot of valuable memories, this journal is just mostly crap.
However in a strange way, long before the age of blogging this journal ended up being an eerily accurate prediction of what I would write on this blog 20 years later: lots of time spent writing, very little of much value, and most of it just recounting what movies I had seen.
You'll notice that every single one of the movies I wrote about in this journal were Disney movies, and there's a very simple reason for that. When I was in 2nd grade, the only TV I was allowed to watch was PBS and The Disney Channel.
(We weren't technically allowed to watch He-man, Voltran, Transformers, or the other popular 80s cartoons, although in reality we saw them from time to time at friends' houses and when my mom wasn't home and our dad or the babysitter was watching us).
Although I thought it was the height of injustice not to be allowed to watch those cartoons like most of my school-mates could, I also really got into the Disney channel at the time. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to supplement my Disney viewing with regular TV, but as you can see from this journal I really fell in love with Disney. I was still at a young enough age to enjoy the old Disney cartoons, and shows like "Zorro" (W) and "Davy Crockett" (W) satisfied my 7 year old desire for action and swashbuckling.
(In fact, come to think of it a lot of those old Disney adventure movies and TV shows were probably just as violent as those afternoon cartoons we weren't allowed to watch. I never questioned the incongruity of it at the time though. I guess it must have been just easier for my parents to say everything Disney was okay than to fight battles over every single TV show.)
...So anyway, long story short, if this journal seems rather "Disney Centric", that's why. [Oh, and one final note: Back in 1985 the Disney Channel was a lot different than it is now. Although it has since remodeled itself as the new hip pre-teen channel, back in mid-80s, the Disney Channel existed almost exclusively just to air out the Disney vault and re-run old Disney movies and TV shows from the 1950s,60s and 70s].
In transferring this old pencil written journal into blog form, I've taken liberties here and there. I've corrected spelling in places, and even changed syntax when I thought the meaning wasn't clear. But where ever possible I tried to leave the original idiomatic grammar of a second grader in tact. Hopefully this doesn't result in too much of a bi-polar feel.
You'll also notice I never get too far on any one topic before I switch into another topic. Sometimes I'll go for as long as a paragraph. Sometimes I'll just write one sentence.
To understand this journal, you need to imagine it through the eyes of a 7 year old who had just barely learned how to read and write, awkwardly gripping his pencil in his hand and laboriously writing each letter. It would take me several free study periods spread out across many days to write one of the larger paragraphs, and you can imagine I didn't have the patience back then to stick with anything that long.

Anyway, I'm going to be interspersing this whole thing with commentary throughout, but without any further ado here's the beginning of the journal.

I am a journal. If your name is not Joel, please close this book.

Our first story: on my birthday I got a transformer. His name is Optimus Prime. I like him. I got other transformers at home. One of them is named Jetfire. My Dad gave him to me. I like him too. Do you know who gave me Optimus Prime? My Grandma Swagman. A nice story.

---I must have written this in the beginning of the school year recounting my 7th birthday from the previous year, April 1985.
I was allowed to have "Transformers" toys, but not to watch the cartoon. (The same held true for He-man and Voltron toys). This actually seems like more of a contradiction now than it did then. At the time, it seemed like it was every boy's right to have "Transformers" action figures, whether or not they could watch the show.

Our second story is me telling you a story: the Black Cauldron. It began with a boy who was an assistant pig keeper for an old man. A horned king had once destroyed their country. The boy's name is Tarn. Tarn's pig was a magical pig. It can look into the future. Tarn wanted to be a knight. Everyday Tarn said, "I want to be a knight in shining armour. One day it happened that Tarn woke up. He was the one who made breakfast. He made breakfast and went to the window. It was not a real window, just a square carved out of the wall. He went to the window to dream about being a knight. The old man made fun of the horned king. The old man had a cat. Breakfast began to over boil and no one noticed except the cat and the cat was the only one who was hungry, and he made such funny actions that the old man noticed. But Tarn, who's job it was, did not notice. The old man got mad. But the old man talked kind because he was kind.
"Tarn," he said, "What are you doing by the window."
Tarn did not answer but said the same as always, "I want to be a knight in shining armour.
"Oh," said the old man. That--

Ah, "The Black Cauldron" (W). Remember that? Even now thinking about it brings me back to the 80s and tie in children's marketing. I can almost still taste the cheese poofs that had the special Black Cauldron sticker inside.

Now I am sorry but that story is too long. Our third story is me and my sister are going to build a fort. I built it. It got wrecked.

I am going to stop numbering our stories, but I will say "next story". Our next story: a little bit from Condorman. The ending part of Condorman. "Quick, into the boat," was the word and in went Condorman, Harry, and Laser Lady. The enemy was after Laser Lady. The boat had lasers in it. The enemy chased them in another boat. The enemy chased them in several boats. Harry grabbed the laser gun, but he couldn't hit anyone.
"Shoot better," Condorman yelled.

--Anyone else remember "Condorman" (W) ? I've never heard of it since, but I loved it as a kid.
It was a Disney movie, and it was run on the Disney Channel, which meant I was allowed to watch it.

That is the end of that story. Now I am tell you about Halloween. I was a knight, my sister was a Ewok, and my brother was a cowboy. Something strange happened. After we finished trick or treating, my dad picked up my brother's cowboy hat. There was a piece of candy on the brim of the hat, but no one knew how it got there.

Now my class is studying Indians. We have Indian names. My Indian name is "Spotted Tail." My friend David's name is "White Chief."
--If you've got a long memory, you might remember the above paragraph.  I used it as a retrospection entry before back in 2007. At the time I was thinking I would do this journal in installments, but now I think it makes sense just to put it all in one long entry.

You all know this is a journal and me and my sister are making another journal just for kids.

Now, you've all read about a lot of adventures in this journal, but I would like to write about some more action. I think mountain stories are the best. Like "Third Man on the Mountain". You all probably think that the name of this story means that only two men ever went up on the mountain, and then after a long time a 3rd man climbed up the mountain. But no, that is not how it got its name. Its name is "3rd Man on the Mountain" because in this story a man looked through his telescope and saw 3 men climbing and said, "There's a 3rd man on the mountain."

--"Third Man on the Mountain" (W) was another Disney movie being run on the Disney channel. And another movie I loved as a kid. Haven't seen it since, but there's a thorough online review of it here for anyone interested.

I am going finish telling you that story later.

Now we have a baby sister. Her name is Jessica. Now we have me--Joel, Kyle, my sister Kirstin, and my second sister Jessica. I am in 2nd grade. Kirstin is in Kindergarten. Kyle is 2 years old and Jessica is a baby.
Now I've told you that Kirstin is in Kindergarten and I am in 2nd grade, but I did not tell you what are ages are. Well, mine is 8 and Kirstin is 6.

Now I'm going to make up an adventure for all 4 of us.
One day we were driving in China. When we stopped the car, 2 men with guns started shooting them at us. They were hiding in the bushes, but we could see them. Then they ran forward to attack us. I unbuckled my seatbelt. My Kindergarten sister unbuckled hers. Kyle unbuckled his and I got Jessica out of the car seat. That is how our adventure began.

--I was in second grade when my youngest sister Jessica was added to the family. I still remember picking her up at the airport, and making her laugh by hopping around on one leg. (This worked for a while, and then she started crying again).
If you're well versed in the Disney archives (as I was back then) you know that there have been tons of Disney movies about a group of kids who are separated from their parents and have to make their own way through a series of adventures and defeat the bad guys all on their own. No doubt I was heavily influenced by all of this. Although even if I hadn't been, I suspect the idea of saving the day all by themselves is probably a pretty standard fantasy for children anyway.
As usual, I got one paragraph into this adventure story, and then I lost interested and wandered into another topic.
Now I want to write about "One hundred and one Dalmatians". But first I would like to tell you what happened yesterday.

Yesterday a space shuttle exploded and seven people died.

Now I want to tell you what I got for Christmas. I got Lion Voltron. I got the Transformer's Racing track. I got Webstor. He's a He-Man action figure. He came with a rope, that he can go up. I got a book from my dad. I got a mobile car. I got a photo album, a clock a bookmark. I got clothes. The book my dad gave me is "The Black Stallion." My Dad was also the one who gave me the Lion Voltron and the transformers racing track. My sister gave me a Go-bot. My mom gave me the mobile car. My Grandma Swagman gave me a transformer and a nice sweater and a game called "connect four". It's fun. I got a squirt gun from a boy in my class. I got a Garfield eraser from my teacher. I got Webstor from my Aunt Mary. I gave my sister "Crystal Castle" and my Dad gave her She-Ra.

--This is another section that I've used before in my retrospections. At the time I claimed it was a writing assignment, which was perhaps a bit misleading. It was a writing assignment in the sense that our teacher encouraged us to write about it in our journal. It was never something that was collected and graded. Which is why I only gave the Challenger explosion one sentence before my usual short attention moved me onto other topics.
When I claim to give my sister the "Crystal Castle" (W) playset, that just means I selected it. My dad paid the money for it.
I think "The Black Stallion" book referred to here wasn't the genuine article, but a kids book based on the movie--lots of pictures from the movie and text that had the barebones story on each page. I loved this picture book, and read it over and over again.
I never did read the real book. I started it a couple times, but it never grabbed my interest, probably because I already knew the story.
Lion Voltron (W), with the 5 different robot lions that transformed and then connected to make one big robot, was the popular toy that year, as you may remember. And it was a really cool concept. It was like 5 different transformers in one. Every kid had to have it.
You probably also remember, if you had one, that it was one of the most fragile pieces of crap ever. Parts started breaking off of it left and right almost from the moment you opened the box.
I had somewhat of a fair warning on this, as my friends at school had been complaining about how easily their Voltron figures broke before I even got mine. So I wasn't very shocked when mine started doing the same thing. I tried to be careful with it, but pieces will snap off just from moving the thing around.
My dad declared at one point, "I will not tolerate a toy that breaks so much." He brought it back to the toy store and demanded a new one in exchange.
The new one faired slightly better, but inevitably some pieces eventually snapped off of that one as well.


February 26, 1986: Good, now I like a man who died. His name is Walt Disney. He is very famous. He made many movies, like "The Black Cauldron". You may think "The Black Cauldron" is dumb, but it is not. It is an adventure story. Remember the horned king? He came back and Tarn has to fight an evil power that is held inside a living Black Cauldron. The black Cauldron is living and evil can only come out if the Black Cauldron makes it. When the horned King gets the Black Cauldron, then the fighting becomes twice as hard. But thanks to a little guy named Georgi, they saved the world and Tarn learned a lesson.

February 27: Walt Disney was a movie maker and he made the Black Cauldron. Walt Disney could make a movie about any kind of animal, including the ones that are extinct. He made "The Black Hole." I will tell you that story.

March 5: The USS Palmino was in space when they saw the USS Signus. Now the Signus had disappeared many years ago, so the crew was curious .
Then Kate said, "I saw something move. There are people on board."
"Let's take a look," said the Captain.
They came just a little bit too close, and the black hole started to suck them up Vincent, the ship's robot, went on to the top of the ship to help.
After a second, the captain said to Kate, "Make contact with Vincent." You see, Kate and Vincent could make contact with each other. Kate tried.
After another second, the captain asked, "Anything?"
"No," said Kate. Then she said, "Oh, here comes something now."
That's all I remember about "The Black Hole."

Remember "The Black Hole" (W)? Another bad science fiction movie from the 80s. Despite the black overtones of this movie, I was allowed to see it because it was Disney.
Actually it was a bit of fight to be able to see this. My parents bought the story book and tape for us to keep us occupied on car trips, so I was familiar with the movie. And it was aired that year on the Disney Channel. My mom watched it first to make sure it was alright for us, and only after a lot of pleading were me and my sister allowed to watch it.
I absolutely loved this movie when I was in second grade. But like a lot of things I liked back then, watching it now the movie has not aged well.

April 9: Well, here we go on another adventure.
Actually, no, let's forget about that.

Well, Walt Disney sure is great, as you can see. OK.

April 16: I will tell you something. My birthday is coming up soon and I hope to get a Bambi record. Do you know who Bambi is? Well, I will tell you. He once was a prince, now he's a king. I will tell you his story:
April 30: A prince was born. All the animals came. All the rabbits and bunnies, including one bunny named "Thumper", who said, "What are you going to name him?"
And the mother said, "I think I will name him 'Bambi'."
Then Bambi tried to walk. Now that is part of his story.

Bambi always had a special place in my nostalgic heart, because it was the first movie I saw. My mom and aunt took me to see it when it was being re-shown in theaters sometime in the earlier 80s.
I'm not sure what I mean when I say I wanted a "Bambi Record". I already had a Bambi story book and record that went along with it. Maybe I meant I wanted it recorded on VHS. I don't remember exactly when our family got our first VCR, but it was around about this time, maybe 3rd grade.
(For a long time, Disney animated movies like Bambi weren't available on video because they were still re-releasing them into the theaters every 5 years. I didn't always understand these marketing issues as a kid though, and kept asking for videos that hadn't been released yet.)

May 8: Walt Disney also made "Return to Treasure Island." I want to tell that story, but to tell that story I will first have to tell the story of "Treasure Island". Here we go.

May 14: There was a boy whose father owned an Inn. And the boys name was Jim Hawkins. One day a visitor came. The visitor asked the father if he had some rooms, and the father said yes.
The father asked the visitor what his name was, and the stranger did not tell his name. But he said, "Call me captain. Yes, call me captain."
Then he said, "I'm a plain man. Bacon and eggs are all I need. And rum. And a place where I can warm my boots."
Jim's father said, "You can stay."
The Captain was a very silent man. All day long he sat in the parlor drinking rum, but at night he haunted Jim's nightmares.
Actually, let's let Jim tell the rest of the story.
OK. One day, said Jim, the Captain called me into his room and said, "Do you see this here penny piece boy?"
I said, "Yes sir I do."
Then he said, "I'll give you one of these every month if you keep your eyes open for a man with one leg."
The Captain seemed terrified of the one legged man, but no matter how long I looked for him, I saw the one legged man only in my nightmares.
Soon, my father became very ill. Our doctor, Doctor Livesly, came often to help him. Sometimes Doctor Livesly stayed for dinner. "Delicious meal, Mrs Hawkins," he would say.
One day Doctor Livesly asked me, "Doesn't that man frighten you?"
I said, "Yes sir."
Sunday, the captain came over to our table and said, "Silence there between decks!"
Doctor Livesly asked, "Were you speaking to me sir?"
The Captain said, "Aye, That I were San Pale--."
Doctor Livesly interupted and said, "Now you listen to me sir. If you keep on drinking rum, you will soon die. And perhaps that would not be a bad thing."
At that, the Captian drew his knife and said, "You take those words back!"
But the Doctor answered in a calm and steady voice and said, "Put that knife away, or I promise you that you will go to the gallows. I'm a judge sir, as well as a doctor, and if I hear even one complaint against you, I'll have you thrown into the gallows for many nights."
After that, the Captain was very good, but he stayed with us that long night as my poor father's heart grew worse and worse.
Then one January morning, another stranger came. The stranger asked, "Have you seen my mate Bill?"
I said, "I don't know your mate bill sir. We do have one guest that asked if we'd call him captain."
The stranger was pale and evil looking. Two fingers on his left hand were missing, but he wasn't the one legged man. In fact he didn't even seem like a sailor at all. Then he said, "I think your guest is Bill. I'll wait for him I will."
Then he made me hide behind the door with him.
When the Captian came back, the stranger reached out and grabbed the Captain. "Hello Bill," he said. "Remember your old shipmate? Have the boy fetch some rum, Bill, while you and I have a good honest talk."
I tried to listen from the next room. I could hear nothing for a long time, and then they began to shout and yell at eachother. I heard the Captain yell, "No, I'll never give it to you. I'd rather die." Then there was more shouting, followed by the sounds of swords.
Then Black Dog, the name of the stranger, ran out the door. I ran to the captian and asked, "Sir, are you okay?"
The captain did not answer but said, "Rum, Jim, fetch me Rum." Then he fell to the floor face first.
The Captain was dead.
Now Jim, stop. Tell us all the details.
Ok, ok, well the captain was killed. I went on a ship with some other men and a crew. The crew and the cook attacked us. But in the end we won. And the crook turned out to be my friend. The end

Ok, so that story was not by Walt Disney. But Walt Disney made the movie of it. And Walt Disney not only made the movie, but he made "Return to Treasure Island". And I'll bet he made "The Third Man on the Mountain".

Did anyone else see "Return to Treasure Island" (W)? It was a mini-series that was rerun occasionally on the Disney Channel back then. I was absolutely obsessed with it. I thought it was the greatest show ever. After watching it I would be pumped up for hours, pretending I was sword fighting in the backyard and singing the theme song to myself.
I was also obsessed with Treasure Island, a story I knew via the Fisher-Price delux comic book and tape set. I listened to it over and over again until I had it memorized, as you can see from the passage above. (I wrote that whole thing at school from memory). In fact even now as I re-read it, I can still hear the voice actors and the narration from the tape in my head. There's a bit of awkwardness in the retelling, since the version I had memorized in my head was all in the first person, and I attempted to re-write it in the 3rd person. Eventually I gave up and just and said, "let's let Jim tell the rest of the story." There were 5 other comic books and audio tapes in the series, and eventually our family collected them all (Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, and Robin Hood). And all of them I pretty much listened to until I had them memorized.
(I guess there must not have been too much else to do back then. We were probably the last generation before kids just got overwhelmed with media and video games . We didn't get a nintendo until a few years later.
Plus I had parents who very closely limited my TV intake.)
These books (and similar "classics for children" series) both caused me to fall in love with the classics, and also kind of ruined them for me. Several times I tried to read the real "Treasure Island" book by Robert Louis Stevenson, but I could never get through it. When you have the whole story memorized, what's the point?
The same is true for all those other books. (Other than "Robinson Crusoe", which I read in a class at Calvin because I had to. And I found out that the real book is a lot more dry and boring than the comic book version would lead you to believe.)

I never did finish "The Third Man on the Mountain" story. Well, I will not tell that story now.

And remember the story about my family in China. Well, once all the children got out of the car, we killed the two men. The end.

Part 3 of this journal is all about my family. Kyle and Jessica are adopted from Korea. Kyle has a hole in his mouth, and he can not talk good. Jessica has only one arm and a half of an arm.
The whole family has a pen-pal from Korea. And I also have a penpal of my own.
I have sandy colored hair, and so does Kirstin. Jessica, Kyle and Dad have black hair. Mom has brown hair.
We have a dog. His name is Brandy. He acts like a watch dog. But really he is a Lhasa Apso. His fur is gray. It is my job to give him his food and water. He s a strange dog.
He is a strange Dog. He doesn't like mats or baskets. The only bones that he likes are milk bones doggy treats.
And he sits at the window barking at everybody for most of the day. If someone comes in, and it's someone he knows, he doesn't bark at them.
When he gets outside, he runs away a lot, but he always comes back. When he gets outside, he will chase joggers and bikers. Once he got away one the same day that Grandma Swagman was coming over. Grandma Swagman found him tied up to a lamp post. Some jogger or biker must have tied him up. I remember Kirstin was being a real brat at the time. Well, anyway, some jogger or biker had tied him up. When Grandma Swagman saw him, she untied him. Brandy did not bark because he knows Grandma Swagman.

You know, I never minded Brandy's barking all that much. Maybe because the dog was around before I was, I just grew up with it. Or maybe I was young enough that I could still tune it out. But it used to drive my parents crazy. Although a bit of internet research (W) reveals that the Lhasa Apso was specifically bred to for the purpose of barking at everything in sight.

You know, Brandy being a watch dog makes me remember a joke. Here it is:
Bob: Why is your dog running around like that?
Judy: He's a watch dog. He's winding himself up.

That's all the news about Brandy I know of. You all know about Grandma Swagman. She is the mother of my dad, by the way. But who was the mother of my mom? My other Grandma. Grandma Dik.

You know something about me? I am very good at creative writing. Here is one of my stories. It is called "The 3 Giraffes" by Joel Swagman.

Once upon a time there were three little giraffes.
The first giraffe built a home in a haystack.
The second giraffe built a home in a leaf pile.
The third giraffe built a home in a wood pile.
But little did they know a bunch of pirates were looking for giraffe soup....

My second grade teacher gave me an "O" for outstanding on creative writing. It was the only "O" I recieved on my report card. (Everything else was marked "S" for satisfactory.)
She also gave me a lot of praise for my stories, and even went through the trouble of signing me up for "Young Author's Festival at Calvin" the following year, even though I was no longer in her class.
I had never thought of myself as a writer before, but this put the idea into my mind. And in fact it was a notion that stayed with me for a long time, even when I got into high school and my English teachers there were a lot less enthusiastic about my writing abilities.
As a result of this, I developed the hobby of writing stories (mostly for my own amusement) all through my childhood, high school, and even my time at Calvin . (And although I'm somewhat embarrased to admit it, I still fool around with writing fiction from time to time even today.)
Like most amateur writers, I never worked constantly on anything as a child, but wrote in the usual fits and starts. I spent more time walking around day dreaming and thinking of ideas than I ever got around to writing on paper.

The "Three Giraffe Story" was originally a school assignment. But my teacher praised my story so highly that I became very proud of it. She asked me for permission to photocopy it so she could keep it in her files, and I was unbelievable proud of myself. For reasons I don't really remember, I decided I wanted to rewrite the whole thing down into my journal. I guess I just wanted to keep all my writing in the same place.

By the time I started re-copying my "Giraffe Story", the year was over and I was in 3rd grade. I worked on the table in the basement slowly rewriting everything, still in the phase were writing down anything was a laborious project.
The papers were left on the downstairs table for several nights, and eventually my mom just went through and threw everything out except the journal itself.
I was devestated and in tears. My mom agreed to call up my old second grade teacher, and she still had a copy of my story in her files which she recopied and gave back to me.
A few years ago I posted this story on one of my other blogs, so it seems unnecessary to re-post it here. Just click on the link if you're interested.