Spring Second Quarter Journal 1977 April-June

 APRIL

From the first day of Spring until June nothing exciting  happened to write about  except for a trip Fran and I took to California so the rest of the family  could meet her. I took my vacation time in April so we could be home for Easter and my birthday.  We left Utah on 8 April 1977 a Friday and was home in Garden Grove by the 9th. For Easter we all went to Yucaipa to have dinner with Grandma, Minnie, Bonnie and Bill Fagan at a restaurant. The place was really crowded but the dinner was good. I enjoyed being with Grandma and especially I was thrilled with the Christmas gift and wedding gift she gave me which was the old picture of Grandpa Theophilus Danforth, her grandpa. It really means a lot to me and she knew I'd take care better care of it than anyone else. That Easter Sunday we went to see Grandpa Williams in the rest home. His mind seems to be so feeble. He did recognize me and met Fran. He said that I had a good woman and to take care of her. It was pathetic  to see Grandpa so frail and broke but he seems to like being left a lone at the rest home. Dad an Mom had brought him some nuts and prunes and he just gobbled them down. The rest of the week we sent in California going to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Hollywood  and to Huntington Beach. We also with Charline and the kids to the Huntington Library in San Marino. I think Fran enjoyed all of it except for the trip into Hollywood. The heat and the traffic  really seemed to bum her out. While in California , Fran got to meet almost all of my relatives. She met Bonnie and Bill, Milton and Marie, Minnie, Grandma and Grandpa, Donna and Little Kenny and Charline, Dennis and the kids. 

After I came back from California the Huddle was a mess. Right before I left, three kids quit because it was the end of the Winter term I almost had anew crew except for Frank  Benjamin and Terri Todd. I got to know this high school  kid from Kerns named Kay Wiker and put him on more hours. He's such a nice kid  and a good reliable worker.  Probably my bets friend there is Don Gariety, the supervisor of the Custodian Crew. We bitch and moan to each other all the time about our lazy workers and it helps relieve the pressure. 

Kay Wiker

MAY

 By May  I pretty well had the crew  I was going to work with through the summer. They were Frank  Benjamin , Terri Todd, Kay Wiker, Scott Draper, Kathy, Cindy, and this Indian kid named Ron who at first I couldn't stand but then began to like. At the end of May I hired  this joker named Mike Cooley. It was the worse mistake I made working at the Huddle. He at first showed promise and a willingness to work but after he got the job and felt a little bit comfortable he became the biggest goof off. Frank seemed a hard working son of a gun next to this guy. Immediately I was getting complaints constantly about his work or more precise the lack of it. Every time I would turn around he would be in the dish room taking a cigarette break or wandering off somewhere. he wore these bone cutters  that resembled cleavers on his belt and he would boast how he could take someone's arm off if anyone messed with him. He was just bad news all around. 

On May 25 Fran and I went to the Centre Theater to see the premier of a film called Star Wars. We went to the first showing at 12:30 for something to do. We were amazed how good the film was but the theater wasn't packed at all but by we left by the 2nd showing there was a line completely around block with people wanting to buy a ticket. i never saw a line this long in a long long time. 

Additional Material

Kay Wiker came to work at the Huddle and as a 16 year old and kind of adopted Fran and I as parents.  He was from Kearns, Utah and I remember him talking about going and "rolling some queers". However that was just bravado as after moving to Laguna Beach he came out as Gay himself.  

Additional Material

I had a strange visit with Don Garrity in May when I saw that he did not look well and very distraught. I asked him what was wrong and he wouldn't say what but that it was something really awful. Later I found out that coming home from Wendover he had killed a man.  I am pretty sure he was sent to prison but cant recall now.  I really like Dan so I was shocked and sadden. 

JUNE

1 June 1977 Wednesday

I didn't get up this morning until 10:30. I hate getting up so late as it seems like your whole day is wasted. Fran has been really sick from her period. Nothing seems to help make her feel better. School is almost out for her.  While she was at school, I cleaned  up the apartment and wrote a letter to Grandma Johnson. When Fran came home, I sent off birthday cards to our mothers.  Fran's mother Lorna birthday is tomorrow on the 2nd and Mom is on the 3rd.  Lorna will turn 70 years old and mom with be 48 years old Fran finished the paper  for her Shakespeare Class which is her last class. I went into work at 4 and worked until 12:15  Tonight was Frank Benjamin's  last night at the Huddle. he's been my assistant supervisor since I took the job was January. Work went okay today except that it was so  hot on the line It was 90 degrees  today so they say. Fran is getting pretty excited about moving to Georgia. So am I. She also mentioned idea of moving to Columbia South Carolina. That might be ab idea we will have to think about it. 

2 June 1977 Thursday

I didn't do a whole lot before going into work because of getting up so late and Lois  Draper called  to have me come in a half an hour early.  Fran and I did go to the laundry mat down on 2nd South and 4th east and we finally did some washing up. It was a warm day but not as warm as yesterday. I worked from 3 until midnight ad tonight was Patty Bourgu's last night. She said I was the nicest boss she ever had. Kay Wiker and his mother  came  up to work  tonight also. I was glad because I was afraid I wouldn't get to see him before he  leaves for Hawaii tomorrow.  It was a typical night  and Scott Draper was a real help closing up. About 10:50  I  put some music on from the juke box real loud to start blasting the Huddle Bums out of the joint as we close at 11. When  I came home  after midnight Fran and I baked some cookies to bring out to Kay's tomorrow.  I finally went to bed at 2:30. 

3 June 1977 Friday 

Fran and I were up at 9:30 this morning and it was really hard after being up the long night we had but

Paulette Borup Gasparac 

we had to be at the airport by 10:30 to see Kay Wiker off. Fran called up Paulette Gasparac and asked if she and her kids would like to come along to the airport and they did.  It was really fun out at the airport and Kay was surprised  to see  us. We made peanut butter, Chocolate chips, and Oatmeal cookies  for him to take along on his flight to Hawaii.  There sure seem to be a lot of boys going over there to work picking pineapples . After we saw  his plane  take off ,we went back over to Paulette's who has a house in Rose Park at 831 North off of 900 West for some lemonade. It was already starting to be a killer of a hot day.  After  leaving Paulette's. Fran wanted to go up to the campus to turn in a paper for her Courtship and Marriage class at the LDS Institute and to go see Murray Van Wagoner where there was a letter waiting for her.  It was from the motor vehicle Registrar which had sent her the title to her car. They spelled her name wrong and she went into a fit and when I mentioned then maybe they couldn't read her handwriting she really got mad and swore at me. She accused me of never taking her side but always the other person's. Fran and I have very strong differences of opinions on somethings and this is one of them She thinks that bureaucracy at the Motor Vehicle Registration is personally out to harass and intimidate her. She is so obsessed with the notion, that it  colors all her actions and reactions  to that place. She once embarrassed me so badly  there that I'll never go down there with her again. Either I will go by myself or she can by herself. Now I'm not saying that Fran is totally wrong on this point because the DMV office is a bureaucratic pain in the butt. But like any thing else, like so immoveable  as the Registrar  office is, you  maneuver around instead of ramming your head  up against it.  Well anyway Fran was pissed off with me for the rest of the afternoon and I was not happy with the situation either. When we came back to the apartment instead of continuing to bicker  we went for a walk. I really just went out in the front of the apartment and sat beneath a leafy shade tree for a while until I cooled off. Fran's been on this "Do You Love Me" "Are we happy?"  kick lately and I'm getting tired of it. I think Fran is the most wonderful, sweetest person in the world but sometimes she drives me crazy with her insecurities and neuroticisms. I went into work at 3:30 and worked until 12:45 The Huddle was really left a mess  today by the day crew  It took most of the night just to get the place  in any kind or order. And it was hot also.  Even with all the fans  on. To say the least I wasn't  in the best  of moods for most of the night.  I worked with Scott Draper, Terri Todd  and Kathy Jesse. Terri  told me she  won't be in Sunday which isa drag but fortunately Scott said he work it for me.  Today was mm's 48th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom

 Additional Material 

Pineapples in Hawaii

These kids worked five days a week, eight hours a day and gross $6 an hour; $4.25/day is taken out of their wages for room and board. Transportation to various places on the island for leisure-time activities, where the boys go as a group, is provided. The LDS Maui Land and Pineapple Company "recruited youths from Mormon communities in Utah and southern Idaho to go to camps in Maui to pick pineapples in the 1970s and 1980s, which led to some of  them being sexually molested." “Mormon men in their 20s, who qualified for supervisory positions after completing their two-year missions, ran the camps, which recruited minors from church wards and scouting organizations.”

 On 11 June Fran graduated with a B.S.  degree in Sociology and a certificate in Social Work from the University of Utah. At first she wasn't going to go to her graduation because of her "Stitch and Bitch"  girls  weren't going to go, They were too cool!  But Murray Van Wagoner and I  and Paulette's Gasparac's daughter Jennie insisted and so we went to the Special Event Center and had a good seat there.  Graduation Ceremonies are such a drag but I'm glad she went through  not only for her sake  but for Murray's.  We attended the graduation supper  afterwards in the Panorama Room and that was really nice. Fran can now think of graduation as the final THE END to all that college nonsense.  Sometime in April and May, Fran and I got the hots to leave Salt Lake City and Utah in particular  as we had stop attending church. We thought about California but the memories of sinus attacks, smog and all that heavy traffic was too fresh  in our minds from the Easter Vacation trip.  We thought about moving to Augusta, Georgia where Fran had lived for several years with her sister Connie while  her brother in law Dean Svenby was in the army.  She had some really good memories  if that place so a lot of our thoughts  were directed in leaving Utah where we were struggling to get by. I don't know what in particular was making us so dissatisfied.  Probably our ward up in the avenues had a lot too do with it since we  forever felt not welcomed there. It was Brigham Young's  old Ward and I do mean Old. The medium age  is probably near 85. The creeps at the Hudde probably were a contributing factor also. I think mainly we had a great desire t be around family.  The day after Fran's graduation , she read  a help wanted ad for Monroe Truck and Gravel Company for a dispatcher. She applied for it on Monday June 13 and she was hired at $3.25 an hour . She puts un really long days from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening.  She liked working in kind of a non traditional woman job, like at the sand and gravel dispatch job.  However she comes home frazzled and I am usually gone to work by then 

Additional Material

I did not write at all that I was drawn to the homosexual activity that was going on in Orson Spencer Hall's men's rooms especially when Fran and I were fighting. That was one of the reason I wanted to move away from Utah as I thought there was too many temptations.