About the diary writer

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Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.

Gus Grissom's Flight Into Space - Friday, July 21, 1961

We watched Gus Grissom's flight into space this morning. For some reason a malfunction occurred that caused the hatch to blow off after the landing and the capsule filled with water and sank in three-mile-deep water. Grissom got himself off and started swimming. The lift-off was so easy and smooth and the flight perfect. The control crew was so calm. Alan Shepard was the one who got to communicate with him. I sewed some, wrote two letters (finished Vivienne's), washed my pleated skirt. It rained all day. Ann got dinner. Mom finished her comps.

4 comments:

Ron said...

What a nice summer day

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Good Morning, Ron. Here in Kansas City, 50 years later, it looks as if it will be another nice summer day. Having grown up on that farm in Iowa, I rarely mind the heat, hot overhead sun (I love my new 50+ SPF hat), or humidity. As you know, THIS is haymaking weather.

...but I digress. The Friday, July 21, 1961 day I wrote about in my diary was "a rainy day." ("It rained all day.") And that was in the midst of a summer drought in Iowa.

Have you seen the Alexander Calder's 113th Birthday Google logo yet today?

Ron said...

Barb,
I love the summer with all its heat and such too and I often thought it was, as you said, from having grown up here.

I missed the Calder Google logo. Dan told me about it but I didn't see it. Still one of my top 10 favorite artists.

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Ron, have you done a search? I recently saw a page of previously done Google logos some place in my wanderings through the "Googlesphere."