In a reflective mood, KC continues her story with this entry from Oct. 1, 1968 (a Tuesday)

    The first day of October, my favorite month, I think, though they’re all hard to choose from. 

    The days are long and full, there is little time for thoughts but I manage to squeeze in some time each day for real rest. 

    Eileen is not feeling well; she has a virus.  I hope I don’t catch it; they really crack down on you at Fontbonne if you don’t come in.  But I have very good teachers on the whole and am happy. 

    Last night I woke up about quarter past one; Mom had come down to see Eily.  I looked out the window to the back yard.  The outside light was on, giving an eery look to the trees and grass.  Everything looked as though it had been modeled in clay., and painted brightly, and all was so still.  Immediate things were lit up in sharp relief, and farther away was blackness.  It was a strange sight and that is why I write of it. 

    It’s usually pretty quiet around here.  Sometimes on a weekend night the teen-agers act up, screaming and carrying on like a cat fight.  Other than that, it’s pretty peaceful.  ‘Course, in the daytime, around the afternoon its’ noisy all out.  Day and night you can hear the trucks going down the Stop & Shop highway and the freights [i.e. trains] up the street bumping into each other and groaning like dying men. 

    The people aren’t that snobbish here; they don’t have anything to be snobbish about.  Once upon a time I guess this town was a pretty fancy place but not now.  Not that it’s low class.  I like it here.  You can still feel the oldness, the burnt sunshine dried on bricks or lost in the old boards of houses, the lace-curtain bushes in the spring, the rheumatic trees of winter.

    Why, down in Wolcott Square, just in the summer, I think it was, there was this old car, with a rumble seat and you would have sworn that if you took a photo nobody’d know the difference between now and fifty years ago, from the picture. 

    I am having a big Latin test to study for, tomorrow.  I am not exactly overeager about that. 

    I think I love words as much as I do colour.  Painting and writing are my best sources of pleasure.  I like to paint the things around me and I like to write of the things I know best.  Once I was told that there is no better authority than myself except God about one thing.  And that is myself. 

    That is so.  Each man, or at least most, I feel, knows his best consciously and his worst subconsciously.  My aim is to know myself, good and bad, equally, thus the better prepared to rid myself of bad. 

    So much for Freudian Chisholm.  At least I usually only analyze myself.  Nothing like having a built in head-shrinker. 

    I dislike using the names of people around me in this account.  If anyone is offended at any time I beg his pardon.  However it is because I consider him interesting enough to write about and because that person has had some touch on my life. 

    Anyway, night is pulling its shade over Readville.  Not so long and all shall be darkness but for blocks of light here and there and the blinking red light over the Blue Hills and the streetlights glowing.  Autumn night, cold and quiet. 

    Well, I suppose I had better write about my birthday, which is today. 

    But we started Friday, with the presents and the cake.  I got the Andrew Wyeth book from Dad which is great and an illustrated book of American folklore.  Also a Paul Mauriat record, the latest out, a box of Baklava (a Greek cake covered with honey), a box of mints, two candles, an orange, and a green, from Eily, and a small notebook from Bob with two pretty flowers on the cover. 

    Mommy bought me a watch and Helena got a lovely pea-jacket and gave me two dollars and Grandmother gave me twenty dollars. 

    In school today, at lunch, m. b. brought in some cupcakes that spelled out “Happy Birthday”.  She gave me a watchband, Patty some bath oil stuff, and Debby gave me a diary and photo album. 

    So that was my birthday and it was a good one.  Now I am 15.  Or, to be precise, I will be 15 at 20 minutes past 10 later tonight. 

    Now then.  Deep down (and sometimes not so deep, unfortunately) most people like to talk about themselves, and I’m no exception.  ‘Course, I’ve written a lot about myself in here, but what in the world else do you write about in a personal journal? 

    But I don’t think I’ve written much about my character or personality.  It shows through, I suppose, but not everything.  So I’ll set the record straight, so to speak. 

    First of all, I’m very stubborn.  Count that as good or bad, as you will, but I put it as good.  Stubbornness in my mind is a great virtue if you’re being so about the right things.  ‘Course, you might call it perseverance, but I call it stubbornness. 

    I’m as independent as they come.  Nobody, but nobody, makes me do something I really don’t want to do, that doesn’t agree with my principles; which I think is ok, since I know I have good principles. 

    I believe in calling a spade a spade and not “a geometric figure, coloured black, found on playing cards; etc. , etc.”  Put things as they are, don’t gum up the works. 

    I hate, despise, detest the least glimpse of insincerity.  That is my pet bugaboo. 

    I have many deep emotions and feelings and ideas, too, but I rarely show them. 

    Mainly, that is because I just cannot talk face to face with another person about myself.  There is too much in me, some of them very big things, some of them mean, but much too much.  I thank heaven for the fact that God has given me creative outlets for my feelings and ideas.  Without them I think I would crack up. 

    I am a person of many moods.  I am usually pretty rough, but underneath I can be gentle. 

    I hate to see anyone embarrassed or worried, because that is so often the way with me. 

    I am also terribly lazy and would rather stay home all day than go to school, but I know that wouldn’t work. 

    I am very strong-willed.  Often I set myself a high goal and work until I achieve it.  I refuse to give up, unless I see that it is hopeless.  Then I stop right away. 

    I hate to waste things and I like everything to be just so. 

    I watch every move and I trust no one.  I am a very suspecting person. 

    I am a penny-pincher.  I get bored easily on things I don’t like and can spend eight-hours straight on a painting, with no real break in between, with every nerve tense. 

    I am vain (heaven knows over what) and proud. 

    I am patriotic and loyal to my creed. 

    I don’t think I am overloaded with prejudice and I’m sick and tired of being told I am. 

    I like people as individuals, never as groups. 

    I am basically straight and sincere. 

    I can lie like a son of a gun. 

    I can do two things at once, like smiling at a nun while turning over a paper with a rotten mark.  The hand is quicker than the eye.  I am cautious.  I hate being rushed. 

    I love to talk.  I am a procrastinator (I love that word — pro: for ; cras: tomorrow.) 

    I am very confident.  I know what I’m doing, always.  Because whenever I don’t, I fumble.  I’m very cynical. 

    So, as you can see, I’m a very real person with all the hypocrisies and all the little good things that you find in almost every person if you dig down. 

    Stubborn, individualistic, sincere, faithful, disrespectful, good old me. 

    Oh, I think the best quality in any person, next to sincerity, an absolute must; is a good sense of humor. 

    I think I have that.