23-IV-1968.
Restarting the diary the 2nd time, this time seriously, with additional stipulation that it be secret. And it remained so. Mom found out that I was writing it, but didn't object nor tried to read it (or if she did, she hid it well). The couple of exceptions to this secrecy were small and my own decision.
At this time, I became a regular visitor at the corner, two blocks away from our house, about halfway to school, where a small bunch of friends were gathering. My best friend then, Kale, had a girlfriend, Radoslava who lived there. Her brother died on 24th. We played soccer against France and won 5:1.
For a while, I had a girlfriend of sorts, too, though it was more of an agreement than an affair. We were only pretending - gave each other an occasional gift, once even sat alone on a bench after dark, but didn't even kiss. Several years later, I saw her, only that one time. She wasn't to my liking at all; still good legs, the minis she wore in 1968 would still fit her. This evening, however, I was so desiring to land my hand on her thighs, at least knees, to kiss her, but then I didn't know where's the line that shouldn't be crossed, what would give her cause to get mad at me, even slap me, make noise. So I didn't dare anything.
I was a pen pal with some Valya in USSR, got her address from Zabavnik. I wondered sometimes why did she pick me, among dozens who must have also written. Or maybe nobody else did. We wrote a few letters but it got boring real soon so we both gave up after perhaps six letters. Guess we ran out of text.
Based on what I saw in "Lost in space" (yup we saw all of it) I started drawing car designs. The probably oldest drawing of the kind is on pages 14 and 15 of the diary. Next two pages are the legend for the callout numbers. The series was not stale at all, the third season was just finished its run in the US, we weren't too far behind. While adding text to this article (some 18 years after the first version), I took a peek at it, watched it at random, and I can't explain why was I so fired up about the older daughter, could it be just because she was a blonde? Now it seems that I saw much more than there was to see.
On 25th I sort of talked with Lidija about us, whatever that looked like. Now that I'm reading the "we're quit" and "she wants to be alone for x time", I somewhat remember that the event wasn't even remotely similar to what I wrote. I fumbled a few sentences and she wispered a couple and that was how much we could stay after class without raising suspicion. The punishment would be everybody mocking us (and envying too, the more reason to mock). Had another, similarly brief and stunted talk with her on 2nd of may, and it just confirmed that there will be nothing. That's when I mention the hippies the first time, in a quite positive way - would like to be one.
It seems I didn't write it down, but I remember bicycling around a lot during the summer vacation, in the afternoons, and taking long breaks from a place where her terrace on the rear side of Lesnina could be seen. Just hoped she'd appear there, which never happened. People didn't use their terraces much.
Mentions: David Jamaček (Kale), Lesnina, Lidija Spaček, Radoslava Međei, in serbian
27-V-2007 - 19-VII-2025