#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 10, 1913

January 10: “Thunder will out.” So will anything that has the faintest hint of crime in it.  The Fellows are saying that I am bribing because I am buying the dues on new members in the Senate.  They’re right.

January 11: Cleaned house all day, and went to a party in the evening.  I am not fit to go among people:  I am reticent, unaccomplished, selfish, and bashful.  Mistake is my warden, blunder my guard, solitude my cell.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 12, 1913

January 12: Sunday: 930 saw me up - worked till late on machine. Ate dinner.  Bob Stoaks came up and we talked politics.  Bob made a poster to advertise my candidacy for Deb’ty Manager in Senate.  Have one chance, Tuesday, so, will see.

January 13: School again. Everything usual.  Got a letter from Ida.  Gee, but she’s a bird.  Somehow, though, I like my Ida better than Mrs. Leslie’s Ida.  I think I develop better characters than she.  Imagination is omnipotent.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 16: I wonder if a fellow has a right, since he is so young and unsophisticated, to be intimate with or even love a girl.  Can he do it. Is it appropriate or silly.  Is it healthy for a boy to have an ideal in a pure girl.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 14, 1913

January 14: Nothing much happened in the Senate; nothing like I suspected.  Waldo Clarke is either so earnest and simple that he is an exceptional man, or he is an egoistic, laughable freak.  We hope 1.

January 15: I wonder why Pa and I don’t agree.  That I love him, the inner him that that I feel not see, is never truly doubted by the ‘inner’ me.  Our retinas, our feeble bodies and mundane views separate our hearts.  But God bless him.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 8, 1913

January 8: Rained fearfully. Council meeting. We are assiduously working up on our campaign. We aren’t absolutely square but are gauging our operations by the standards of our friends, the enemy. This isn’t square. The end attained, it must stop.

January 9: Snowed in the Hills today. This winter coldest in 20 years. Wonder if to be fair is better, wish more politic then to be aggressive and in just within the law.  I’m trying the latter in the Senate.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 6, 1913

January 6: First day of school of the New Year.  Everything smooth.  Arose at 5:20 and got to school on time.  The cook is fired.  Have new one. Debate pending final touches.  The world is a stage.  My part?

January 7: The Debate is over.  We, Naldo, Stoops (best speaker) and myself, won. It means a meritorious if not political victory for us.  Fair play is essential always.  The opposition ticket “copped” a poster we had.  That’s unfair.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913

[kimrosswrites]

January 3, 1913

January 3: Innovation one: we were blessed with an aid in the form of a housekeeper.  No more dishes or practice in the culinary art for Johnny.

January 4: Spent forenoon at C.F. Doe Library of U.C.  Working on “Resolved: that the U.S. should increase her navy.” Debate is political; comes off Tuesday; issues of senate election depend on it.  Lady all right.

January 5: Sunday. The day is God’s and yet I have used it for menial tasks; I didn’t go to church.  Mae Johnes had dinner with us.  The cook is poor.  The Debate progressed a great deal tonight.  Will win.

John Gray moved from Seattle to Oakland to live with his father for the first time in 1910. He was 13 years old. After abandoning the family when John was just a toddler, Smith William Gray welcomed the chance to be an influence in his youngest son’s life. It is clear from John’s diaries that he respected his father, and wanted to make him proud.

#LineADay JohnGrayDiaries Alameda HighSchoolDiaries 1913