November 28, 1975: Friday

Spent the morning helping Dr. Treves sort out the core for his sampling and getting it ready to ship. It’ll go by air this year instead of on the ship. Ran off some copies of the preliminary log.

Dr. Treves has an article from the Point Mugu paper describing the rescue of an international team of scientists from a raging blizzard at the South Pole, minus 27 degree temperatures on the icy plain. That was us. We read it to Van Reeth and asked him if he was the official Navy source that was quoted.

In the afternoon all Hell broke loose.

Sampling core, reporters, photographers, x-ray machine going, a blast on Observation Hill, Katsu getting the seismograph going and trying to explain it to the reporter, Peter and Kathy back, Peter getting ready to leave, showing Cal and I where the fossils on Shapeless Mountain are, and the Navy calling and saying they had our shipping boxes all done, in only four hours time. Incredible.

Bio-Mike developed hockey pictures. Lots of ones of Kathy. I try to be more discrete. She told me that Bio-Mike was sort of getting on her nerves.

She didn’t say anything to me at lunch, or all afternoon. I was not upset or annoyed. Worried is the best word to describe the feeling.

I didn’t want to strike up a conversation for fear of making a fool of myself.

But I did have to ask her about a book that Peter left behind. She smiled, once or twice, and told me about how she’s been too busy to write. Well, I won’t avoid a conversation with her.

So at five o’clock I asked her if she was ready for dinner.

She said to pick her up in Building 125.

Cal went ahead to the Hotel, so I wandered into her building. She asked me if I wanted a drink. She needed one, for medicinal purposes. A cold, you know.

She almost opened up to me. She’d never been called anything but Katherine until she’d left for college. Said she didn’t want to go to Taylor Glacier, but it was her duty.

I apologized for the Kiwis per acre second. She didn’t mind that so much as she did Havelka and Jim’s constant ribbing.

She wondered if she really was as bad as all that. I said, “Ahhhhhh, yeah, a real bundle of energy.”

And we walked down to dinner. The table with Dr. Treves and Cal had one seat. So I sat across from CosRay Doug. Kathy sat in the other empty seat. So after I took my tray back, I sat in an open spot at the far end of the table. And she would talk down to me, with out it even being a question I directed to her. Sometimes that’s the only way I can get girls to talk to me, by asking them something.

For a long time today I was depressed and confused. Depressed because I let Kathy affect my thoughts. And confused about what to do about it.

A long, sad sidebar:

The choice is clear. Between the “Who Cares, She’s only a Broad” approach (to which most of my friends are adherents, or it’s sometimes called She’s Not the Only Fish in the Sea Theory) or the Usual Same Old Me attitude to girls. That method nourishes the soul but never satisfies the appetite.

Why should a girl affect me so? I don’t know. It’s happened before. Ugly, sloppy, lacking in the social graces Me, desiring the attention and the affection of a beautiful lady.

Several times. And that list is headed by another Cathy. Why do I worry over unattainable dreams? With 500 hundred men to choose from for male companionship, I have no chance.

But I don’t think Kathy is down here to find a rich boyfriend, or even one with power.

But, again, she has all to choose from, just to be friends with, and surely she would want to confide in someone much more handsome, witty, charming than I.

Perhaps she has nothing to confide about, in her past or present.

But I know better. Everybody has times when pressures and problems get them down and they need someone to talk to. Right?

And thanks to everyone in my life I’ve been able to lean my shoulder upon and cry. I owe them life and allegiance many times over.


Well, we only lost the basketball game 43-29. I fouled out again, but I had six fouls. Two points was all. Doug Hall played for the opposition, Holmes and Narver. He was very perturbed at my antics on and off the court.

I tried to explain to him why I do what I do, but there’s no explanation. My on court enthusiasm-insanity-obnoxiousness is nothing more than a release of tension.

I can’t understand why nobody else will let me be. They have to be concerned. I don’t get drunk. And I’m not bothered if other people do.

Got a package from Marylin Bath. Chocolate and caramel whatevers. They’re absolutely good.

My new roommate is Bruce from the South Pole.

Dr. Treves is going to show me how to run the x-ray diffractometer. I’m going to analyze the Turtle Rock rocks. We’ll publish a short paper, I guess.

Dr. Treves is in the Who’s Who in America book.