Often mentioned but until now incompletely documented, here is an early moment in the lifetime of one of America's most intriguing personalities. The occasion? The 50th anniversary of John Glenn's trip around the globe. The image? A diary excerpt from February 14–20, 1962 as originally authored by Jacquelyn Settlage (nee Wells). The lefthand two-thirds is an hourly plot of the infant's activity. Decoding this archival material is made easier by accessing the legend, also in the mother's careful handwriting.Solid blocks = asleep, Horizontal line = feeding (presumably mother's milk)
S = cereal, F = Fruit, ∆ = Vegetables & Meat, Rx = medicine for skin rash.
Several continuing patterns are apparent including long nights of sleep (often 8 pm to 7 am) as well as a very irregular schedule of bathing (roughly once a week). The boy was also eager to be in close proximity to breasts. And large noontime meals were appreciated. Perhaps in a future post, the plots of Junior's height and weight relative to standardized data would be worth examining. For today, and because of today, the annotations to the right are our focus. We don't have access to John Glenn's movements and moods during the third week of February 1962 so this other John's life will have to do.
On Thursday the 15th, it was noted that he was smiling most of the time, although he was quick to cry when his guardians moved out of sight. The next day, his diarrhea was much improved and he could move from prone to sitting — perhaps the two were related? Skipping ahead to Monday the 19th, he discovered his navel and even bent over to suck his toes. And on 2/20/1962, he "Plays in clover. Normal BM. Glenn into space." Much stays the same. John Glenn spoke to astronauts in space, my digestive system is pooping right along, and life is good -- everything goes well short of having actual clover in which to play. Spring is 10 days away and clover does better in our backyard than does grass. Thanks for being interested!
