The Diary of Tommy Cooper

In 1954, I was chosen to play clarinet at an all state high school music clinic in Rock Hill, SC. Little did I know that that workshop would provide me with an idea that would last to the present -- keeping a journal. At the close of the workshop, each participant was given a little one-year diary. It was difficult to write more than a few lines, but I began. At the time, I was 16 years old and in my junior year in high school. From that tiny journal, I "graduated" to a 5 year diary which provided more space for writing. During the time I wrote in that journal, I was in college. Then I discovered a journal that offered a page for every day of the year. Those provided me space for documenting my early years of marriage. Finally, I learned to use a computer and to this day, I journal every day on my computer. Since I retired, I write whenever I have an idea during the day or when something happens that is worth remembering. I have transcribed all of my journals into my Journals folder, and I back up these journals every three or four days. The question now is what am I going to do with my journals? They are personal and are the story of me. I'm glad I've kept this record of my life, my childhood as a young person with very low self esteem, my college and military years when I began to emerge, my marriage which proved to be faulty when I admitted after twenty-three years of marriage that I had fought being gay for as long as I could remember, my divorce, and my emergence as an honest human being who could accept my strengths and my weaknesses. From Tommy to Thom.