ON DECEMBER 31 IT RAINED
ALM No.93, September 2026
ESSAYS
A twelve-year-old steps through the dirt without noticing it. If a bug crawls over his shoe, it passes more like an acquaintance than an enemy.
Panda was exploring the house next door. It was being torn down to build an extra parking structure for the supermarket on the corner. The downstairs held nothing worth his time. There was one chair—a frame with no seat and a broken leg. Looking out the dirty windows of an empty house, the world itself looked empty.
Chips of white plaster had fallen from the walls to cover the floor like a blanket. Lying in this blanket, Panda had found one slug, the size of a nickel but heavier, which he put into his front pocket. Upstairs were three bedrooms. Two were empty and clean, but the third held the remains of a single mattress. In a pile of mattress stuffing that felt like beach sand and cotton candy in his hands, Panda found a small red book. Opening the cover, he read Daily Reminder 1933. Most of the pages he opened the book to were written on in small script. There was nothing else here. Panda took the diary and went home for lunch.
After he’d eaten, he went to his room and lay on his stomach on his bed. He put the book in front of him on his pillow and opened it to the first page, reading Daily Reminder 1933 for the second time. At the bottom of the page was a dedication: To L.H.B. With love, Christmas, 1932. It was signed, Wilhelmina. A newspaper clipping fell out onto his pillow. He read that Mr. W.W. Crozier, known to his friends as “Uncle Bill,” had celebrated his 93rd birthday on January 21st. The Herald is extending congratulations and hope that he may live to reach the century mark along life's highway. Mr. Crozier is, at the present time, enjoying good health, which is one of the choicest blessings at this remarkable age.
Panda read the first entry. We went out at midnight to usher in the new year. I had a cast aluminum kettle which made a gorgeous din. Called Sara Armstrong, who I am nursing. Only girls kept diaries. Only women were nurses. L.H.B. was a young woman. The next day, she went to the Tournament of Roses. The theme of the floats that year was Fairyland. Pittsburgh lost thirty-five/zero to S.C.
The entries continued in words Panda considered strange for talking about oneself, formal and self-conscious, as if L.H.B. had known that her entries would one day be read. Panda stopped on January 6th, where the entry was, Mr. Coolidge found dead by his wife. He could close the diary now. Nothing else had happened. There would be 360 blank pages waiting to be filled in.
There were no entries for the next two days. Then, the story began to unfold. January was mostly financial records. Bathed Sally. $5.00, smokes, 20¢. In late January, one of her cats had a love affair. Phoebe seems to be leading an immoral life. Stuart’s Princess, a yellow Persian, and a grey one are attending her.
On February 1st, L.H.B.’s mother was sick. Mammie came home today. Does not look very well. The entries were short now and in pencil. Sally—bath rec’d $1.00 for this week’s baths—gave to Ma. On February 18th, Mammie had a temperature of 102.6 degrees. Dr. Gaspard came at 9 P.M. and found what he thought was an infected gall bladder. She was put on a liquid diet. The rest of February and March were mostly reports of mother’s temperatures and what she ate. On the 10th, there was a serious earthquake that caused a lot of damage. Mammie not at all alarmed. Brave old buck, she is. The entries continued, nothing but short financial entries and weather reports along with Mammie’s temperatures. It became so easy to turn the pages that Panda was almost annoyed when he came to an occasional long entry. Sunday, May 14th, was Mother’s Day. The entry, in pencil, continued onto the Monday, May 15th, page.
Mother’s Day. Came over early and made Mamma’s house pretty with flowers. Nonie brought her bouquet of pink roses and white. Most dainty. She opened box from dear Samples, containing three lovely, hand-made tray-cloths and a new dollar bill. Bess sent her a gay card and a pretty, green-bordered linen handkerchief. She had on her pretty new gown and my lovely sample quilt. She looked so pretty and happy. Lina and the children came at about 3 P.M. and stayed ‘til about six. She was so happy with us all. We took pictures of all of us out in the back yard. About seven P.M. Mamma W. and Mrs. Pfeiffer came. I had the little card table fixed up with a pink paper cloth and napkins, little fruit candy bars, and their Mother’s Day cards, and we had for each of them a very pretty black vase with pink flower sprays. Mammie was too tired to enter into the talk, but she enjoyed it all. When she went to bed she said every minute of the day had been perfectly happy.
Panda thought a bit more about who L.H.B. had been. A young woman then, maybe still alive now, and very, very old. Or she had been middle-aged and was now long dead. There was someone named Willie who took her on several nice rides, but that was the only sign of anything that might have been romance. After Mother’s Day, the entries trailed off, as if L.H.B. had lost interest in her record. But then, they picked up again in late July. Financial records, a few notes on how hot the month had been. One ride to Mount Wilson with Willie.
By August, Mammie was dying. It doesn’t seem real that we can’t have her very much longer. On August 8th, an entry about finances. Smokes 50¢. The next entry is August 13th.
Service for Mammie.
On August 15th, They placed my mother’s ashes next to my father’s in Springdale cemetery.
Panda threw the book across the room and sunk his head into the darkness of his pillow.
L.H.B. was an old woman now, living in Pasadena (where she had gone to visit relatives in 1933 and attended the Rose Parade.). L.H.B. was dead. He had gone too far. If he had stopped when Mr. Coolidge was found by his wife, her mother would still be alive. Nothing would have happened. Once, he had spent the night at a neighbor’s house. He was in the bathroom and the door was locked. He opened the medicine cabinet and began to look through the pill bottles. On the bottom shelf he had nearly knocked over a set of false teeth. How guilty to discover secrets—you make them real.
He was twelve. His grandfather had died when he was eleven. His mother’s father. He had gone with his parents to his grandparents’ house. A home he always thought of as dark and cool. The family were all sitting in the living room, which still smelled of the cigars his grandfather kept there in a closet with fresh decks of cards for pinochle. He had never before been in the silence of grief. His grandmother had held him in her arms and said, “Now, I just have so much more love to give to you.”
He sat there on his bed for a long time. But you cannot sit still on your bed forever. He got up and crossed the room to pick up the diary.
The second half of 1933 began with a vacation to La Jolla and San Diego (where L.H.B. liked the zoo and loved the marina). I like to keep going to forget that little empty room, she wrote. She returned to Los Angeles and wrote letters. Wrote to Bess enclosing small print of Mamma with the boys, standing. She sent copies of the Mother’s Day photo to everyone she wrote to. Always picture of Mammie. On her cousin Emily’s birthday, she sent her one of Mammie’s handkerchiefs, which Emmy had once given her.
October 19th was her birthday. She was given a colored enlargement of Mammie, which she had framed. Again, the entry went over into the next day. My birthday. W. gave me a lovely handmade woven scarf, dark blue, white, dark red, and tan threads woven together in a basket design. I like it so much. Also a handsome box of fine paper, which I much wanted. After she left, I tidied house and spent a long while hunting for Phoebe, so I was late for lunch at Momma W.’s. Got there about 1:30—she and Gertrude had a lovely lunch of all kinds of trashy things—delightful. They were so sweet to me. Momma W. gave me my coloured enlargements of Mammie, which she had had framed. I am so glad to have it from her. It is beautiful. W. came after school! Wrote long letter to Bess, thanking her for the beautiful birthday record book she made for me with Beulah, who was up at our house, but they did not come ‘til almost dinner time. Poor W. thought she was invited to dinner, and here we were all stuffed and wanted no dinner. I wanted to cook for her but she refused, and she and Beulah went off to some little restaurant and got some little dinner. I felt so bad about it. We took Gertrude home and got home ourselves at about 8.30.
Halloween was Wilhelmina’s 50th birthday. Panda thought that if her friend was fifty.
L.H.B. was probably about the same age herself. In the next pages, she had underlined several words. The first time in the diary that she had done that. I cannot believe that my girl, such a little while ago, so young - often so gay, so brilliant; life lying so long, so full of promise—filled before her, is fifty years old. I don’t much mind growing old but it hurts to see it threaten her. If I could make all the rest of her life happy, I would not feel so sad. I never can, just by living, I have cheated her of life. Old, then, with new mysteries.
Now, Panda set the book gently on the floor beside his bed. Not an angry parting, just something it wasn’t good to look at. How was L.H.B. cheating Wilhelmina out of life? He needed to finish the story. He picked up the diary again. Wilhelmina was sick and didn’t enjoy her birthday.
November was a month for dinners. Opened Hormel chicken—very good. Had rabbit—not as good as usual. On November 11th, she took an overnight trip with Lena and Zora to La Jolla. There were no entries until the 25th, when Toodles was struck by a car. The vet was called and the next few days were filled with reports on the health of the dog, reminding Panda of the temperatures of Mammie. By Thanksgiving, Toodles was walking normally. A few more letters were mailed with the usual pictures of Mammie.
Early December was spent Christmas shopping and eating out with Willie, Momma W., Wilhelmina, and Lena. On Christmas, there was a big party at which nearly everyone mentioned during the year was present. Wilhelmina gave me a fine diary, much too nice for me… gave her the top and lining for a quilt. Think she did not like it. Must remember never to give her a gift she has not asked for and described. Then there was another Christmas party followed by a list of presents given and received. On December 31st, it rained.
The last page was full. We meant to spend this evening at Mamma W.’s. I made a bum cake and some worse cookies to help celebrate the New Year’s Eve. But it has rained so hard for the last twenty-four hours that W. was afraid the car might be mired in getting out of the garage. So we have been quietly at home. The news broadcast said that it had been the heaviest 24 hrs. of rainfall since 1897. The old year is almost dead. It brought me so much that was good, more than I deserved. It brought unexpected sweetness and unexpected sorrow—to the world, despair and hope. That was the last entry. The word hope was followed by four dots in an irregular circle.
Panda turned back to the first page. We went out at midnight to usher in the New Year. I had a cast aluminum kettle which made a gorgeous din. The year had begun again; Mammie’s gall bladder was not yet infected, Mr. Coolidge had not yet been found dead. He read about half way through the diary again, but grew impatient, already knowing the future. My name is not Peter, he thought, it is Panda. I chose that name because their eyes look so sad, but they don’t seem to be afraid of things. He closed his eyes to the picture behind them of a rodeo cowboy thrown from a bucking bronco.
Los Angeles, 1968/2026
Les Bohem: I was part of the great Los Angeles music scare of the early 1980s. My band, Gleaming Spires, had a cult-adjacent hit with our single, Are You Ready For the Sex Girls. (If you ever saw Revenge of the Nerds, you know). At the same time, I was holding down a day job as the bass player with the band, Sparks. (You can catch a glimpse of me in Edgar Wright’s terrific movie, The Sparks Brothers.) We were recording Angst In My Pants in Munich the entire time Sex Girls was in heavy rotation on Los Angeles radio. I was out of town for my fifteen minutes.
After this burgeoning career in rock and roll stopped burgeoning, I found a job writing screenplays about rock and roll musicians whose careers had stopped burgeoning. But no one makes movies about rock and roll musicians whose careers etc., and so I wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, The Horror Show and bits and pieces of several other memorable epics. Eventually Twenty Bucks, a movie that I wrote based on a 1935 script by my dad, Endre, (the apple didn’t fall – my parents were both writers) was made. The movie earned critical raves and several awards, including an Independent Spirit Award. My other screenwriting credits include Daylight, Dante’s Peak, The Alamo, Kid, Nowhere To Run, The Darkest Hour, Shut Eye, and the mini-series, Taken which I wrote and executive produced with Steven Spielberg (so you can now add “name-droppy” to “self-serving.”) and for which I received both Golden Globe and Writers Guild nominations and won an Emmy award, a Television Critics’ Award, and a Saturn Award.
I’ve had songs recorded by Emmylou Harris, Randy Travis, Freddy Fender, Steve Gillette, Johnette Napolitano, Alvin (of the Chipmunks) and the inimitable Misty Martinez. My first solo album, Moved to Duarte, was released a few years ago to lovely reviews and absolutely no sales or downloads. My Audible Original novel, Junk, narrated by John Waters, was a NYT notable and the best-selling Audible Original of 2019. The sort of sequel, Jive, is on Audible as well, and I’m working on a third piece, Justice, as we speak. Omnivore Records has just reissued all three of the Gleaming Spires albums, along with massive amounts of bonus material. Both of the Gleaming Spires fans are thrilled.
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