July 19, 1981

To date (Who knows the future?)

5 greatest restaurant meals
5 most impressive buildings
5 most moving encounters with Art
5 most wonderful persons I've met
5 most memorable memories
5 most emotionally intense moments
5 most impressive landscape scenes ...

5 greatest restaurant meals, for whatever reason

1. Pierce's 1890 House, Elmira, New York with beautiful montrachet, with S_ (1967 or 1968)
2. Tower Restaurant. Occidental Tower in Los Angeles. With L_ and L_ L_ on occasion of L_'s 30th birthday anniversary. Montrachet wine, again! 1979.
3. [Name of restaurant not recalled] Italian and seafood restaurant, Edinborough, Scotland, with A_ and her mother. A_ given dessert cart by maitre 'd, on house. August 1975.
4. Trident Cafe, Sausalito, lunch of salad and wine, and wine lingering into afternoon, looking down bay to San Francisco, September 1968.

Five most impressive buildings

1. St. Mary's Cathedral, San Francisco. (1972)
2. Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, England. (1975)
3. Westminster Abby, London. (1975)
4. Mission Inn, here at home (1970-)
5. Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings, Colorado (September 1968)

5 most wonderful persons

1. My aunt, R_ H_
2. My colleague, J_ M_
3. P_ G_, a friend
4. My aunt, L_ G_
5. My friend, B_ C_

5 most emotionally intense moments in my life

1. A_'s [my daughter] birth, October 25, 1970
2. Day/evening in which S_ [my wife] asked for a divorce, February 1976
3. Seeing Abraham Lincoln statue in Parliament Square, London, 1975
4. A tuesday or wednesday, Winter 1962, worst day of ... [illness]
5. First time I made love to J_, summer 1963

5 most impressive landscape scenes

1. Grand Canyon, sunrise, south rim, September 1961
2. Tuckerman's Ravine, sunset, Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, summer 1954 or 1955
3. Canadian great plains, aurora borealis, about 2:00 a.m., September 1961
4. Los Angeles at night, December 1977, returning from the East by air flight, descending over San Bernardino mountains, which were snow capped by a recent snowfall, and illuminated ghostly white by a full moon; and spreading over the great Los Angeles basin, the innumerable lights, the sea of the city at night, beneath me
5. Glenndalough [Glendalough], at the setting of St. Kevin's monastery, Ireland--visited with L_ on honeymoon, August 1979
6. Cascade of evening fog, at sunset, down off Mt. Sutro, where it had hesitated, into the valley; as seen from Protrero [Potrero] Hill; with the sun setting behind the fog and illuminating it gold and red. Summer 1971. San Francisco.

...

5 most memorable movies [when viewed]

1. "Splendor in the Grass" (1962?)
2. "2001" (1968?)
3. "Frankenstein" (1952 or 1953?)
4. "Virgin Spring" (1963?) [made in 1960]
5. "Wild Strawberries" (1962?) [made in 1957]

5 most moving encounters with art

1. Seeing Michangelo's "David" [Florence] September 1975
2. Seeing St. Gauden's "Lincoln" in Parliament Square [London], 1975
3. Seeing Henry Moore's reclining figure and knife-edge woman[,] LA County Museum of Art, 1974(?)
4. Mahler's 3rd symphony 1976 by LA Philharmonic at LA Music Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; especially the post-horn concerto of the 3rd movement; attended concert with P_ G_
5. Simon Rodia Towers, in Watts section of Los Angeles, 1979 spring. I was overwhelmed with the spirit of the man and had difficulty holding back from crying, while I was there (with J_ T_'s conservation class). That night, I woke up about two-thirty a.m. and cried quietly for a long time, unable to hold it back any longer.