Vn40.1 Logo After Hours 7/4/77

During the bicentennial year Miriam was too young to enjoy the
fireworks. She was frightened by the noise of amateurs’ exploding
firecrackers and so sleepy by 9 o’clock that we abandoned a half-
hearted attempt to watch the display from the vantage of Corey Hill
in Brookline. Radio forecasts promised this year a smaller crowd
and a more impressive exhibition than last year. Uncertain that we
would be near Boston in the future, I decided the children should
seize this opportunity to see the biggest fireworks display on the
east coast.

Having heard of how impossible is parking near the Charles, I
brought my family to Logo early in the evening. We all casually enter-
tained ourselves while waiting for nightfall. Gretchen and Robby occu-
pied themselves with reading, Miriam with drawing (Robby did that too)
and making letters. I reviewed material in various workspaces on the
Logo system, to refresh my memory with possibilities for future work
with the childlren. I showed Robby (but not Miriam) Danny Hillis’
“STRING” design procedure and an elaboration I had made thereon for
developing Lissajous figures. He was impressed, but drawn away by
witnessing the Cambridge police respond to an apparent mugging on the
corner of Main and Vassar. Miriam wanted to use the Slot Machine but
it did not work (as we had discovered earlier in the day: cf. Logo
Session 34A). We all watched the traffic build to an impenetrable
mass as dark approached.

We walked to Memorial Drive near the foot of Longfellow Bridge and
beheld that crowd of evening picnickers who had come prepared with
incredible paraphernalia and seized all the choice locations early on.
The air was acrid and pulsating from the frequent but irregular ex-
plosions by amateur incendiaries. The children’s chronic impatience
was only relieved by the distraction of fudge popsicles and the dis-
tressingly late beginning of the fireworks. Very few seemed to care
that hearing the 1812 Overture was impossible until the cannon fire
declared the beginning of the long-awaited fireworks. The display was
worth the waiting. Even though they were quite tired, both children
were excited and delighted.

At the end of the show, we repaired to Logo to await there the
subsidence of the traffic. We were all glad to find the lab occupied
by friends. Miriam perched herself on Margaret Minsky’s lap and
announced that we’re going to have a baby. Upon hearing that Danny
Hillis was back from Texas on a visit, we all trooped up to Marvin’s
office and interjected ourselves into their conversation. Miriam seized
Danny’s lap as her own property, and I shanghaied him to repair the
Slot Machine so that the two-terminal experiment could be executed the
next day (this was essential because of rearranging the lab for the
summer high school program). After Danny did a little magic to make
the Slot Machine work, we sat talking til midnight with Margaret, Bruce
Edwards, and Ellen Hildreth.

Relevance
These notes record the casual use of Logo as a place to pass the
time and meet friends.