Five days ago in…1983…

I was 9 years old and in the 4th grade. This is my diary entry for that day (April 8, 1983), complete with misspellings and grammatical errors…

Dear Diary,
Today JoAnna came over and we had such a good time! We watched the Statue of Liberty disappear. Now were in bed her mother is gonna come pick her up in the morning.
K.L.K.

P.S. I still love Rickey Schroder

At some point later I crossed out “love” and wrote “hate.” I wonder what changed my mind?

JoAnna was my best friend at that time. I love how I so flippantly wrote “we watched the Statue of Liberty disappear” like it was an everyday occurrence. What this refers to, of course, is the TV special in which magician David Copperfield made the illusion of the Statue of Liberty disappearing. I remember this being a fairly big deal at the time. Hence our making a point of watching it.

I don’t think this is the exact video from that night, as Mr. Copperfield appears to be making fun of himself years later in the voiceover, but this is the best I could do: here I bring to you the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty – through the magic of Youtube!