Robert Shields (diarist)

Believing that discontinuing his diary would be like "turning off my life",^[1] he spent four hours a day in the office, on his back porch, in his underwear, recording his body temperature, blood pressure, medications, describing his urination and bowel movements, and slept for only two hours at a time so he could describe his dreams. The New York Times summarized the journal as being about anything "from changing light bulbs to pondering God to visiting the bathroom".^[3] He also left behind samples of his nose hair for future study.^[3] After his stroke in 1997, Shields tried to continue the diary by having his wife write what he told her to write, but she lacked the compulsion and energy to do so and stopped shortly afterward.^[3]

Shields's self-described "uninhibited", "spontaneous" work was astonishing in its mundaneness, and now fills 91 cartons^[4] in the collections of Washington State University, to whom he donated the work in 1999.^[5] In a May 2000 interview he said "I've written 1200 poems and at least five of 'em are good."^[2] He also claimed to have written the story base for Elvis Presley's film Love Me Tender based on the Reno Gang of Seymour, Indiana, where Shields was born. Copies of the manuscript are at the Kansas State Historical Society's E. P. Lamborn collection. Shields based his manuscript on John Reno's 1879 autobiography, although there is some uncertainty over the authorship of the Reno autobiography, with Shields himself having acted as editor for the only known published copy.^[6]

The journal for which he became known was not the first he had tried to keep; he had tried to write one at age 17 to chronicle a romantic relationship, but abandoned it after losing interest in the project.^[3]

Under the terms of the donation of his diary to Washington State University, the diary may not be read or subjected to an exact word count until 50 years from his death (i.e. in 2057).^[7] However, many excerpts have appeared, including the following:^[4][8]

July 25, 1993

7 am: "I cleaned out the tub and scraped my feet with my fingernails to remove layers of dead skin."

7.05 am: "Passed a large, firm stool, and a pint of urine. Used five sheets of paper."

April 18, 1994

6:30–6:35: "I put in the oven two Stouffer's macaroni and cheese at 350°."

6:35–6:50: "I was at the keyboard of the IBM Wheelwriter making entries for the diary."

6.50–7.30: "I ate the Stouffer's macaroni and cheese and Cornelia ate the other one. Grace decided she didn't want one."

7.30–7.35: "We changed the light over the back stoop since the bulb had burnt out."

April 30, 1994

11:00–11:30: "I picked over parts of Newsweek and Time and Harvard magazine and reread them while I ate about a dozen leftover fish sticks. (Cold.)"

August 21, 1994

2:25–2:35: "I checked on whether our county tax payment had been received. It had."

August 13, 1995

8.45 am: "I shaved twice with the Gillette Sensor blade [and] shaved my neck behind both ears, and crossways of my cheeks, too."

Shields was married to Grace Augusta Hotson, with whom he had three daughters: Klara, Cornelia, and Heidi. He died from a heart attack at his home in Dayton, Washington, on October 15, 2007, just over 10 years after the stroke that ended his work on his diary. He was 89 years old.^[3]

• Morris Villarroel

• Scanned pages from the April 1994 diary: Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. NPR Sound Portraits
• Radio interview (RealAudio format) on Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?, May 6, 2000.