Daniel Dale Johnston was born in Sacramento, CA, to Bill and Mabel Johnston. (They lived nearby in Fair Oaks, CA) He was a late addition to the family, born 7 years after his nearest sibling, Dick. Throughout his life, Daniel repeatedly noted that he shared a birthday with Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), but he was mistaken. Lewis Carroll’s birthday was actually January 27th.
His first word was “eye.” Or “I.” He always said that the two terms were interchangeable and that he meant both things. Dick told me he also had a security blanket when he was very young and would say “I want my eye/I!” In “A Year in My Garden” diary entries, Daniel often conflated the two words (as in “Eye want you, Eye love you, etc.”)
“A Year in My Garden” is a sort of diary that each of the Johnston children wrote in, but that Daniel wrote in the most, by far. It’s also a great artifact of Daniel’s progress as a young artist. In particular, he drew Frankenstein repeatedly, getting better and better from year to year. Mabel monitored this diary and sometimes edited or censored entries that were not to her liking.