Hawks Over the Valley

           

            I had planned on doing my laundry on Thursday, but the other things I was doing beforehand rolled by so slowly that I put it off for a couple of days because I wanted to catch up on my writing. I hadn’t yet had a day since before school ended when my journal was up to date and I wouldn’t consider my summer holiday started until I could tackle other projects that I only have time for when I’m not taking courses.

            I listened to an episode of Amos and Andy from May 18, 1945. Although Germany had surrendered by this time, the war with Japan was still going on. The sponsor of the show was Rinso detergent. In every commercial they mention Speed Queen washers to remind customers who own them to take good care of them because manufacturers were still serving the war effort and would not be able to replace the machine.

            In the episode, Andy’s nephew, while stationed in Germany sent a letter saying that he was sending Andy a case of bouillon, but Andy and Kingfish misread the letter and thought that Jimmy meant “bullion”. Andy went to see his lawyer, Gabby, to get advice on how to turn the gold into spending money. Gabby recommended a banker, but warned him against the “law of internal combustion” because if he breaks the law then the internal revenue are gonna come bustin in. The banker turned out to be a connoisseur of bouillon and offered them fifteen dollars but they thought he meant fifteen dollars an ounce. They figured even a small case of bullion would weight at least 50lb so they tried to do the math on how many ounces that would be. Andy said that there used to be 40oz in a pound, but Kingfish said that with inflation it’s probably gone up to 68oz. So they multiplied 68 times 50, but he started with zero times 68 and got zero. Andy commented, “So far we aint makin much!” Kingfish assured him they would use the zero later, so Andy told him he’d hang onto the zero until Kingfish used it. Then Kingfish multiplied 5 times 68. Since 5 times 8 is 40 and 5 times 6 is 30, he then added the 30 and the 40. Somehow they ended up with a calculation of $10,500 for the case.

There was a very good vocal group that performed on the show that were introduced as “The Mystic Knights of the Sea Quartet” because Andy and Kingfish belonged to a lodge called “The Mystic Knights of the Sea”. But the group were really a popular Black vocal group called The Charioteers.

I rode across the Bloor viaduct and saw a large hawk soaring south into the valley, looking for dinner. A few seconds later, another hawk followed. I took Broadview north to O’Connor, exploring all the streets north of O’Connor until I got to Pape. I wondered how travelling north got me so far west, but it turns out that Broadview tilts northwest. I figured that before going any further north, I should cover the grid from Danforth to O’Connor and from Broadview to Pape. It’d probably take me about a week to explore the whole area.

Returning west on Bloor near Sherbourne, the first butterfly of the year desperately avoided colliding with my right shoulder. It could have torn my arm right off.

On my way down Yonge Street I saw a dark-bearded guy staggering north with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was wearing a dirty Maple Leafs jersey and a Santa cap. I wonder how far north he was actually going.

There was a package of precooked noodles and vegetables that came with a sauce in a separate plastic envelope that I got from the food bank. When she gave it to me, Sue had said that it was a spicy salad. When I opened it up though, it didn’t taste very good cold, so I steamed it and then added the sauce or dressing. The noodles got a little mushy because they were already cooked. Maybe it would have been better cold if I’d just added the dressing from the start. I think I’d prefer if the food bank would just give me the raw ingredients and a recipe. I had it with a chicken leg. I found the cardboard label of the package later in the fridge. It was a stir-fry; so steaming it was the wrong thing to do.