Why Don't We Eat Pigeons Anymore?

            I’ve had the flaxseed oil that I got from the food bank on salad a few times during this last week and it seems to make my sweat smell like fish.

            Saturday morning was the muggiest so far this year. My elbows were sliding apart on the yoga mat while they were supporting me in the bridge pose in which from the shoulder stand I bring my feet to the floor behind me and straighten my legs as much as possible.

            I had the fan on during song practice but turned it off later because there always seems to be a cooling down period after sunrise that lasts for a couple of hours until the day begins heating up.

I almost finished memorizing the 1972 song “Help camionneur” (Help Truck Driver) by Serge Gainsbourg. I noticed that the song has the same melody as another Gainsbourg song from 1970 that I translated a few months ago called “Le canari est sur le balcon” (The Canary is on the Balcony). I think the previous theme fits the melody a lot better than this later one.

On my way to the food bank I saw a line-up of food bank regulars down the street and on the next block. I started putting on my brakes because my first thought was that the food bank had moved. But then I remembered the church group that had been giving out pizzas last week and assumed they were lining up for some tomato pies with pepperoni and melted Jesus on top.

The actual food bank line-up was understandably long for this time of the month. Graham was a few places ahead of me and I shook his hand as I arrived. The woman with the rollator was just behind him. She asked if I’d had a good sleep over the hot night. I said I’d slept okay. I asked her for her name as I was getting tired of writing about her as “the woman with the rollator”. She said it was Veronica.

Graham shared the good news that he’d gotten a job and had just finished his first week. He’s doing computer work in Excel for a health provider that makes home visits. I asked him if that was his métier and he said he’d been working with computers for over thirty years. I guessed that he must have been working with computers since before the internet was a public network. He said that he’d worked with the ARPANET in the 80s before it became the internet and when it was still controlled by the US military. I suggested that he must have been a big influence on his kids to become computer savvy. He said that his boys had made their own websites by the time they were ten.

Graham said the caveat with his job is that they’d be holding back his first cheque until the middle of August. He told me that once he saves up some money for first and last he wants to start looking for an apartment with his own bathroom and kitchen. I said one of the things that I’m very glad for is not having to share a bathroom. I offered that sometimes it can be a positive thing to share a kitchen depending on whom one is sharing it with. For example, many years ago I had a kitchen mate from Trinidad who gave me pointers on how to make roti. But in the long run it’s better all around to not have to share facilities unless it’s with an intimate companion.

Graham said he wouldn’t have to come to the food bank anymore in couple of weeks. I told Graham and Veronica that sometimes I come to the food bank even when I don’t need it that much because I write about it. I explained that I write a column for newz4u.ca called “Food Bank Adventures”. Veronica asked me what I learn from it. I think she thought about what I do as some kind of investigative reporting. I said that I just recount my experience, write about the characters I encounter and the people I talk with. Obviously I learn things but it’s not an information gathering expedition.

I noticed that Dave was further back in line and when I said hi he came forward to chat. I told him that I’d researched what he’d said about loosening guitar strings when they aren’t being played and found that the experts online disagree with him. He still maintained that it was true in his experience. I tried to show him some pictures of my guitars that I’d taken with my tablet but I hadn’t taken into account the fact that capturing all those images ate up battery power and so my tablet wouldn’t wake up for show and tell. He tried to show me a picture of one of his guitars but it was online and he couldn’t get a connection.

I told Dave that one of my guitars looked like a Gibson SG but it didn’t have a logo. He told me to look to see if the neck is bolted on and if it is then it’s a Japanese knockoff. I’ve checked since then and I see that is the case. He said that Gibsons have notoriously weak necks and that after one breaks, one that has been repaired is still a Gibson but stronger.

Dave informed me that I could go to a certain website and find out the exact type of my Kramer electric by entering the serial number. I couldn’t find any site like that. All I could find out is that since my Kramer has five numbers after a letter instead of a letter followed by four numbers that means it was not built in the US, even though under the serial number it still says, “Neptune, New Jersey”.

He said the best slide guitars are cheap guitars because the slide tends to damage the neck.

We talked about amps and I told Dave I have a Roland Jazz Chorus. He said they have a very clean sound and that’s what Joe Strummer of The Clash used. I see from Wikipedia that he only used a Jazz Chorus when he was with the 101ers. Dave said Mike McCready of Pearl Jam bought Strummer's Jazz Chorus but complained he couldn't get enough distortion from it. There's a “distortion" switch on the amp and it seems pretty distorted to me.

Marlena gave out the numbers and I got number 30. Veronica had gotten the number before mine and it was 28

Someone up the line got shat on by a pigeon. A woman further down shouted out that he was going to get some money. Graham said if that were true he’d be a millionaire. I told him that recently on the Daily Show Trevor Noah was talking about Franky Zapata’s Flyboard and saying that the best thing about them is that when we all have them we can start shitting on pigeons. Graham recounted that once a pigeon knocked its own egg over from above and it almost hit him. Veronica commented that she didn’t think a pigeon egg would be a healthy thing to eat. I said that was ironic considering that pigeons were brought here from Europe as food and it’s only fairly recently that they’ve dropped away from our culinary culture. They all descended from the rock doves that were brought to Port Royal, Nova Scotia in 1606 by French settlers and they probably first went feral after the British destroyed the Acadian settlement. I told them that starlings and sparrows aren’t supposed to be here either. A nutty rich guy named Eugene Schieffelin in New York in 1890 thought that what Central Park needed was all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings so that people could read Shakespeare in the park and see the birds at the same time. Graham said that the same thing happened in Australia with the dingoes they brought in to deal with the rabbit problem. I told him he was mistaken because dingoes are native to Australia but rabbits aren't. I said at least the rabbits have predators in Australia whereas in New Zealand there are no natural predators for the Scottish red tailed deer that infest the country. I told him that a few years ago I met an Australian writer who’d recounted that he'd put himself through college by spending his summers doing nothing but shooting deer in New Zealand.

The old man had been just behind me but I guess he had wandered off and not been there when the numbers had first been given out. When Marlena saw him in line without a number she told him he had to go to the back of the line, which he quietly and obediently did, twenty places back. I went after her, put my hand on her shoulder and informed her that he’d been behind me. She argued that he should have said something but I explained that he’s demented. She just said, "I understand that but I can't go chasing him around all the time!" I thought it was very unfair and Veronica agreed. When she tried to plead the old man’s case Marlena leaned down, put her hand on her arm and in a patronizing way told her, “Don't worry about it!"

The food bank opened late and the temperature was rising. Dave commented that if they took too much longer people were going to start dropping.

Downstairs my helper at the shelves was Larissa. On the first set of shelves there were boxed items like crackers, taco kits and boxes of protein bars but I have no more room on my shelves at home for boxes of anything. I guess if there had been something exotic or unique I might have made an exception. There were also single serve containers of tartar sauce and marmalade but all I took were three caramel-walnut-brownie nutrition bars.

I didn’t notice any tuna this time but I grabbed a can of chickpeas and a tin of bean chilli. The only soup on the shelves were a few cartons of creamy butternut squash, but I already have one of those, plus another kind and don’t plan on having any soup when it’s this hot outside. Larissa gave me a pack of two fruit punch drinking boxes that were tastier than the usual packs of three.

At the refrigerated section I said “Hi Angie” and she did a double take. She declared that was the first time I'd ever said her name. I informed her that I'd said her name on many occasions exactly like I'd just done. She was puzzled as to why she’d never noticed.  She asked my name and I told her, “Christian”. “Are you a Christian?” she inquired. I told her, “I’m an atheist, but I’m a Christian atheist”. She said, “Ooohkay ... what can I get you?" I had milk, eggs and yogourt at home and didn't want any generic frozen ground chicken or hot dogs so the only thing I took from Angie was the pizza cioccolato, out of curiosity.

Sylvia gave me a seedless cucumber, a couple of onions and four small tomatoes, one of which had to be thrown out. I didn’t need any potatoes. In the “take what you want” section near the door were eggplants, carrots, peppers and big bags of chopped kale. I didn’t take any of it and so I walked away with a not very full bag. If I’d taken everything that had been offered to me it would have been a fairly hefty haul.

After the food bank I rode home to put my stuff away and then headed out to the supermarket. At No Frills I got two bags of grapes and another two of cherries. I grabbed a pack of chicken drumsticks, some Greek yogourt, a can of coffee, a bottle of mouthwash and a six-pack of paper towels. I also picked up some Murphy’s Oil Soap but there might have been a typo so maybe I got Murphy’s Owl Soup.

As usual I rode west along King for the exercise before heading home. The air was fresher and cooler coming off the lake and provided some relief from the heat. Where King ends at Queen I turned right and headed home. As I passed 1501 Queen Angie was sitting by herself having a smoke on the steps and there were still five people lined up for the food bank.

I had three corn crackers with cheese for lunch because it was too hot to use the oven to toast bread for a sandwich.

I spent quite a bit of time on my journal.

I did some exercises and worked on my journal some more.

For dinner I heated a pork burger that I’d made on Wednesday and had it on a toasted bagel with tomato, cucumber, pickles, ketchup, mustard and hot sauce. I washed it down with a beer and watched an episode of The Untouchables.

This story begins with an armoured car carrying away $240,000 from the fight between Max Baer and Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium. A female pedestrian steps out in front of the truck, seems to be hit and falls. When the guards get out to check on her she pulls a gun. She is Doreen Maney. Her boyfriend Sheik Humphries drops a tear gas bomb into the armoured car to force the guards in the back out. Doreen, Sheik and another man hold guns on the guards while a car pulls up and the driver transfers the money from the armoured vehicle to the getaway car. When one of the guards pulls a gun and shoots one of the robbers, Sheik machine-guns all of the guards.

The money is put in two suitcases and Doreen stashes them both in a locker at Penn Station but she hides the key on a little ledge between the lockers and a wall. Doreen takes charge and says they can't take the money while the cops are hot after them and they can’t stay in New York. Sheik is wounded and Jake is worse so she says they are going to her father's farm in Tennessee to recuperate. On the way Sheik throws Jake out of the car and shoots him as they drive away. But the feds find him alive and he talks. Doreen’s father is super religious and resents his sinful oldest daughter until she hands him a wad of money. Doreen’s little sister Maybelle is an attractive young woman and when Doreen isn't looking she and Sheik become good friends. When the feds track them down they get away in two separate cars and Doreen acts as a decoy. She is arrested and taken to New York. Maybelle comes to visit and says that Sheik plans on springing her with a lawyer but they need money and therefore the key to the locker. Doreen realizes that Sheik and Maybelle have hooked up and she also knows that no lawyer can spring her with bail from a murder charge. While they are transferring Doreen they encounter a drunk driver and Doreen escapes but it is a set-up by Ness. She goes to the station and retrieves the key. Sheik shows up and she says for him to give her his gun so she can cover him while he gets the suitcases. She is about to kill him when Ness shoots the gun from her hand without hitting her. Sheik picks up the gun and Ness puts a bullet in him.

Up until the too slick ending it looked like there might have really been a Doreen Maney, but she and Sheik were fictional and probably based very loosely on Bonnie and Clyde.

Doreen was played by Anne Francis.

Maybelle was played by Connie Hines, whose most successful gig was as Wilbur's wife Carol on the sitcom Mister Ed.