Twisted Like Yew

            On Thursday morning I finished working out the chords for “Nicotine" by Serge Gainsbourg and uploaded the document to Christian's Translations. I almost finished editing it for blog publication.

            I was feeling kind of depressed during song practice and after. There was no particular reason so maybe it was just a biorhythm thing. 

            Around midday I took a bike ride to Ossington and Bloor and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. The Chilean grapes were cheap and in fairly good shape and so I got seven bags. I also bought a pint of strawberries, a whole chicken, five year old cheddar, kettle chips, three bags of milk, yogourt, two cans of peaches, hot salsa, and Comet cleanser. 

            I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt for lunch. 

            I laid down for a ninety minute siesta at 14:00 as usual but ended up sleeping for two and a half hours. Maybe it was because I took my bike ride before sleeping. I usually still feel tired after a nap but not this time. 

            I re-read “Our Casuarina Tree” by Toru Dutt and also William Wordsworth's “Yew Trees" on which it is thematically based. Wordsworth’s poem is entirely about the tree and a little about England while Dutt's poem is autobiographical and the tree appears also as a memory that evokes other memories. Yew trees are far more beautiful than casuarinas, which are an invasive species in the Americas. There are yews in England that are at least 2000 years old. 

            I re-read Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” a few times. It has an odd rhyme scheme until the end when it starts to make sense. On Dover Beach the sea throws up pebbles on the shore and then when the waves recede there is a grinding sound of pebbles against pebbles. He hears this as a sad sound and analogizes this with the withdrawal of Christianity from the world. In the last stanza he seems to be saying to his new bride, the world is a shithole but lets have faith in each other and be an island of love in a heartless world. He sure knows how to jazz up a honeymoon with hearts and flowers! 

           I had a potato, a chicken breast and gravy for dinner while watching Andy Griffith. 

           In this story a state policeman named Horton comes to Mayberry looking for a payroll robber named Malloy he believes to be holing up in Mayberry with a partner. He wants Andy and Barney to stay out of it and leave the police work to him and his men while Andy and Barney stick to catching chicken thieves. They capture Malloy but are still looking for his accomplice and so they put Malone in the Mayberry jail while they continue the search. Since Malloy has only seen Andy, Barney decides to work independently and pose as a prisoner in Malloy’s cell. But Malloy can see Barney’s picture on the wall in a framed newspaper clipping. Barney pretends to pick the lock because Malloy has agreed to take him to his partner. But as soon as they are out Malloy gets Barney’s gun, ties him up in the cell and escapes. But before Malloy had been in the cell they had put Floyd the barber’s dog Sam in there because he’d been running stray. But Sam was shedding and the cell was full of dog hair. Barney takes the suit he was wearing to the cleaners and the cleaner says it’s the second suit full of dog hair he’s had that day. Andy realizes it must be Malloy’s suit. The cleaner says it was a woman that brought it in and points out her car. Andy sees a trailer hitch on it and figures they must be hiding out at the trailer park. That night they go there and Barney looks in the windows of some trailers but in the first one he surprises a newlywed couple smooching on the couch. He finds the right trailer, looks in the window and sees they’ve got Horton tied up inside. Andy goes to call for help while Barney watches the trailer. But Malloy and his partner decide to leave and the woman comes out to start the car. She then goes back into the trailer because she forgot her cigarettes. Barney jumps in the car and drives like a demon, pulling the trailer straight to the jail with Andy following in the sheriff’s car. Barney captures Malloy and his partner while Andy frees Horton and says, “Looks like we caught ourselves a chicken thief!”

           Malloy’s girlfriend was played by Rita Kenason but there’s hardly anything listed about her anywhere. 

           The female newlywed was played by Sally Mills, who left the Drury Lane Theatre troupe in Chicago for Hollywood with her friend the future Carole Burnett Show co-star Harvey Korman. She got roles in Underworld USA and The Naked Kiss. She got lots of small parts on TV shows like Batman and Andy Griffith. After playing on Andy Griffith she dated Don Knotts for six months. became a spokesperson for Safeway stores and a successful real estate agent.