Charles Ruggles

            On Sunday morning I uploaded “Calypso Blues” by Boris Vian, my translation and the chords I worked out to Christian’s Translations. I started the editing process to get the blog text to match my original document. 

            I finished memorizing “Mister Iceberg" by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords and was surprised no one besides Chordify and Chordu have posted the chords. But I never use those sites because they use software to work out the chords for songs and so every single sound that every instrument makes is given a chord. I started working it out myself and got the instrumental introduction and most of the first line. I should have most or all of them figured out on Monday. 

            A few weeks ago I noticed that a brick coloured plastic or ceramic cover has been placed over the wires that cross Queen Street perpendicular to and on each side of the streetcar wires. Since then the squirrels haven't been crossing the wires above Queen Street because they don’t like the cover. Maybe it's too slippery for them or maybe they just aren’t used to it. It seems to me they could manage it so maybe it'll just take a brave one to chance it before they all start doing it. I miss seeing the squirrels cross towards my window during song practice. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I tackled scrubbing the inside window of my oven door for the ninth time. I finally got all of the black, caked in grease off the glass. But over the last few weeks some of the baking soda mixed with water that I used got in between the two sheets of glass and so there is some of it visible inside and also a few streaks of white that can never be removed because I can't remove the glass. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five year old cheddar and a glass of lemonade. 

            On the way out for my bike ride I told my neighbour Benji that I might be making a lot of noise outside his door while making a movie in a few evenings. He said the evening is okay. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then home along Queen. I weighed 88.4 kilos when I got back.  

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug". 

            I made some more preparations for making the movie in the hallway. I found a board to put on top of the lazy susan in case I want the bundle of cords to turn freely. But I also tied threads to four parts of the lazy susan so I can force it to turn if I need extra motion. When the cords are on top of the running jigsaw and the things I’ve attached to it some of them do sort of move like snakes but I might have to have the camera close up to capture that. I got up on a step ladder in the hall and experimented with loosening the fluorescent lights. They do flicker slightly but not steadily. The only way to make one flicker is to stay on the ladder and twist the tube back and forth. Maybe I’ll do that while hand holding my Kodak in video mode. The Nikon can shoot video without being held but the Kodak requires a finger on the button. So maybe I’ll use the Kodak from the ladder and also later for close-ups. I think I’ll try to shoot the movie on Monday night until the battery runs out on the Nikon. Then after uploading the video to my computer and reviewing it I’ll see if I need to come back and shoot again in a different way. 

            For dinner I had naan pizza with salsa, french fries and cheap old cheddar on top while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. So far these sixth season stories with Don Knotts no longer on the show are starving for comedy . 

            The first story begins with Ernest T Bass working as a crossing guard because he wants to earn $12 for his honeymoon in a tent with a lantern so he can marry Rowena. He tells Andy that her friends are giving her a shower. Andy says, "a lot of gifts" but Ernest corrects him that it’s just a plain hot water shower. But Ernest is not a very good crossing guard and he throws rocks and bricks at the cars of drivers that don’t obey him. Andy warns him that he’ll fire him if he catches him throwing any more rocks. Meanwhile Malcolm Merriweather returns to town and says he’s considering settling in the United States and specifically in Mayberry. He starts to look for a job around the same time that Ernest gets fired for throwing a brick at a car. Andy gives the job to Malcolm and he turns out to be an excellent crossing guard, plus the children love him. But when Ernest finds out that an Englishman has taken his job and since Ernest had parents of Irish descent who taught him to hate the English he challenges Malcolm to a fight behind the gas station the next day at noon. At first Malcolm wants to run but when he sees the children cross the street the way he taught them he decides to stay and fight. Because Goober used to be a bully he tries to train Malcolm but finds him inept at fisticuffs. Just before the fight Andy lies to Ernest that Malcolm's mother was Irish and suddenly Ernest loves him. In the end however Ernest learns that Malcolm's mother was not really Irish and wants to fight him again.

            In the second story a former Mayberry resident who spent many years as a politician in Washington returns to resettle in Mayberry. He is Bee’s age and she finds him very attractive and the feeling is mutual. Bee and John begin going out until late every night dancing. Bee keeps up an energetic front to impress John but secretly she is getting tuckered out and soaks her feet in the daytime. Finally John cancels a date and Bee is very disappointed. When Andy goes to talk with him he discovers that he too had been trying hard to behave like he was younger to impress Bee. Andy helps them realize that both of them are okay with sitting quietly on the porch, holding hands and maybe dozing off. 

            John was played by Charles Ruggles, who worked as an actor in Hollywood in more than a hundred films over fifty years. He has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for radio, one for film and one for television. His first film was The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1914. he co-starred in If I Had a Million and Bringing Up Baby. He was the narrator of Aesop’s Fables on The Bullwinkle Show. He won a Tony award in 1959 for The Pleasure of His Company. He starred in the TV series The Ruggles and The World of Mr Sweeney. He and his second wife Marion were animal lovers with 94 pets.