Roger Perry

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for the first verse of  "O Canada." The rest should be the same so it should be easier from here on out. 

            During song practice for years I've tried to play a barred F minor#5th but have never been able to get my index finger down firmly on the fretboard in that position. I've produced the chord I wanted but it has always been dulled. I realized recently that what I'm really trying to play is an Em6addB9 and it's easier to get the sound without dulling the strings but I have to get used to going there in all the places where I'd normally used the bar chord and it's going to take a while for it to become automatic and so it slows down the songs. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos before breakfast.

            In the late morning I took the planter in which I'd planted the dragon tree out on the deck. I used the construction glue to attach the broken part of the rim and held it there for twenty minutes. The rim is now repaired but below the rim there's a hole about fifteen millimetres wide because of another missing piece. The piece might be buried at the bottom of the planter or it might be long gone, but the planter looks better now anyway.

            I went out to the hardware store to ask for spray-on temporary adhesive. The guy said all they have is spray on contact cement but he sold me brush-on rubber cement which is repositionable and so if I use it on the back of my stencil it should be able to come off after I've done the painting. 

            I walked over to Freedom Mobile to pay for my phone plan but they aren't taking in-person payments. I don't know how to pay them by debit online since the debit part of their website only accepts cards from three banks that aren't the Bank of Montreal. The clerk at the store told me last month that I could do it with my Bank of Montreal card but I have to go to a different part of the website. I'll have to call customer service to see if someone will guide me through the process. 

            I went into Vina Pharmacy to ask about the covid vaccine but they still haven't even heard when they're going to get it. The only news he had was they they are going to get the Moderna vaccine. 

            I cleaned the outside of my apartment door around the area where I'll be doing the stencil. I removed the number three because my plan was to centre the om symbol a little left of the three. But there are screw holes that would show and so I changed my mind about removing the 3. I screwed it back in and now my plan is to place the stencil over it and just have the tail of the "om" symbol sticking out to the right. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before lunch. I had potato chips, salsa, yogourt and a glass of orange-grapefruit juice. 

            It took a long time to post my blog because there were a lot of photos and so I ended up taking my bike ride an hour later than usual. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and down Yonge. Just south of College there's construction and vehicles going south have to go along an narrow lane for a block. Today a car passed me while I was going through, which no one else has ever been stupid enough to do. I went home along Queen. There's construction in three sections of Queen from Simcoe almost to Parkdale. I weighed 89.4 kilos when I got home. 

            I called up Freedom Mobile to get help paying for my phone service. I got through to someone fairly quickly but I don't think I've ever had a pleasant experience with Freedom Mobile's customer service. First he wanted to charge me an extra $2 for an assistance fee. I told him that if I'm forced to pay online because of a pandemic I don't think it's fair to charge me extra. He said he would wave the fee. I told him I wanted to pay by debit and he transferred me to a line for paying by credit card. When that call failed he came back on the line and said that I could try typing in my bank card number instead of a credit card number but he wasn't sure it would work. Finally he just said that some Freedom stores are still taking in person payments. He took my postal code and told me that the store in Parkdale was accepting them. I told him they aren't and there's a sign on the door saying so. He gave me the numbers of a couple of other stores in the west end so I'll call them tomorrow or maybe my local store will let me pay tomorrow. I have no problem with the actual phone service I pay for from Freedom, or even the help I usually get in the stores but I despise their telephone tech support. 

            I rubbed pork back ribs with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and herbs, paprika, cumin and chili powder and grilled them in the oven. I had four with a potato and gravy while watching Andy Griffith.

            In the first story a new doctor comes to town to replace the physician they've been used to for many years. But Dr. Peterson is fresh out of medical school and everyone is reluctant to be his first patient. Andy decides to invite him for dinner and to have Clara and Floyd over as well so they can get to know him. But they lose confidence in him when he can't even carve a turkey. But then Opie's tonsils flare up and although Andy stalls overnight the next day there isn't much choice but to take his son to Peterson. The doctor says it's not an emergency but the tonsils have to come out. Andy is still reluctant and considers taking Opie to Mount Pilot for a second opinion. Helen says she's ashamed of Andy and tells him that the town is depending on him because no one will see the doctor until he does. On the weekend he brings Opie there and everything works out fine. Suddenly Clara and Floyd are considering going to Peterson for their persistent ailments. 

            William Christopher returns just this one time to play Dr Peterson. Of course Christopher is famous for playing Father Mulcahey on M.A.S.H. 

            Peterson's nurse was played by Sari Price, who played a supporting part in the film "Turnaround." She made appearances on several TV shows until 1981 when she moved to Norway where she continued to act in film like Orion's Belt. 

            In the second story a stranger in town approaches Floyd about a business proposition. There is a legend of a treasure worth $100,000 buried on some government land outside Mayberry by a renegade group of Confederate soldiers called Ross's Raiders during the Civil War. People have been digging futilely for it ever since. But George has a map that he inherited from a descendant of one of the gang members. The map narrows down the area considerably but George needs to rent equipment to dig with and needs $500. Floyd and Goober each put in $100. Despite Andy's arguments Bee and Helen also put in $100 each. Finally Andy secretly invests $100. But the day of the dig George skips town with the money. George is arrested while getting off a bus in Florida and the money has been retrieved but Andy still won't admit that some of it is his. 

            George was played by Roger Perry, who served as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force in the early 1950s. He played a time travelling US Air Force Pilot in a 1967 episode of Star Trek. He played James Harrigan Jr. in the short lived legal comedy Harrigan and Son. He played a detective in the series "Arrest and Trial." He played an alien in disguise in The Invaders. He was in "Count Yorga the Vampire" and "The Thing With Two Heads." He was also a songwriter and Barbara Streisand sang his song "A Kid Again". He wrote a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's "You Never Can Tell." He was married to Joanne Worley of Laugh-In for 25 years.