October 14, 1996: My landlady cooked a turkey

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday it was Thanksgiving and I think my daughter was there that day too. My landlady Marjorie roasted a turkey and I made something as well. Cad, Anna, and Raven came.

Adam Williams

            On Monday after midnight I added fresh carpet tape to the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow. As usual most of the bedbugs were on the living room side of the bedroom curtains. I couldn’t shake out my sheet and comforter because the deck was wet. I turned the heat on and went to bed just before 2:00. I woke up just before 4:00 to pee and turn the heat off. I went back to bed until 5:00. After yoga there were quite a few bedbugs stuck to the tape and a few crawling freely. 

            I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. I think the fourth verse completes the pattern and verses 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 will have the same chords as 1 to 4. But I’ll find out for sure on Tuesday. 

            I finished memorizing “L’île enchanteresses” (The Enchanted Isle) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll finish revising my translation and start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since October 3. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune most of the time. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos before lunch. That’s the hardest I’ve been on the scale in the early afternoon since October 1. 

            I took a siesta and slept until 16:40 so by the time I brushed my teeth it was too late for a bike ride downtown and almost too tardy for a ride to Ossington and Bloor but I went there. 

            I weighed 91.2 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was still a blog post behind and worked on catching up. 

            I grilled two wing steaks and had one with potato wedges and gravy while watching episode 12 of the TV series Custer. 

            Custer and Sergeant Bustard are escorting John Glixton of the railroad, scouting the area that’s going to be surveyed before the tracks are laid down. They reach the border of Fredonia, which is in the path of the railroad. Custer is surprised to learn that Glixton already sent his crew into Fredonia. Fredonia is an area staked out by ex-Confederates trying to set up their own country (This is fiction. There was a Republic of Fredonia attempted in Texas when Mexico still controlled it. It was a first attempt by settlers to declare independence from Mexico. There were communities of Confederates established in Brazil and some of their descendants are still there). 

           They find the survey crew but they are immediately surrounded and disarmed by the leader of Fredonia, Zebediah Jackson and his men. After disarming the crew, Jackson allows them to leave on foot and unarmed. Glixton tells Jackson a special act of the United States Congress gives him the right to be there. Jackson tells him he is no longer in the United States and they are his prisoners. He lets them mount up and escorts them into the settlement of Fredonia. They have their own army made up of the male citizens. When they are not drilling they are working the field or building the town. Jackson orders Bustard and Glixton locked up in the grainery. 

           Sergeant Carhew of Fredonia confronts Custer about cutting his men to pieces at Appomattox during the Civil War. Carhew pulls a knife and says the war isn’t over while Custer is still living. Jackson stops him and says there’s no room for private vengeance in Fredonia.

            Jackson takes Custer to his house and introduces him to his wife Annie. She is cold towards Custer because Union troops burned her house and killed her father during the war. 

            Jackson says after the war he was in a prison camp for a year, then they let him go home but home was gone. There was a plantation that had been in his family for five generations but when he returned it now belonged to a Yankee carpetbagger (Carpetbaggers were northerners who took advantage of the devastation in the south after the war and profited from it). Jackson says in all the time they owned that plantation they never once had a slave (It’s not possible that a southerner would have owned a plantation without slaves and not likely that they would have had a competitive large farm without some amount of enslaved workforce. If Jackson’s family had a farm without slaves it would have needed to be a relatively small property). 

            Custer reminds Jackson that this is Crow territory but Jackson says they get along with the Crow better than the US army does. They trade them hard goods in exchange for meat. 

            Jackson and some of his men escort Custer, Bustard, and Glixton to the Fredonia border. The see some young Crow on the hill and while Jackson doesn’t think they’ll attack he plays it safe and they take cover behind some rocks. Custer says they are just boys testing their courage. They’ll charge one at a time and whoever places his lance in the ground closest to the enemy has the most courage. Jackson tells his men to hold their fire. One teenager comes, then another, each closer than the other. But when the third gets closer still Carhew fires his rifle and kills him. Custer warns Jackson that now he might have found himself in one of the bloodiest Crow wars ever seen. 

            Jackson tells Custer he can leave now but warns that he will be killed if he returns. 

            That night at Fort Hays General Terry tells Custer that the survey crew are going back to Fredonia tomorrow with Custer and ten of his men to protect them. 

            That night in Fredonia Jackson tells Carhew that he wants him to leave the settlement because he can’t have a hothead in his command who can’t follow orders. The Crow chief Brave Dog comes to see Jackson and demands to be given Carhew in exchange for his son who he killed. Jackson says he can’t give him Carhew but Brave Dog says he will come for him in one day. 

            Sergeant Bustard, being an ex-Confederate soldier, sympathizes with the dream of Jackson and the other members of Fredonia. He approaches Glixton and suggests they just run the railroad 50 kilometers south of Fredonia. Glixton tells Bustard he shouldn’t concern himself with a bunch of redneck crackers. Bustard grabs him but then lets go and says he wouldn’t dirty his hands on him. Bustard turns to walk away but Glixton hits him in the back of the head with a whisky bottle. They fight and Bustard is winning until they are broken up. Glixton says he attacked him without provocation. Custer asks Bustard for his side but he says he’s got nothing to say that would make a difference.

            Bustard’s punishment is to march for six hours with ten cannonballs in his backpack and he’s demoted to corporal. 

            Custer, his ten men and the survey crew head out and stop to camp for the night. Brave Dog comes to talk to Custer. He asks Custer to rest his horses for one day at this campsite where the grass is high. Then he leaves. 

            Custer tells his men they are going to take Fredonia in a silent raid at daybreak. Four men will secure the armoury while Custer will take four men to capture Jackson. Custer is sure it can be done without killing anyone but Bustard says he knows these people better than Custer and they will fight to the death. Later Bustard is seen heading for Fredonia. Glixton says bustard will warn Jackson so they’ll be ready for them. Custer changes his plan. Now he’ll take Jackson alone while the rest of the men are to lock up everyone in Fredonia in the grainery. At dawn, one by one citizens going about their business are quietly grabbed, gagged and locked in the grain shed. Bustard approaches Custer and says he didn’t desert. he just went ahead to make sure taking the town could be done without harm. Custer goes to Jackson’s house and tries to get him to make sure his men cooperate. They fight until Custer wins. The Crow are about to attack. Custer tells Jackson if he gives his word that his men won’t cause trouble he’ll arm them. Jackson promises. The Crow attack and they fight them to their first retreat. Carhew points his rifle at Custer and says he’s going to shoot him and watch him slowly die. But Carhew trips and when he gets up he runs from the town where the Crow are waiting outside and he is immediately killed. With Carhew dead, Brave Dog calls off the attack. Jackson, a little too quickly accepts that he’s a citizen of the United States of America. Custer plans to get Fredonia officially declared as a town have it assigned a US Marshal. He promotes Bustard back to sergeant. Carhew was played by Adam Williams, who was a decorated Navy pilot during WWII. He later served as an examiner for The Federal Aviation Administration. He made his film debut in Queen for a Day in 1951. He starred in Without Warning, after which he was type cast as a villain and a psycho. He co-starred in the Twilight Zone episodes “The Hitch Hiker” and “A Most Unusual Camera”.

October 13, 1996: My daughter and I played Doom

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was raining a bit so my daughter and I stayed inside and played Doom on my computer.

Patricia Harty

            After midnight on Sunday I lint-rolled the curtains between the kitchen and the living room, my bed and my pillow. As usual there were quite a few on the curtains and some on the bed. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. I turned the heat on and went to bed at 1:32. I got up to pee at 3:45 and turned the heat off. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and there were a lot both on the carpet tape and crawling on the walls. 

            I had a hell of a time tuning the G and B strings on my Martin. The B sounded off no matter what the tuner said. It took half an hour before I settled for what I could get and so I was only able to work out the chords for the second line of the fourth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I rode to Canadian Tire in Uppity Village to buy 3 filters for my Cool Mist Humidifier. A woman was also there grabbing three. I asked her if she thought three would be enough to last the winter. She said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” She figures one a month. I was thinking one for two months. Since I was there I also bought two rolls of carpet tape. It’s about $2 cheaper at Canadian Tire than at Home Hardware but it’s not worth the $2 saving to ride all the way down there, walk down the big stairs, walk through the big store, then back up the big stairs and ride home again when I can just walk a block and a half over to HH to get the tape and be home in 15 minutes.

            I weighed 91.85 kilos at 13:55. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was sprinkling so I decided to only go as far as Ossington and Bloor before going home. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos at 17:30. I was still a blogpost behind in my journal and so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching episode 11 of the TV series Custer. 

            Custer and the 7th Cavalry have been ordered to compel a hunting party of Cheyenne braves that has gone off the reservation go back where the government says they belong. But they go about this “persuasion” in a really fucked up manner. They approach the Cheyenne campsite at night while the braves are sleeping and surprise them. Custer expressly orders his men not to shoot under any circumstances. But one of the troopers trips over a log and his gun goes of. The Cheyenne wake up and think they are under attack so they start firing. Custer and his men shoot back. What happened to “under no circumstances”? Why couldn’t they have approached them during the day with a white flag? All of the braves are killed except for one wounded warrior who gets away. One of the dead braves is Black eagle, the younger brother of Chief Tall Knife. 

            In General Terry’s quarters we see that his sister Melinda is visiting but he regrets that she brought along “that blasted female dragon… That female Horace Greeley (Horace Greeley was founder and editor of The New York Tribune, which was the biggest newspaper in the US. He coined the phrase “Go west young man” and was an advocate of Socialism, Feminism, Temperance, and Vegetarianism)”. Melinda reminds him that he insisted that she not travel alone. He says she had the nerve to tell him at breakfast that this is the red man’s land and that he had no right to be there (According to the treaty, that’s true. The main reason for the American Revolution was to break King George’s treaty that forbade colonists from settling west of the Appellation Mountains). The woman in question is Anne Peverly who publishes a liberal magazine called Bold Venture. Terry predicts that the next thing she’ll be advocating is women smoking, wearing men’s pants, and even voting. 

            Custer comes to see Terry and tells him there was no point in bothering that Cheyenne hunting party. He says there’s no sense to driving the Cheyenne here and there. Terry says, “We don’t make policy. We merely carry it out!” “Then the people who make the policy should be out here to see what’s going on!” Anne comes out to introduce herself to Custer. Terry says she’s a social reformer and a militant suffragette. Custer says he knows that she has published a number of unflattering articles about him. Terry tells Custer that Anne is President Grant’s favourite niece (He didn’t have a niece by that name). 

            Tall Knife arrives to collect his brother’s body and demands to talk to Custer. Custer tries to explain that it was an accident but all Tall Knife knows is that his brother was killed for no reason. Tall Knife cuts himself and with his bloody hand grips a white arrow, which he throws at Custer’s feet. It’s a challenge to fight but Custer says he won’t fight with him. Tall Knife says the Cheyenne will hunt one more time then and leaves. 

            Later Ann accuses Custer of attacking a small Cheyenne hunting party and murdering all but one of them. Custer argues that for more than 100 years the plains tribes have fought the growth of the US. Now they stand in the direct path of uniting the two halves of the nation. He says in any war mistakes are made. She says, “War? Our trampling on their rights by armed might is war?” She cites the massacre of the Cheyenne at the Wichita River on November 27, 1868 (Black Kettle’s village was peaceful but sometimes young warriors who had participated in raids of settlements did stay there. The peace chief Black Kettle was shot in the back trying to escape. Custer took women and children as hostages to use as human shields so they would not be attacked by other Cheyenne villages on their way out after the slaughter.) Custer argues that the attack on the village was ordered as a reprisal against several murders of settlers. Ann says she’s going to publish this most recent attack. 

            Custer tells the scout California Joe that he’s going to try to talk to Tall Knife again. Joe says he’s always believed the Cheyenne are meaner than the Sioux and now they can put it to the test. He says, “The fellers at that new Smithsonian Institution are gonna be mighty grateful to them for finding out.” 

           They find the burned out cabin of some settlers and their children and everyone dead. They see a large war party headed for Fort Hays and so they ride back to warn everyone. They get there in time and Custer wants to go back out to try again to talk with Tall Knife but Terry refuses to allow it. That night Long Knife comes to demand to be given Custer. He says they will attack at sunrise. 

           Terry has his sister and Ann sent away from Fort Hays to Fort Riley for their protection but when they make camp en route the two soldier escorts are attacked and the women are abducted. Sergeant Bustard is wounded but makes it back to the fort to tell what happened. Soon one of Tall Knife’s warriors rides up and tosses Melinda’s hat at Custer’s feet. He tells him if he comes alone the women go free but if he stays at the fort they die. 

            Custer wants to go but Terry orders him confined to his quarters. However that night Custer sneaks out. He finds Joe and Bustard in the courtyard who tell him they’ve already saddled a horse for him and it’s waiting outside the gate, plus there’s a ladder against the north wall so the guard at the gate won’t see him. Custer tells Bustard that when he gets back he’s going to have him court martialed for helping an officer break confinement. 

            Custer arrives at Tall Knife’s camp and asks for the women to be released but Tall Knife says tomorrow they will hunt. Custer will take the women with him and if he survives so will they. Custer is placed in the tent where Melinda and Ann are being held. Custer tells them that sometimes the Cheyenne will let captives go so they can hunt them (It’s bullshit that the Cheyenne hunted their captives for sport. It’s just a Hollywood trope). 

            At sunrise Tall Knife tells them to run and says when the sun is a little higher he’ll come after them. They run to a spot where Custer buried a gun in anticipation of this hunt. 

           The hunters are now on their trail. Custer has Melinda jump from a cliff into the water but he has to throw Ann down. It turns out she can’t swim so Custer has to help her. They clear the water but Tall Knife spots them and they charge. Custer shoots the first three and runs. They climb the rocks and one of Tall Knife’s men follows. Custer throw his knife and kills him. 

            Now Tall Knife himself climbs up and he and Custer fight. Ann throws a rock and hits Tall Knife in the head, which slows him down a bit. Tall knife lunges at Custer and stumbles over the cliff, hanging on by a rock, Custer pulls him up to save him and now Tall Knife believes that his brother’s death was an accident. 

            Ann was played by Patricia Harty, who took classes in singing and dancing while still a child. She was an English major at Columbia University. She made her TV debut as a dancer on Pat Boone’s Chevy Show. She also danced on The Perry Como Show and the Garry Moore Show. Her first acting work was in toothpaste commercials. She co-starred in the sitcoms Occasional Wife and The Bob Crane Show. She starred in the 1968 version of Blondie. She co-starred in the film Herbie The Love Bug.

October 12, 1996: I spent the weekend with my daughter

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I picked up my daughter from her mother’s place in Scarborough and we spent the weekend together. We played on the back roof of my place and on my computer.

William Windom

            On Saturday after midnight I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, my bed, and my pillow. As usual I found quite a few at the top of the curtains, especially on the living room side of the bedroom curtain. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck and went to bed at 1:40. I got up at 3:30 to pee and turned the heat back on then went to bed until 5:00 when I turned it off. After yoga I found several bedbugs caught on the tape around my mattress and on the floor. 

            I worked out the chords for the third verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. I think the fourth verse will complete the pattern and then verses 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 will have the same chords as 1 to 4. 

            I memorized the third verse of “L’île enchanteresses” (The Enchanted Isle) by Serge Gainsbourg. There is only one verse left to learn. 

            I weighed 89.75 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since July 24. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I rode to No Frills where the grapes were on sale but they were too soft so I didn’t get any. I bought a pint of blueberries, a half pint of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, Sensodyne toothpaste, a sirloin tip roast, bacon and maple barbecue sauce, saltines, spoon sized shredded wheat, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos at 14:10. September 25 was the last early afternoon when I was so easy on the scale. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta and slept for almost two hours. I got up too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.2 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was still one day behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread, with marinara, tomato pesto, oven potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore Lager while watching episode 10 of the TV series Custer. 

            Three prospectors have found a hunk of gold worth $300 (over $7,000 today). The one named Samson kills the others. Suddenly Sioux warriors step out of the bushes and then Crazy Horse. He asks. “For this you kill?” Samson says for enough gold he’d do anything. Crazy Horse says he knows where there is much more gold. Samson says if he has the gold he’ll help Crazy Horse buy guns and ammunition. Crazy Horse says he only wants one thing in exchange for access to the gold. He wants Samson to bring him Custer. 

           Samson rides to Fort Hays where Custer and the 7th Cavalry are testing a new Gatling gun. It fires for a while and then jams. Samson approaches Custer and they know each other. Samson says during the Civil War the Gatling gun was supposed to replace a whole company of riflemen, but he never saw one that worked well. Apparently Samson works as a scout and was assigned to scout for the proposed Sioux Reservation. He tells General Terry that making a treaty with the Sioux and getting them onto a reservation is a long way off. He tells Terry and Custer that he’s pretty sure there’s a motherlode in the middle of the Black Hills. Custer reminds him that the hills are sacred to the Sioux and prospecting there would be an act of war. Sam says if he were allowed to go in to survey the land and then stake it out as government land, prospectors wouldn’t be able to touch it. Terry says he doesn’t have enough men for that. He asked the government for more men and they sent him a Gatling gun. Samson says he just needs a detail of men for two days. Custer says a detail wouldn’t be enough unless they could take the Gatling gun with them. Terry says they can do it. 

            After a day’s ride they make camp. We see Sioux sneaking around the camp. Custer checks on the guards and finds Hansen is missing. Custer is attacked by a Sioux and then another. He kills them both. 

           They can’t find Hansen, and Samson suggests he deserted. He tells Custer he never did care for his men but only himself.

            After they break camp we see Crazy Horse watching. We also see that his warriors have captured Hansen. 

            Once they reach the foot of the Black Hills they make camp. Samson knocks out the guard named Johnnie, ties him up and brings him to Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse says his men can’t fight the Gatling gun to take Custer, so Samson has to destroy it. Samson goes back to the camp and pretends that he’s just discovered Johnnie missing. 

            After another day’s ride California Joe the scout sees up ahead Hansen tied up and alone. He says its an old Sioux trap. Custer moves in with a couple of men to cut Hansen free and then the Sioux attack. There is one trooper alone getting ready to fire the Gatling gun but Samson knocks him out and removes the firing pin. Captain Keogh sees Samson escaping with a horse, a pack mule and the supplies. Custer says they are going after Samson. Custer and his men enter a canyon to try to catch up with Samson and there they see Johnnie staggering alone until he collapses. When they go to help him they are ambushed by Sioux. They take shelter behind some rocks and fight them off. But then more return. Custer sets up the Gatling gun to point in their direction to bluff Crazy Horse into thinking it’s still a threat. It works, as Crazy Horse observes the gun then orders his braves to ride away. 

            Samson shows the firing pin to Crazy Horse and says the Gatling gun won’t work without it. Crazy Horse says he doesn’t know how that gun works and the piece of metal could be anything. Crazy Horse asks why Custer pointed the gun at his warriors if it doesn’t work. Samson says he was bluffing.

            Crazy Horse and his men are preparing to attack so they engage in drums and dancing before dawn. 

            Custer puts Keogh in command and heads off alone. He sneaks into the Sioux camp and confronts Samson who is by himself as the Sioux dance. He tells Samson they can’t help him because they couldn’t hear him over the drums. He tells Samson he’s taking him back. They fight and it looks like Samson is winning. Custer is on his back with Samson on top but they are on the edge of a cliff and Custer flips Samson over to fall to his death, While they were fighting Custer removed the Gatling gun firing pin from Samson’s pocket. 

            The next morning Crazy Horse’s warriord surround the 7th Cavalry and position themselves on high rocks. Custer sneaks back into his own camp as the shooting starts. Custer needs to draw Crazy Horse’s braves closer and so he devises a trick. One by one during the battle, his men pretend they are hit and collapse on the rocks or on the ground. Custer collapses over the Gatling gun. The Sioux charge forward perhaps for scalps. When they are close Custer stands up and orders his men to fire while he mans the Gatling gun and mows the Sioux down. Crazy Horse of course escapes. 

            At the end we hear California Joe singing “Just Before the Battle Mother”, which was written by George F. Root in 1864. It was sung by Union Soldiers during the Civil War. It was also popular amongst the members of the British conservative cult The Primrose League and was also traditionally sung during Victoria Day celebrations in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th Century. There was also a parody called “The Song of the Coward” that was popular among the Union troops as well.

             Samson was played by William Windom, who after WWII was stationed as part of the Allied Occupation of Germany. While in Europe he studied at Biarritz American University in France and got involved in theatre. He trained at the American Repertory Theatre, with whom he made his Broadway debut in 1946 in rotating productions of Henry VIII, What Every Woman Knows, John Gabriel Borkman, and Androcles and the Lion. He made his TV debut in The Philco Television Playhouse in 1949. In the 1950s he divided his time between theatre work and television. He made his film debut in To Kill a Mockingbird. He co-starred in One Man’s Way, Now You See Him Now You Don’t, Goodbye Franklin High, Space Rage, and Fool’s Parade. He starred in Funland. He co-starred in the series The Farmer’s Daughter, My World and Welcome To It (for which he won an Emmy for best actor), Murder She Wrote, Parenthood, and Sonic the Hedgehog. On My World and Welcome To It he played a James Thurber type character and years later he had a one-man show in which he played James Thurber. He played Commodore Matt Decker in the 1967 Star Trek Episode The Doomsday Machine. He was a tournament level chess player and won numerous sailing trophies.

October 11, 1996: I wrote and performed

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I did some writing and then in the evening I went across the street to perform on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.