Maynard G Krebs

            On Sunday I spent a lot of the day writing about my latest food bank adventure.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. It was not a hot day, so I wore jeans and at first had on my long sleeved shirt unbuttoned. Once I was up on Bloor though I stripped to my undershirt.

            There wasn’t much velo traffic, especially after Yonge Street. It was nice to have a functioning bike again after having to stay at home on Friday and working on it too late at Bike Pirates to be able to ride on Saturday.

            I rode as far as Westbourne and Dawes Road and then headed back. I went all the way to Dovercourt along Bloor, and then headed south to Dundas and west to Lansdowne. I wanted to see if I could make it to the No Frills there before it closed. I made it with half an hour to spare, just as another guy was running in.

            I got a watermelon, grapes and strawberries. They were all out of cinnamon raisin bread so I got cinnamon raisin English muffins instead. I bought milk and found a very good deal on a package of three strip loin steaks for $8.33. The guy that had run in at the same time as me must have been from the States because he came up to ask me if 633 grams was six ounces. I wasn’t really thinking and said yes but it’s really 22 ounces. He thought it was a pretty good deal anyway. It would have been a lousy deal. I told him that there are two meat sections at this No Frills. The other one is run by a butcher shop that sells its own meat separate from the No Frills meat. Their stuff is always marked “special” while the real specials are the No Frills deals like the steaks we were looking at.

            After I left I was unlocking my bike when another guy that was unlocking his said something. I asked, “What was that?” but he was apparently talking to someone on a hands free device and he told me that he hadn’t been speaking to me. Then he asked, “How are you?” and I looked up to see him looking straight at me. I said, “Oh, now you’re talking to me?” He told me that he liked my bike and commented how it was very high. I said it works for me and he nodded, indicating with his hand that I’m tall. He left before me but I passed him after the railroad bridge.

            I had my last egg, sunny side up for dinner, plus some toast and cheese, with a beer. I watched episodes five and six of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

            Episode 5 is about Maynard G. Krebs. Although he’s a faithful friend, because of his carefree nature he’s undependable and Dobie is getting tired of it. He’d given Maynard a note to give to Thalia to meet Dobie in the park and asked Maynard if he’d given it to her. He answers, “Sure!” “What did she say?” “I don’t like remember!” “Do you remember me giving you the note?” “Sure! I got it right here!” Dobie tells Maynard he has to take a break from hanging out with him. “Where will I go?” “Why don’t you go to the record store?” So Maynard goes there but the Beatnik owner kicks him out, telling him “Like I sell new records man, but when you’re through playing them 200 or 300 times, I’m like in the second hand business! You’re cool, you’re hip and you dig man, but I got a wife and kids to support! I don’t mean to lower the boom on ya dad but it’s a definite split! I mean like don’t come back no more!”  He complained that Maynard had taken all the grooves off a Dizzie Gillespie record he had. Maynard goes to Charlie Wong’s ice cream parlour and hears a bunch of guys playing the piano and singing Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In”. He exclaims, “How square can you get?” and pushed them away so he can play jazz. Charlie stops him and tells Maynard that when he plays people don’t sing and when they don’t sing they don’t get thirsty. “Maynard, I dig you the most, but go!” Maynard goes home and as soon as his father sees him he puts his head down and begins to moan painfully. Maynard’s father asks him about a long distance call that he made. Maynard thinks and then he remembers that he’d called Dizzie Gillespie. “Why did you call him?” “I had to! When I heard that new album I flipped my whole skull! When a man plays like that you just gotta tell him!” “Why did you talk to him so long?” “It wasn’t so long. Like ten seconds! He hung up on me. I think he was sore because I woke him.” “What time did you call him?” “7:00 pm.” “He was still asleep?” “It wasn’t 7:00 pm where Dizz was playing in Copenhagen.” Maynard’s father begins to moan again. His mother tells Maynard to go outside for a while. On the way out Maynard finds a letter addressed to him. It turns out that it’s from the draft board. Maynard tells Dobie goodbye and thinks it’s for the best because nobody wants him around anyway. Suddenly Dobie realizes how much he’ll miss Maynard. He organizes a going away party and Charlie Wong’s is full of people giving testimonials about how much they appreciate Maynard. Charlie hopes Maynard will come back soon so he can start throwing him out again. When Maynard reports for duty he is told he’s not drafted. He had only been sent a classification notice like all 18 year olds receive. He may never be actually drafted. Maynard insists that he has to join because his friends only love him when he’s leaving. So Maynard enlists in the army and ridiculously he does so well that they make him a corporal and when Dobie goes to visit he seems him commanding a squad of privates, all wearing chin beards like him. Dobie goes to tell Maynard’s parents how well Maynard is doing and then hears bongos from Maynard’s bedroom. It’s Maynard’s beatnik cousin, Jerome. Jerome is played by a familiar and very distinctive face from the 60s: Michael J. Pollard, who later received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the sidekick of Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 film.

            Jerome is in episode 6 as well, though it’s a very silly story. Dobie gets tonsillitis and after his operation, even though he normally has a horrible singing voice, he can suddenly sing like Elvis Presley. He becomes a hometown sensation. Thalia becomes his manager but he gets a swelled head and because so many girls want him he can’t be tied down to one girl. She storms away but while he’s shouting after her his voice changes back to being lousy again.