"Glen Campbell's Gone!"

            On Thursday I finally got my bathtub relatively clean so that it only looks faintly stained with the light on.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. It was a very warm day but fairly dry and so I didn’t sweat very much. I noticed that the storm yesterday knocked a tree down in the green area in front of Rosedale Heights School of the Arts (formerly Castle Frank School).

The woman I think of as “Madame Pavlov” because she’s always demanding that I ring my bell, wasn’t in the line of cyclists I passed this time, though one young woman thanked me quite cheerfully when I warned her that I was passing.

            There were more riders east of Pape than usual, but I was alone after Woodbine.

            I rode up Victoria Park and though it’s not a steep hill, the wind was against me. I followed Holswade Road to Kingswell Crescent and took that to Pharmacy.

            On the way south, I stopped at the top of the ravine to wait for the light halfway down to turn green so I could have a nice rapid coast down the hill without having to stop. But I had to slow down before the light anyway because the bus that had been waiting at the light didn’t go right away when the light changed.

            Heading west on Queen I stopped at the red light at Portland. A little woman, perhaps in her late 60s crossed the street and started talking to me when she was halfway across, “Glen Campbell’s gone!” I said, “Yeah, that was last year.” She pointed south and said, “If you go down to Jimmy’s at the Dollarama you can get ice cream!”

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought grapes, a hothouse tomato, Bavarian sandwich bread, cinnamon-raisin bread, a chicken, zero fat yogourt, cappuccino yogourt and honey.

            That night I watched two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first, since Dobie and his classmates are graduating soon, their teacher wants them all to write an essay on what they plan to do after they graduate. This led to a lot of thinking on Dobie’s part and some long conversations between Dobie and Maynard. He tells Maynard that they just can’t stumble blindly through life. Maynard argues, “You’re wrong Dobe, there’s nothin else ya can do! I mean, whenever ya wanna make a plan, they won’t letcha do it anyhow!” “Who won’t?” “They won’t!” “Who’s they?” "You know, them, your mother, your father, them teacher cats at school!" "We'll be out of school soon and people will stop tellin us what to do. We’ll have to make our own decisions. Then what happens?" “What happens? Man, you're joshin! I'll sleep till noon, eat nothin but donuts and spend my life in a record store!” "You'll outgrow the jazz!" "Jazz is my whole life! I'm a member of the beat generation!" "You don't even know what the beat generation is!” “Oh don't I?" "Alright, what does 'beat' mean?” “Well, it's ... well, I know what generation means!" "What?" "It means ... it's … can we go back to beat?” “You're no beatnik! You're just a guy who grew beard so he could sit on the floor and listen to jazz!"

            The day the essay was to be presented, Mr Pomfritt asked Dobie to read his essay but Dobie told him he hadn’t written one. When the teacher asked him why, Dobie stood up and said, “What do I know about my future? Nothing! What am I prepared for? Nothing!” “Doesn’t it scare you Dobie, being so unsure of the future?” ”No. I’d like to know, but I don’t think I’m scared. Confused a little, confused a lot, but scared? No. When the time comes, I'll just fly like a baby bird leaving its nest, that’s all. I don’t know how but I’ll do it, I guess.” "Dobie, not only have you written that essay, but I'm giving you an A!"

            In the second story, everyone tells Dobie that he would be better off without Maynard dragging him down. His grades would be better and his career prospects would improve. Dobie refuses to abandon his friend but finally Maynard gets everyone’s message and decides that he has to push Dobie away, so he starts calling him a square and telling him he doesn’t need him around. So Dobie moves on and begins to get good grades and hang around with successful people. But when all of the people that had told him he’d be better off without Maynard see that Maynard is moping around sad and lonely they blame Dobie for abandoning him. People are assholes, at least on TV.