Martha Hyer

            I’ve noticed lately that squirrels, which seem to have been hibernating for most of the winter have been coming out at dawn and crossing the power lines back and forth over Queen Street. On Monday morning one of them crossed a snowy cable, knocking powder from side to side as it made its way along.

I spent about three hours looking for research sources for my essay on Frankenstein, but I couldn’t find any more scholarly articles or books that fit the topic than those I’d already found the day before. There are some samples of the writing of Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft that I might be able to use. I think I’ll have to re-read Frankenstein and write as I go. Shelley's own letters might help as well.

            Yesterday I completed a poem that is partly based on the moment six years ago when my daughter came out to me. I sent it to her to see how she felt about it and today she said it was cute.

            The only coffee I have right now is in beans that I got from the food bank so I had to use my blender to grind them. I don’t think I’ve used my Osterizer for over a year and so it was pretty dirty. In trying to clean it before using it I discovered that the bottom screw cap wouldn’t unscrew from the jar. Maybe when the apartment cools down in the spring it’ll come off. The fresh ground coffee was good though.

            I took a siesta in the early afternoon but got up about a half an hour early and so I went back to bed for another thirty minutes.

I’m re-reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to get a better handle on what I want to say in my essay.

I had my last piece of pork tenderloin with a potato and gravy for dinner and watched an episode of Rawhide.

In this story Gil and Rowdy find a camp of four attractive women with a broken wagon wheel. They are a traveling show of trick shooting, knife throwing and trick roping women called the Haley Sisters. Gil offers to fix their wagon and the leader, Hannah asks if they can ride along with the rail drive till the next town, which is a long distance. Gil reluctantly agrees, but after setting some ground rules with his men the women settle in fine. Hannah takes a liking to Gil and he to her but he has to follow his own rules. There is a river up ahead and when Gil, Rowdy and Pete scout for a shallow crossing they see a group of men on the other side. They cross to talk with them and find out that they are managing a train of freight wagons that also needs to cross. Gil offers to flip for who gets to cross first but Blaney the train boss insists that he’s got the right. Since Blaney won’t play it fair then Gil won’t back down. They each camp on their respective sides for the night but that night two of Blaney’s men get drunk and cross over. They try to drag Hannah’s sister Emily away but Hannah shoots one of them in the back. Gil has the dead man taken back to the other side. Blaney gives his man Troxel permission to go after whoever shot their man. He tries to shoot Gil from a hill but Hannah sees him and jumps in front of the bullet. A few hours later Hannah dies. Gil crosses the river with his men but the conflict is settled with a showdown between Gil and Troxel. After Gil wins he still offers Blaney a coin toss, which Blaney loses. Blaney gives in.

Hannah was played by Martha Hyer, who was nominated for an Academy award for her role in Some Came Running.

Ruth, one of the other Haley Sisters was played by Abby Dalton, who started out acting in several of Roger Corman’s cheap teensploitation films, often playing a juvenile delinquent. When she moved to television she played Joey Bishop's wife for the four seasons of the Joey Bishop Show. After that she became a mainstay for five years on Hollywood Squares. In the 80s she was a regular cast member of Falcon Crest.