Lester Dent

            My left knee and my right hip were bothering me on Tuesday morning. There might be a connection between the two. The knee problem is an old one but it’s only started to act up again lately since the hip problem got worse. Apparently a bad hip can throw off the opposite knee and vice versa. The knee bothers me more when I’m just sitting at the computer than anytime else.

            I worked on editing “J’suis snob” by Boris Vian on my blog. It’ll probably take a couple of days before it’s ready to publish.

            I memorized a little more of  “Oh mon amour baiser” by Serge Gainsbourg. I discovered that most of the sites that posted the lyrics had missed some of them. I tracked the extra ones down and worked on their translations. I also altered the structure of my English adaptation now that I know the melody and rhythm.

            I didn't get around to doing any cleaning because my morning was eaten up by arguing on Twitter. Once school starts I'm going to have to stop any exchanges with strangers on social media because it’s just too time consuming. Someone was arguing that the gay pride parades should only happen in June because it's Pride Month, but then she argued that they shouldn't be happening at all because there is no longer any discrimination against gay people. Then she argued that gay pride parades are inappropriate for children to see. She claimed that she'd seen people performing fellatio and analingus at pride parades. I said if that was true there would be pictures. She said it was before there were cameras on phones. She showed a picture of naked men on the street and another of people in leather dog fetish wear crawling on their hands and knees as if that would be traumatic for children. The pictures showed children seeing these displays and looking surprised but not smiling. I found a picture of a child enjoying the dog boys but by that time I'd been blocked.

            I had chickpeas with flaxseed oil and garlic for lunch.

            I did some exercises and then took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst. Because of my knee I tried to stay out of the hard gears and let people pass me.

            I stopped at Freshco to buy some cherries.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I grilled some sausages and had three with three little potatoes and some gravy while watching an episode of Wagon Train. This show has some interesting stories so far. There’s usually one guest character in a moral dilemma of some sort.

            In this story the wagon train is rolling through Nebraska while the Sioux are on the warpath. One of the members of the train is a Civil War veteran named Colonel Stack who has become a pacifist since the war ended. He has twenty wagons but when the train is threatened by Sioux raider he refuses to fight. Jeff Claymore is one member of the train who has animosity for Stack’s pacifism because he thinks it puts the train in danger. He also hates him because he is a former Union officer while he fought for the Confederacy. One goof here is that the Major, who leads the wagon train was also a union officer and yet Claymore gets along with him fine. On two occasions Claymore punches Stack in the face but he doesn’t punch back. However, he shows himself to not be coward, as he rides bravely into risky situations. The Major and the Colonel come across a burning wagon that had been attacked by a Sioux raiding party. As they investigate and find three dead bodies suddenly a shot rings out and Stack receives a flesh wound in his left arm. The rifle has been fired by a frightened survivor of the attack, a young woman named Laura. They bury Laura’s father, mother and brother and she joins the wagon train to travel with them to California. She becomes friends with Stack but does not understand his pacifism, especially in relation to the Sioux that killed her family. At the same time she admires his convictions. The wagon train is forced to camp beside a river that they need to cross but need to find a crossing where there is no quicksand. The Sioux know where to cross and cross at a different place every year but way remains a mystery to the white men in the wagon train. One of Stacks cows goes missing. He, the Major and another man follow the trail to a partly eaten beef carcass. Beside the cow is a starving old Sioux warrior who has collapsed after eating too much. The Major explains that the old man has probably been left behind to die by the tribe. The Colonel wants to help the old man by taking him back to their camp. The Major protests but the Colonel insists that he will take full responsibility. Completing the Christ-like presentation of the Colonel in this story, the Major says, “I wash my hands!” like Pontius Pilot said to Jesus in the Christian story. Later at the camp, Laura notices that the old warrior’s blanket was on that her mother made. Claymore calls to hang the old man. Stack argues that the warrior is too old to have participated in the raid and whoever stole the blanket must have given it to him when they left him behind. Claymore says they are all the same and makes a move for the old man. Suddenly the Colonel hits him. There is an equal fistfight for a while as the old warrior watches Stack defend him. But then as Stack gains the upper hand he loses control and once Claymore is on the ground he tries to strangle him. The Major pulls the Colonel off. Later Stack explains to Laura why he became a pacifist. It was during a battle in the Civil War when the Colonel went into a berzerker rage and when he came to he found himself howling like an animal and strangling a dead man. From that moment on he swore off violence. When it becomes clear that no one wants the old warrior at the camp, Stack gives him back his knife, a horse and some food and sends him on his way. Later they see the old warrior on the horse in the middle of the river, laughing and looking at them. As a return for Stack's kindness the old Sioux is showing them the way across the river. The train is able to cross, but while they are crossing the Sioux attack happens on the side they are leaving. The Colonel guides the wagons safely across during the battle.

            This was a very well written story and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was penned by Lester Dent, the pulp fiction novelist who created Doc Savage, which later inspired many comic books like The Challengers of the Unknown and The Fantastic Four. Dent was a pilot, a treasure hunter, an amateur architect and a fancy dresser. Dent created a formula for writing a saleable 6000-word pulp fiction story. Split your 6000-word story into four 1500 word parts. Introduce all of your main characters and themes in the first quarter and hit your character with a lot of trouble. In part two double the trouble. In part three make the trouble impossible to get out of. In part four resolve it.

            Laura was played by Joanne Dru who was typecast in westerns early on and never got out. She was married to Dick Haymes, who was a very popular singer in the 1940s, replacing Frank Sinatra in the Tommy Dorsey band when Frank went solo.