Marjorie Lord

            On Thursday morning during yoga I did the knee bending exercise that had bothered me before but I held back a bit and didn’t feel as grindy afterwards.

            I started singing and playing through “I'm a Snob" but there was a line that didn’t really fit the original and so I tried to think of another translation. Boris Vian says something like, “A ruby on the digit / of my foot, not there" but I’d simply said right away that the ring was on the toe but that wasn’t as funny. I came up with, “

My ruby ring glows / not on my finger, my toe".

            I finished memorizing “Leur plaisir sans moi” by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one has posted them and so I'll have to work them out myself.

            I finished washing the section of my living room floor between my desk and the tall set of shelves. Next I’ll have to move the desk and clean the area under it. After that I’ll wash the desk and then I’ll be finished with the front of the living room.

            I had a salad of grape tomatoes, cucumber and radishes dressed with flaxseed oil, balsamic vinegar and garlic for lunch.

            I did some exercises and then took a bike ride. I’d meant to go to Bloor and Ossington but I absent-mindedly went south on Dovercourt. I didn't realize I was on Dovercourt until I passed the 14 Division police station. At Dundas I turned left and went as far as Ossington. On the way home I stopped at Freshco. The Canadian cherries are in season and so I got two bags. I also got a basket of peaches and a tomato. The grapes were too soft and the strawberries were mouldy and rotten and so I splurged on a couple of half pints of raspberries. I had mainly come to buy toilet paper but there were no specials in aisle number one and so I headed to the other side of the store. I got some mouthwash there but it wasn't until I got home that I realized I'd forgotten to get toilet paper.

            When I got to my building I realized I’d also forgotten to mail my income report to Ontario Works and so I rode a block east to the mailbox.

            I had three little potatoes, a pork chop and gravy while watching the first episode of Wagon Train. This story starred Ernest Borgnine as an alcoholic named Willy. The wagon train is about to pull out of a town where Willy is drunk. The leader of the train is Major Adams who fought beside Willy in the Civil War. The relief driver of one the wagons is late and the Major tells Robinson, the owner of the wagon that he can’t join the train without his relief driver. Robinson hires Willy, who's still drunk and makes him sleep it off in the back of the wagon. The next morning Robinson’s driver Brady shows up and Robinson says he doesn't need Willy anymore. The Major tells Robinson he’ll have to keep Willy on till the next town. The Major warns Willy that if he takes one drink during the trip he’ll be kicked off the train. He gives him a clean shirt and tells him to wash up. On the way to the creek the widow Mary Palmer invites him to have coffee and sit with her and her two children. We learn that Willy is a former champion prizefighter who took to drinking after starting to get headaches. Willy and Mary take a liking to each other and it inspires Willy to try and stay sober. Robinson tries to sabotage Willy’s efforts because he’s in the way. It turns out Robinson and Brady are with Quantrille's Raiders and they plan on hijacking the ammunition wagon. Willy sees Robinson sabotaging his wagon and so they have to get him out of the way. Brady picks a fight with Willy by saying something untoward about Mary and it causes Willy to beat him up. Mary is upset at his behaviour and Willy has a relapse and gets drunk. He forgets about the sabotage until just before Quantrille’s Raiders are about to ambush the wagon. The raiders are fought off but they rally. Willy gets a barrel of gunpowder and sneaks up behind the raiders to bomb them from higher ground, thus saving the day.

            Mary Palmer was played by Marjorie Lord, who played Danny Thomas’s wife on the Danny Thomas Show. She’s the mother of Anne Archer, who put in that powerful performance as the wife of Michael Douglas in “Fatal Attraction”.

Mary’s daughter Susan was played by Beverly Washburn, who started acting at the age of six and had a lot of work as a child actor. When she was twenty she had a hit record with, “Everybody Loves Saturday Night”. She is best remembered by Star Trek fans for the episode, “The Deadly Years”.