Parkdale Has Bin in Flames

            On Tuesday morning at 4:30 I got up to pee as I often do half an hour before the alarm goes off. I went back to bed and had a sweet thirty minutes of rest. When the electronic rooster crowed I got up but as I crossed the living room, outside my window there were high flames blazing way too close for comfort. At first I thought that the Coffeetime was on fire but when I looked out something on the sidewalk was burning with two-meter tall tongues of fire dancing above it. 

            At first it looked like a bicycle but bike tires wouldn’t create that much of an inferno. I ran to get my camera and started taking pictures. There were already two guys down there, one of them with a fire extinguisher. At one point he’d smothered the flame but then like a phoenix the fire jumped up again. 

            They had already called 911 and within a couple of minutes a fire truck arrived. One fireman used chemicals at first and at one point I couldn’t see down through the white smoke or gas or both, some of which briefly entered my living room. 

The fireman soaked whatever it was down for a surprisingly long time.

            I went back to my normal routine about ten minutes late. I got caught up during rehearsal by only singing one verse and one chorus of most of the songs.

When I started doing translations I settled on “a waffle maker” to go with “an electric blanket” among the listed appliances in "Complainte du progrès" by Boris Vian.

I posted “Kawasaki” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian's Translations blog.

This had to be a laundry day and so I gathered up my stuff. As I was getting ready to leave I talked about the fir with my next-door neighbour Benji. He told me that what had burned had been on of those dark grey, hard plastic garbage bins that the city has used to replace most of the fireproof metal ones. We were thinking that the fire was probably started by a cigarette butt that had been tossed into the wrong hole, but according to the city the most common cause of garbage bin fires is arson. Apparently two or three bins a month catch fire.

When I came back from putting my things in the washers, before going back into my place I pulled out my camera and took some photos of the metal frame of the bin that was left over after the fire. 

Around that time a guy arrived with several recyclable shopping bags to scavenge the metal.

At home I felt a bowel movement coming on so I decided that I might as well do the FIT poop test for colon cancer screening. The problem is that there is preparation involved that often takes longer than is comfortable before you feel you need to go. I wanted to make sure the toilet was clean, so I did that. The instructions say to first pee and then flush the toilet, but have you ever tried to pee first before taking a crap? I couldn’t do it. I put the sheet of paper they’d sent to keep the turd from floating but it sunk in the water. It’s funny that the instructions in Canada say, “Poop” while in the States they say, “Make bowel movement”. 

Once I’d done it the feces were half submerged in water and not sitting high and dry like in the illustration. I couldn’t properly take a sample with the little collecting stick they provided and so I had no choice but to do something disgusting. I picked the whole paper up and transported it to the sink. I collected a generous amount of poop and put it in the container, dated it, put it in the already addressed envelope and sealed it. I was told not to return address it. I put my mess back in the toilet, flushed it and cleaned things up. I mailed the envelope on my way to put my washing in the dryer.

When I came back from putting my laundry in the dryer he had already gathered all of the small bits of aluminium and was working on bending and breaking off the larger pieces. I asked him if he minded me taking pictures of him while he was working and he said it was okay. I jokingly asked if he’d set fir to the bin himself just to get the scrap metal. I told him the city should be paying him for recycling or at least give him a tax break for his trouble. He said he takes it to the scrap yard in the west end. He also picks up Hawaiian shirts from garage sales and sells them to tourists on Centre Island. He said his name is Peter and we shook hands. He looked familiar and I think he might be Peter James, who I’ve seen and heard at Fat Albert’s but didn't recognize outside of the context of the open stage. I told him about seeing the fire earlier and he said it had been lucky the bin wasn’t closer to the building.

After coming home with my laundry I saw that Peter had picked the skeleton of the bin almost clean and was gone and I took a few more pictures. From my window later on I saw that Peter had returned with an adjustable wrench so he could undo the bolts that held the foundation of the bin to the sidewalk so he could get the heavier metal plate.

The burnt bin was a real conversation piece that often caused people that one wouldn’t normally see communicating to stop and talk with each other about it.

By the early afternoon Peter had stripped the bin of most of its metal.

I had chickpeas with raita for lunch.

I did some exercises in the afternoon while listening to a couple of episodes of Amos and Andy. The first one was short and silly. Andy receives a case of kippers from his nephew who is stationed in Scotland. He hates fish and he and Kingfish decide to try to sell them. The guest star was character actor Frank Morgan. While riding in Amos’s cab Amos is trying to tell Frank that his friends want to sell a case of Scotch kippers, but all Frank hears is “Scotch” and so he is interested until he finds they are fish.

In the second story Andy and Kingfish are visiting their inventor friend Flookie Harris to get something to remove gravy spots from Andy’s vest. He gives them something in a fruit jar that works amazingly well. Sapphire tries it and tells them that it’s the best spot remover she’s ever tried. They decide to try to sell it to a chemical company but the jar breaks and Flookie doesn’t remember the formula because it was made by accident.

I took a bike ride. I stopped at BMV to look for some books and bought Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey. I rode to University, south to Queen and then west. I stopped at Freshco to buy a jar of honey and some peaches.

I worked on my journal.

I had three small potatoes, my last beef rib and some gravy for dinner while watching Wagon Train.

This story begins with Jeb Drummond being called away to hassle some local Indigenous people by a local leader named Walt Archer who hates Native people. Jeb leaves his wife Sarah alone and while he is gone she is raped by a Sioux. The word “rape” is not used on television at this time but it is obvious that’s what happened. Nine months later she is about to give birth. Jeb says she will have to give the baby up because he refuses to raise a Native baby. He explains that they will be rejected by the community if thy keep it. There is a powerful rainstorm and Flint arrives looking for shelter. He is welcomed but when Sarah goes into labour Jeb tells him to leave. When Flint finds that Jeb is denying Sarah a midwife he intervenes. Sarah tells Flint to fetch Ethel Archer. Walt comes along and when the baby is born Jeb’s worst fears are realized as Walt sees that it is a Native baby and says that Sarah should have killed herself rather than give birth to it. Later Flint goes to Walt’s ranch and confronts him about his bigotry. They end up in a fistfight and Walt’s face is bloodied. Walt’s mother has been in a catatonic state since Walt’s father died, Walt always assumed, at the hands of Natives. But when his mother sees Walt’s bloody face she is shocked from her catatonia and reveals that it had been a white man that killed Walt’s father. Walt realizes his error and goes to make amends with the Drummonds just as Jeb is about to give the baby away to a local Native woman.

Sarah was played by June Lockhart.

Ethel was played by Lorna Thayer who played the waitress in the chicken salad sandwich scene in “Five East Pieces”.

            That night I heard banging outside and a  professional was there cleaning up the rest of the metal for the city.

            The next morning there was a brand new flammable garbage bin in the same spot.