Shirley Mitchell

            On Thursday morning I searched for more versions of the chords for “L'homme à la tête de chou" (The Man with the Head of Cabbage) by Serge Gainsbourg but didn’t find any more than the two sets I’d found the day before. I worked out the instrumental intro and found that the chords in the key of F fit the song.

            I worked on updating my journal.

            Around noon I brought the stepladder down from between the second and third floors and washed the frame of the big mirror in my kitchen, as well as the walls to the right and left of it and the two vertical pipes that run from my floor to my ceiling to the left of the mirror. I decided that since I already had the ladder that I’d finish washing the upper part of the western wall as well as some of the upper southern wall. There sure is a lot that would have to be done to get this place totally clean. People with spotless apartments must have nothing else to do.

            I went to Freshco and there was no line-up. I bought seven bags of grapes, a pack of strawberries, ground beef, one container of Greek yogourt, three bags of skim milk, a carton of spoon size shredded wheat, a jar of honey and some Sunlight detergent.

            I had another deep siesta like I’ve had for the last three days, perhaps because of the naproxen.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story begins at a baseball game. A wealthy couple are in the upper stands when the wife’s $3000 diamond ring tumbles down into the lower stands. It falls into Andy’s box of Crackerjacks and he and Kingfish find it, thinking that it’s just a cheap ring. When the husband puts an ad in the paper offering a $500 reward for the ring, indicating how it was lost, Kingfish realizes that the ring that Andy has is the diamond. He calls the millionaire to tell him he can bring him the ring but then finds out that Andy has already given it as an engagement ring to his girlfriend Gertrude. When Kingfish tells Andy he can make $250 if he breaks up with Gertrude and gets the ring back. He goes to see Gertrude and she is so sweet that he is reluctant to be mean to her but finally tells her she is ugly and she kicks him out without giving him the ring. Gertrude lives in a theatrical rooming house full of various types of entertainers. Kingfish and Andy decide to sneak into Gertrude’s room to get the ring but they do not realize she has switched rooms with a man and his trained seal. After groping around in the dark and finding the seal sleeping, they leave very quickly. Finally Andy gets Amos to go and talk to Gertrude. Kingfish is sceptical that Amos can accomplish anything but he comes out with the ring, saying he just told Gertrude the truth. Kingfish is impressed. He says telling the truth is the one sneaky trick he has never tried.

            Gertrude was voiced by Shirley Mitchell, as were at least fifty of Andy’s various girlfriends on this show. She always played the same basic character with a different name but it was similar to the character she played on The Great Gildersleeve, who was a charming southern belle named Leila Ransom. She played many recurring characters with different voices on several popular radio shows and then did the same thing on television. She was married to songwriter Jay Livingston, who wrote “Mona Lisa”, “Que Sera Sera” and the Christmas song “Silver Bells”.

            It was still wet from the rain that fell earlier and so I didn’t take a bike ride.

            I had a potato, a carrot, three pork ribs and some gravy for dinner while watching the December 24, 1959 episode of the game show Take a Good Look starring Ernie Kovacs. The panellists this time were Cesar Romaro, Hans Conried, and Ernie’s wife Edie Adams. When Ernie introduced Cesar and then Hans, Edie held the mistletoe over their heads and kissed them.

            The first guest comes out.

            The first clue shows Ernie going through the jungle as Peggy Connelly follows carrying his things. He looks through the tall grass and says he sees an elephant. He says, “Give me my elephant gun!” “Yes Bwana!” “That’s not my elephant gun, that's my rhinoceros gun!" "Sorry Bwana". She hands him another. "By the way, my name’s not Bwana. It’s Bernard!" He shoots and says, “Got’em!” but we see that this is not the jungle but rather the Midwestern United States and there is a cow on it’s back and a distraught farmer crying over it.

            Edie guesses that this took place within the last week in the United States.

            Cesar asks if it had anything to do with travel. He is told that it was a vague form of travel.

            The second clue had Peggy Connelly posing on a rock near a fountain when Ernie steps on a lever and causes the rock to dip her into the water.

            Edie guesses that it had something to do with falling from a great distance

            Cesar guesses that he is Captain Kittinger and that he fell twenty three kilometres from a balloon.

            Kittinger explains that the ascent took an hour and a half. The free fall was three minutes and forty five seconds.

            Ernie explains that the first clue was another play on words of “shoot” with “chute”. In the second clue Peggy fell.

            Ernie has Peggy come out to do the third clue. She peels open the curtain and asks, “Now Ernie?” “No” “Now?” “No” “Now?” “No”. The clue is “delayed”. So the full clues indicate “delayed fall from a parachute”.

            Next there is a Dutch Masters commercial directed by Ernie. Ernie is in his nightcap and nightgown and smoke is coming out of the fireplace. H e goes outside and grabs a ladder and then climbs to the roof where Santa Clause is stuck and struggling desperately in his chimney. Ernie pulls his gift out of Santa’s bag and unwraps it. It’s a box of Dutch Masters cigars. He takes out a cigar and lights it and then happily goes back down the ladder, leaving Santa trapped.

            Ernie says that the work they do on the clues often involves three times as much shooting in a day as is done in the motion picture industry.

            The second guest is Sylvia Wein of Philadelphia who the week before became the first woman to bowl a perfect game in a national match.

            In the first clue Ernie is a caveman standing with his club and smoking a cigar at the corner of Cro-Magnon and Vine. Peggy comes walking by in a short leopard skin dress. Ernie hits her over the head with his club and asks if she’d like to go to a nightclub. She says she’d love it just before losing consciousness. Ernie drags her by the hair while she happily does her nails to the Café Tyrranosaurus, a member of the Dinosaur’s Club (a play on the Diner’s Club). Another caveman is carrying a picket sign and says, “This café is unfair to pterodactyl pluckers!”

            Cesar guesses that it happened within the last two months and that it happened partly in the east.

            Edie asks the guest if she understands what the clue has to do with what she did. The guest doesn’t and  asks Ernie if it does have anything to do with it. Ernie says that if he put the guest on the panel she wouldn’t know who she is.

            Hans asks if it has anything to do with archaeology or palaeontology. The guest says, “You lost me somewhere.”

            The second clue shows Ernie dressed in a costume that makes him look like a much heavier man than he is. He steps on a scale and the needle hits 300. Then an arm with a boxing glove punches through the screen and knocks him off the scale.

            Cesar guesses that the figure 300 is significant.

            In the third clue Peggy is trying on hats in a store and after several fancy women’s hats she settles on a bowler.

            The panel does not get the “bowler” clue and keeps asking about “derbies”.

            Ernie goes through the clues. The caveman did a strike on Peggy’s head; 300 on the scale; and finally Peggy wore a bowler.

            The guest wins $300.

            For dessert I had yogourt with honey, peaches and strawberries, with coffee while watching the second episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Again, the video was extremely glitchy, with a lot of freezing. As we saw at the end of the first episode, Robin has joined the outlaws of Sherwood Forest. In this story, before Robin becomes an influence the outlaws rob from the rich but do not give to the poor. They also rob from all rich people while Robin argues that some noblemen are actually noble and they treat their servants kindly. The leader, Will Scatlock does not think much of Robin’s philosophy and accuses him of being loyal to the gentry.

            Robin and Edgar go looking for a bad nobleman to rob. Edgar sees Herbert of Doncaster the moneylender approaching along the path. Robin needs to hear the worst about him so he can rob him with a clean conscience. Edgar explains that Herbert collects twice as much as he lends.

            Robin pretends to be a collection agent. He stops Herbert in the woods and warns him that there are thieves about and so they should walk together. Robin secretly lifts Herbert’s dagger. Robin tells Herbert that he is worried about his money and Herbert advises him to put it in his boot and so Robin does so. Then Edgar comes out of the bushes with a knife and tells them to hand over their purses. Robin pretends to be stupid and tells Edgar to please not look in their boots. Edgar makes them remove their boots. Inside of Robin’s boot is acorns. Herbert says, “You said you were a collection agent!” Robin says, “I collect acorns!” Nothing falls out of Herbert’s boots and so Robin examines them to find a secret compartment in the heel. Robin and Edgar keep Herbert’s boots and tell him to give his regards to the sheriff. Also in Herbert’s boot Robin finds a list of all of the people that Herbert collected money from. Robin says that if Herbert collected double then half the money belongs to the victims. Robin and Edgar go about giving money back to the serfs. To those that aren’t at home Robin leaves a bag of money hanging from one of his arrows in front of their home. But when one of the peasants reaches for the money one of the sheriff’s soldiers just happens to be nearby. He confiscates the money and the arrow. Meanwhile Herbert arrives barefoot in Nottingham with very sore feet. He tells the sheriff that someone named Robin robbed him. One of the sheriff’s men comments that with Robin of Locksley on their side the outlaws will be even more dangerous. Robin is a trained soldier and one of the finest archers in England. The sheriff plans a trap.

            When Will finds out that Robin has given money back to the poor he is furious. Robin calmly argues that with the poor on their side they have a better chance of staying alive.

            One of the lookouts tells Will that old John Lincoln and his wagon of wine is coming down the road. They plan to ambush it but Robin says that John went by just a week before and so it seems odd that he is coming through again. They rob the barrel of wind but Robin sees the sheriff’s men in the trees and says take cover. In the battle Will takes an arrow in the back. Robin tells the other men to take Will to shelter while he had Edgar cover for them against the soldiers. Robin and Edgar take shelter in Hawkins’s hut. The sheriff forces Hawkins to torch his own straw hut and it burns to the ground. After the sheriff and his men leave Hawkins opens a cellar door in the rubble of his hut and Robin and Edgar emerge unscathed.

            That night in the forest Will is dying. His last words to his men are, “Follow Robin Hood!” Robin is handed Will’s sword but he says that a brave man’s sword should not outlive him and he smashes it on a rock.