Sara Berner

            On Friday I had planned on doing some more sanding in the bedroom but by the time I’d shaved and showered, done the dishes and put away yesterday’s laundry it was almost time for lunch.

            I had a lettuce and tomato salad.

            In the afternoon I checked the weather and it said there would be a chance of rain around 18:00 so decided that after my exercises I wouldn’t take a bike ride. I listened to an episode of Amos and Andy that was another rehash of an old story. Andy falls for a female taxi driver and they get engaged two weeks later. But Susan’s father pays Kingfish to break the couple up and so Kingfish gets Lulu Larue to pretend to be a sexy oil heiress and to flirt with Andy. He decides to break up with Susan but then Kingfish learns that Susan is a real heiress. He gets there just after Andy has broken the engagement and explains that Andy did it out of nobility because he hates money. The engagement is back on but when Susan tells Andy she’s given away all her money for him Andy leaves her.

            Susan and or Lulu was played by voice artist Sara Berner, who had her own radio show called "Sara's Private Caper" in which she played a police stenographer who doubled as a private investigator. She was best known as Mabel Flapsaddle, the telephone operator on The Jack Benny Program. 

            In the 1940s she was known as the most famous voice in Hollywood. She voiced many cartoon characters with imitations of famous actresses and also voices that she created herself. She played one of Jimmy Stewart’s neighbours in "Rear Window". Eddie Cantor called her the greatest impersonator and dialectician of all time.

            After the show I checked the weather again and the thunderstorm was no longer a possibility. I decided to stay home anyway because I wanted to complete my grant application. I tried to access my tax information but I seem to have lost the CRA security code that the government sent me. I tried to re-apply for the code and had to get a new user identification. I don’t even know if they will be sending a new security code or not. They sent me a new one in May but I didn’t realize that it had an expiration date. I was sure that I’d already had access to my CRA account and when they sent me a new code it was strange because the letter said that I’d requested it but I don’t recall asking for one. Maybe something in my Old Age Pension application made them think that I wanted a new one. I didn’t have these hassles when everything came by mail.

            For dinner I had sautéed onion and green pepper, oven fries and a chicken leg while watching two episodes of The Adventures of William Tell.

            In the first story William Tell goes to try to persuade the scientist Dr Klein to allow the resistance to use his castle as a rendezvous point to receive arms from Italy because it is ideally located to see the Austrian soldiers coming. Klein’s servant Ludwig says that the doctor can’t be disturbed because he is doing an experiment and there is a guest in his lab. Suddenly there is an explosion that blows the door off the lab and Klein comes out covered in soot but ecstatic. His black powder is a success. But Tell is surprised that Klein’s guest is Landburgher Gessler. They draw swords but Klein persuades them to sheath them. Klein then tries a larger experiment outside to use the powder to remove a large rock. The explosion leaves a big hole in the courtyard. Klein thinks his powder will be invaluable for road construction and irrigation but Gessler clearly has other plans for it. Klein won’t reveal the ingredients of his powder until he has presented it to Dr Riccioni, the Professor of Natural Studies at Milan University. Klein tells Gessler he hasn’t met the professor and so Gessler lies that Riccioni is in Altdorf. He has his officer Hofmanstahl pose as Riccioni in order to get the formula. Klein says it contains charcoal and sulphur but there is no name for the third ingredient and so Klein calls it "substance X". Klein says he’s conducting experiments to extract it from fungus. But suddenly Klein realizes he is talking with a baboon and wants to leave but Gessler tells him he can only leave once he has told him how to make the black powder. Klein is placed in the torture chamber. Tell learns that this has happened and he plots to get him out. Tell’s wife Hedda sets up a stall in the market place against the castle wall behind which is the torture chamber. Tell and Ludwig work under her table to remove one of the stones and place black powder inside, running out a fuse and then replacing the stone. The fuse is lit and the castle wall is blown open. After a fight with the soldiers Tell rescues Klein. Klein says he must get back to his castle before Gessler can get to his lab and figure out the formula. They get to the castle and Klein begins putting all of his supply of the three ingredients into a large chest. Tell thinks it’s so he can transport them away from the castle. Gessler and his soldiers arrive and William Tell fights them until Klein tells him to get out. He has turned the chest into a bomb and lit the fuse because he does not want either side in this war to have the secret. Tell and Ludwig leave but Klein stays and the lab explodes just as some of the soldiers burst in.

            In the second story Gessler wants the gold from Hanzler’s bank because he suspects it is being used to help the resistance. Hanzler is arrested and Tell knows it's just a matter of time before Gessler gets the gold from the strong room and so he and his comrades dig a tunnel. They get the gold out just as the soldiers break in. But Gessler has the gates of the city closed while his men search for the gold and so Tell’s people hide in a stable. They melt the gold down to the shape of one of the crossbeams of a wagon wheel of that era before spokes were invented. Tell and another man are able to take the gold through the gates as part of an empty wagon on its way to the quarry. But Gessler discovers the stable and the mould and realizes the gold is now part of a wheel. The soldiers chase them and so Tell and his comrade remove the wheel in order to roll it away with more ease. They take the wheel to a town on the Swiss side of a mountain in order to try to take it over to Italy. Gessler’s soldiers come to search the town and when they are about to search where the wheel is Tell rolls it when they aren't looking to another section and then roll it back again when they search the other quarter. Tell places the wheel on another wagon but the soldiers decide to commandeer the wagon to take it to the Italian border where they think Tell must have already taken the wheel. Tell gets ahead of them and makes a track with a single wooden wheel and the soldiers follow it. Tell rolls the wheel down the mountain and when the soldiers see it they leave the wagon unattended long enough for Tell to remove the golden wheel. Tell and his men begin hauling the wheel up the mountain with a rope. There is a crossbow shootout while the wheel is stuck on some rocks. Tell frees the wheel and then carries it on his back the rest of the way to the peak. But the soldiers have gotten there first and take the wheel. But Tell manages to knock the soldiers away from the wheel to send it rolling by itself down the other side of the mountain directly into the little Italian town and into Hanzler and the other resistance fighters waiting for it.