Ground Observer Corps

            On Monday morning I memorized the third verse of “Joujou a la casse" (Dolly to the Trash) by Serge Gainsbourg and finished revising my translation.

            A month or so ago I checked my account at the OISE Library and saw that they’d extended their loan of the three French exercise books that I have out until the end of August. This morning I checked and discovered that now I can keep them until the middle of December.

            Popeye’s opened downstairs today and they seemed pretty busy but the smell is kind of obnoxious. It’s a pleasant enough aroma when one is passing by but not when one is soaking in it. I think the smell of roasted or grilled chicken is much nicer than deep fried.

            Around midday I washed the wall and baseboard behind the credenza in the kitchen. Now I’m ready to return to scrubbing the kitchen floor.

            For lunch I had the last bag of those chick pea snacks that I got from the food bank. I wouldn't take them again but having been Raised on a farm I was trained not to waste food so unless something is absolutely disgusting I'll eat what’s on my plate.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Andy has a rich girlfriend named Hyacinth Jackson but he has to pretend to be rich to win over her mother. But once that's accomplished Hyacinth says they can't get married until Andy buys her dream cottage which is on The Pathway and only costs $12,000. Andy finds out that he can get the house for $5,000 down but he doesn’t have the money and so he and Kingfish go to a bank to ask for a loan.

            “We want to borrow $5000."

            “What do you want to borrow this money on?”

            “A $12,000 house."

            “Well, if you have a house valued at $12,000 we should be able to loan you $5000 with no trouble. What are you going to use this $5000 for?”

            “To buy the house.”

            “You want to borrow the money on a house you don’t own?”

            “No, we’d like to borrow the money on a house we're gonna own."

            “When are you going to buy the house?”

            “As soon as you lend us the $5000."

            “Before we can lend you the $5000 you have to own the house.”

            “But if we owned the house we wouldn’t need the $5000."

            “We can’t loan you the money until you buy the house!"

            “But we can’t buy the house until you loan us the money!"

            “Come now, you wouldn’t put the cart before the horse!"

            “We would if it’ll get us to $5000!”

            “You’ve got to have the money to buy the house before you can borrow the money on the house!”

            “But you’ve got to loan us the money before we can buy the house to borrow the money on the house!"

            “We can’t loan you the money to buy the house to borrow the money on the house until you have the money to buy the house!"

            “Yeah, but we can't buy the house unless you loan us the money on the …”

            “Shut up, will you! Look, it’s really very simple. First you need $12000 to buy the house.”

            “All we are asking for is $5000! We done already saved the bank $7000!"

            “How have you done that?”

            “Five from twelve is seven!"

            “Look, you need $12,000!”

            “Well, you talked us into it! Give us the $12,000!"

            They don’t get the loan. Kingfish and Andy have to hock things and cash in insurance policies to finally come up with the $5000 to buy the house from Mr Winslow. But it turns out that Winslow sold his house so he could buy Hyacinth’s dream cottage and marry her.

            During the show there is a weird public service announcement playing on the US citizens’ fear of being hit by an atomic bomb the way they bombed Japan nine years before. It says that to prevent such an attack the Air Defence Command has set up a network of plane spotting radar stations. But radar can’t do the entire job because there are gaps between the range of radar of each station. So the Air Defence Command has established the Ground Observer Corps. Even teenagers can join and they get silver wings for their membership. All that is required are a few hours a week of plane spotting or work at indoor filter centres where every flight is mapped. People are urged to join the Ground Observer Corps at the local Civil Defence Centre. There was a Ground Observer Corps during WWII but in 1950 during the Cold War another was formed in imitation of the Canadian RCAF Ground Observer Corps that was already in operation. Their motto was "The eyes and ears of the RCAF". In 1955 the Strategic Air Command staged a mock attack and the Canadian Ground Observer Corps beat the radar by three hours. Both versions ended in 1958 after radar improvements made it less necessary.

            When I left for my bike ride I saw that there were considerable line-up inside of Popeye’s. On Bloor a woman in a leather skirt crossed Bay Street while sucking on a lollipop. On Queen at University I saw my upstairs neighbour Cesar. It was the furthest from home I’d ever seen him. He stopped to tell me that he'd just come back from Milton.

            For dinner I had a potato, sautéed onion and orange pepper, two chicken drumsticks and gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of William Tell.

            In the first story a vital letter has been delivered to Judge Furst from the Council of Three that describes a new plan for the arms dumps with a list of where they are hidden and the names of the partisans in charge. Gessler knows about the letter and has Furst’s house surrounded but Tell sends his man Franz to get the letter. Furst passes it to him through a window but then the soldiers grab him. Franz gets free and escapes into a cobbler’s shop where he hides it inside of the sole of a boot about to be repaired. Franz is arrested but they can’t make him talk. Meanwhile the boot in which the letter is hidden turns out to belong to Gessler and now he is wearing it. Franz has been tortured and then brought back to Gessler’s office for questioning. Meanwhile Tell climbs into the castle and through Gessler's window to rescue Franz. They fight their way out and escape. Gessler figures that since Franz was arrested in a cobbler’s shop he might have hidden the letter there. When he goes there he gets the idea that there’s a reason that his left boot feels funny. Suddenly Vera the cobbler's assistant runs in to tell Gessler that she seen William Tell at the tavern across the street. Gessler rushes out but comes back a minute later to cut open his boot and find a blank piece of paper.

            Vera was played by Olive McFarland, who co-starred with Sean Connery in "The Frightened City". She left acting to breed horses but in 1998 she was found guilty of neglecting her animals. At the age of 82 she was killed by a train at a railroad crossing.  

            In the second story, chained Swiss prisoners are being used as slave labour to build a fortress. Some of them are planning an escape for that night but their leader Jacques overhears one of them betraying their plans to a guard. They have to make the attempt instead in broad daylight. Jacques kills the traitor and he and another make it over the wall but his comrade is killed by an arrow. The starving Jacques stumbles upon Tell and the Bear’s campsite and begins devouring the bird they are roasting. He says, “Kill me if you want but let me eat first!” When Jacques tells them of the fortress being built on the Vagen Pass it’s the first they've heard of it. Tell realizes that if the Austrians get a fortress on the Vagen Pass they can divide Switzerland by north and south and cut the two halves of the Swiss resistance apart from one another. Tell declares that the fort must be destroyed before it is completed. They take Jacques to a blacksmith to have his ball and chain removed and Tell gets the idea to have fake links made for chains that can be removed easily. He has the blacksmith make such chains for him and the Bear so they can infiltrate the castle by posing as escaped prisoners for the soldiers to recapture. Jacques takes them to the well that is used for the fort’s water supply and that's where the soldiers capture them. Inside, after the hard task of earning the trust of the other prisoners they tell them of their plan. The next day when the two usual prisoners go to get the water from the well, Jacques is hiding below. In each bucket he puts blacksmith tools and the weak chain links into the water and the prisoners sneak them under their clothing. That night the Bear cuts their chains and puts on the weak links. The next day Gessler arrives at the fortress with the secret weapon that is to be mounted on a platform on the wall of the fortress. It is a proto-cannon that fires rocks with the help black powder. The goof here is that several episodes before this black powder was invented but the inventor destroyed himself and the recipe. Gessler discovers that Tell is there and decides to use him to demonstrate the weapon. He is tied to a tree outside the fortress but before the fuse reaches the powder Jacques sneaks up from behind Tell and cuts him free. At that moment Tell whistles the signal for the prison break and the slaves break free to attack the soldiers. Tell packs all the black powder in the cellar and lights a fuse. They all escape from the fortress just before it blows up.