Doris Dowling

            On Thursday morning my whole body was sore from struggling with the tire the night before. Although it was really only my hands and fingers that were strained I guess I used muscles in other parts of my body to get into leverage positions to deal with the problem. Also the frustration of not being able to install the tire in three hours probably tensed up my body. 

            I memorized the second and third verses of “Mélo Mélo” by Serge Gainsbourg and made some adjustments in my translation. There’s only one verse left to learn. 

            My fingers ached during guitar practice. 

            In the late morning I tackled the tight tire again. I was able to get it to the point where all that was left to pull onto the rim was about thirty centimetres of the tire, but I couldn’t budge it any further. I took the tire back to MetroCycle and the guy got it done in thirty seconds with a tire iron. 

            I had no problem getting the wheel back on my bike and I right away got ready for a bike ride. The bike was going quite slow as I travelled north and so I wondered if I’d installed the tire improperly. But it seemed my progress was retarded by a strong wind from the north. I rode to Ossington and Bloor and on the way home I stopped at Freshco. 

            The staff was very friendly today. It’s generally the friendliest supermarket in Parkdale and I think that is partly due to the fact that there are people who’ve been working there since it was Price Chopper. There’s a bigger turn over at the No Frills on King; and the Metro is just plain snooty. Within my first couple of minutes in the store the manager and one of the senior cashiers said hi to me.

            I bought seven bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, a pint of raspberries, several avocadoes and vine tomatoes, two jugs of orange juice, and two bottles of Garden Cocktail. The cashier at the far end of the store was almost hidden behind a big pile of shopping baskets. She almost bowed to me in greeting as I approached. 

            I had guacamole with plantain chips for lunch. 

            I did research on the poem “Fra Lippo Lippi” by Robert Browning. It turns out that Filippo Lippi really was locked up by his benefactor, the banker Cosimo Medici to make him work. And he really did escape through the window from time to time on a ladder made of sheets. It was also Medici who persuaded the pope to allow Lippi and the nun he got pregnant to leave their orders and get married. 

            I heated the soup I'd made on Tuesday and had two bowls while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In this story Floyd the barber has gotten himself in a tangled web by lying about himself in his Lonely Hearts Club profile. He’s been corresponding with a wealthy widow named Madeline Grayson but he has presented himself as being also rich. He receives a letter from Madeline saying she is coming to visit and so Floyd is worried about the effect that being deceived would have on her. Andy decides to help Floyd out. A wealthy Mayberry family has gone on holiday and left Andy the keys to their house so he can handle security. Andy lets Floyd pose as the owner, with Bee as the maid and with himself as Floyd’s son. Madeline arrives and she is a very attractive middle aged woman. She was initially supposed to be just stopping on her way to Florida but when she says, “I wish I could stay longer" and Floyd responds, "I wish you could too" she takes that as an invitation and accepts and says she'll stay for a week. When she goes to the car to get her things Andy tells Floyd that the real owners of the house will be back any day and so Madeline will have to be told the truth. When Andy is alone with Madeline he tells her that he is really the sheriff. She misunderstands him telling her this because she is really a grifter and thinks Andy is on to her and so she admits it. Andy says she hasn’t broken any law and so she can just drive away, which she does. Andy doesn't tell Floyd that Madeline had lied to him, just that she took the truth of Floyd’s deception well. 

            Madeline was played by Doris Dowling, who started out as a chorus singer and dancer on Broadway when she was seventeen. In her twenties she moved out to Hollywood and her first big role was as a sex trade worker and barfly in The Lost Weekend. She was in the film noir Blue Dahlia and then mostly B movies. In the late 1940s she moved to Italy to star in films there, such as the classic "Bitter Rice". She had some success but came back to the US in the mid 50s where she did a lot of theatre and TV work. She had a regular role in the sitcom My Living Doll starring Julie Neumar and Bob Cummings. She was married for four years to band leader Artie Shaw.