Wallace Ford

            On Saturday morning I finished editing “Ciel de plomb” (The Sky is Leaden) and published it on my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            Before breakfast my digital scale said that I weighed 86.5 kilos. I don’t know if I believe it since that's the lowest it’s been in a long time. 

            In the late morning I took a bike ride. It was a warm day and I only wore a shirt and not my hoody under my leather jacket. On the way up Brock I found a box of things that had been thrown out, among them a couple of strong coat hangers. I took the two strongest ones because a few months ago the one that I’d been using for my heavy leather jacket broke. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then home.

            I stopped to pee at my place before heading out to the drug store and the supermarket. At Vina Pharmacy I picked up a filled prescription and also bought some ear plugs for the next person who complains about my singing and playing in the morning. I asked if they were going to have vaccinations at Vina and the pharmacist said he thinks so but the weekday staff would know better. 

           At No Frills the grapes were extremely cheap so I got nine bags. I also bought a pack of three chicken legs, orange juice, hot salsa and skyr. 

           I had seven saltines with old cheddar and lemonade for lunch. 

           I backed up all my most important files from the last few months to my external hard drive. I deleted all the ones I don’t need on my main hard drive, including the song practice videos that I’d made, some photos and the music downloads that I've already listened to. 

           I weighed 88.6 kilos at 18:30. That seems more realistic than my weight before breakfast. 

           I worked some more on colourizing parts of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

           I digitally repaired a few photos from 1987. 

           I had a poached egg and toast with a beer for dinner while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

           In the first story Bee gets a letter from her old boyfriend Roger and then invites him for Friday night supper and to stay the weekend. Roger is a joker and he has an annoying habit of trying to show Andy how to do things only to screw them up. Andy doesn’t like him but Bee seems to be charmed. When Andy asks Roger his plans he says he could either head for Florida if someone leant him $400 or he could stay and marry Bee. Andy calls his bluff and tells him Bee’s in the kitchen. Roger ends up leaving but asks Andy if he ever played poker. Andy says he used to and he was pretty good. 

            Roger was played by Wallace Ford in his final television appearance. He had a tragic early life. As a young child in England named Samuel Jones he became separated from his parents and wound up in an orphanage. He was shipped to Canada to the Toronto branch of the orphanage and ended up in fourteen farming foster homes before he ran away. He joined a Vaudeville troupe called The Winnipeg Kiddies and was with them for three years. Then he became a teenage hobo and travelled with a fellow runaway named Wallace Ford. His companion was crushed to death by a train while trying to hop a freight car. Later when he started acting in the States he took on the name of Wallace Ford. He appeared on Broadway several times before starting to work in films. In 1932 he had the lead role in the notorious film “Freaks” and co-starred with Jean Harlow in “The Beast of the City.” In 1937 he played George in the original Broadway production of “Of Mice and Men.” He appeared in over 200 films. In the mid 1930s he did a search for his parents and found his widowed mother living in an English trailer park and married to a blind match seller. He was buried in an unmarked grave. 

            In the second story Andy and Barney learn that a convict named Ralph Neal has escaped from the state prison. They should really look into security at that state prison because there seems to have been an awful lot of escapes in the last five years. Barney thinks they should be prepared in case the convict comes to Mayberry, but Andy is not worried because the state prison is far away. Barney buys a mutt that is supposed to be part bloodhound and tries to train it. But the dog won’t follow scents like Barney wants him to and prefers sleeping. The only thing that activates the dog is to blow on the dog whistle but that causes Blue to attack Barney whenever he does so. They get word that the convict is in the Mayberry area after all and Barney insists on bringing Blue when they drive to search the woods to the north of town. Andy thinks the dog is useless and heads off to do a search by himself. Barney shows the dog the wanted poster with Neal’s photo and suddenly Blue takes off. Blue runs immediately to a man sitting by the lake but Barney doesn’t realize it's Neal until it's too late and Barney is captured. Neal keeps Barney as a hostage in a cabin. He tiers Barney up and then goes to sleep. Barney tries to escape but then Blue starts barking and Neal makes Barney sit down again. Andy finds the cabin but he is captured as well. Neal forces Barney to trade clothes with him and is about to escort Barney and Andy to the squad car for his getaway when he wonders where Blue is. Andy tells him he has to blow Blue's whistle from Barney’s pocket. He does so and Blue attacks him, allowing them to capture him. After Neal is in a cell Barney keeps trying to train blue and tries to get him to fetch the cell keys. Andy is doing some work in the other cell and asks Barney for help. Barney absent mindedly locks the cell door on him and Andy. They both they and Neal try to coax Blue to bring them the keys. Finally Barney blows the whistle and Blue brings the keys to him. 

            Neal was played by Arthur Batanides, who played Mr Kirkland on Police Academy. He played Lieutenant D'Amato on an episode of Star Trek. He tended to either play tough villains or parodies of tough villains on popular TV series like Time Tunnel and Get Smart. He was married to model Midge Ware for ten years and then to Anne Rasmussen.