Hank Patterson

            On Sunday morning I translated “Betty Jane Rose” by Serge Gainsbourg. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on but then I realized that he was playing with the sounds of the solfège syllables of the musical scale: “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti” and making them into words. The song is very risqué and basically Betty Jane Rose is a minor looking for a big dose of F major. It was recorded in 1978 by a French Punk band called Bijou. I memorized the first verse and the chorus. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast. In the late morning I tackled cleaning the inside of my oven door for a fifth time. With the help of soap, baking soda, a cloth, a scrub brush, a tooth brush, and two plastic scrapers I managed to get it almost halfway done. I predict it will take two or three more sessions to finish it and then I’ll have spend another several days cleaning the inside of the oven.

            I checked my academic record and found that I got an A in the Introduction to British Literature 2 course. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch. I had eight saltines with old cheddar and a glass of lemonade.

            I noticed that my local pharmacy has forms for making appointments to get the covid vaccine, so I might fill it out if it helps to get this whole pandemic over with. 

            I headed out for a bike ride and it was raining a bit though it wasn’t supposed to rain until tonight. Benji was outside the building and I chatted with him before heading downtown. He says he’s heard that people on certain medications can’t take the vaccine and so he has to ask his doctor. 

            He told me that in his early years in Canada he was in Ottawa and decided he would walk to Montreal but he only made it forty kilometres. 

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor. It was warmer than I thought it would be and so stopped on Brock and I took my scarf and gloves off. 

            When I got home I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I started a new project in Movie Maker and imported the “Frightening Lightning” video for editing. I spent more than an hour splitting sections of the video on each side of the sections I didn’t want and cutting out the parts in between the splits. I don’t need lightning in daylight and don’t want any buildings or much horizon visible and so I cut out those parts. Movie Maker froze a couple of times while I was working and so I had to shut it down in the Task Manager and start again. By the time I had to make dinner I’d managed to knock the original three minute and sixteen second video down to nineteen and a half seconds, but even that is more than I want. I’ll cut some more out tomorrow. I’m wondering if when I finish the lightning video and the movie of the snakes, when I insert them into the Instructions for Electroshock Therapy video I should start with the lightning and move to the snakes or if I should alternate between the two until I arrive at the footage of the moving electrical cords that I plan to film. I can always experiment beforehand with a separate movie of just the lightning and the snakes and see how that looks. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before dinner. I made pizza with a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread, hot salsa, the other burger that I’d made the night before sliced up and cheddar cheese on top. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Andy is up for a better paying job as an executive for a big corporation. He is so sure he’s going to take it that he doesn’t put his name down for re-election and encourages Barney to run so the town will have a sheriff that knows the job. But Andy doesn’t get the job and now it’s too late for him to run for sheriff and it’s too late for Barney to withdraw. Barney organizes a town meeting and the people sign a petition for Andy to run as a write-in candidate. But when Barney sees that no one plans to vote for him he decides to seriously campaign against Andy. He challenges him to a public debate and brings up three things that he considers are wrong with Andy’s work as sheriff: people are allowed to jaywalk, the sheriff’s office has no teargas and machine guns for emergencies, and Andy doesn’t wear a gun. Andy says there hasn’t been an accident in five years, the emergency equipment is unnecessary and adds that if anyone is unsatisfied with his twelve years as sheriff they can vote for Barney. Barney says Andy has his vote. 

            In the second story, while chasing a hobo away from the railroad tracks Barney finds a briefcase that they later discover contains $250,000. Andy learns that the money is from a bank robbery and the robber tossed the case from a train to avoid suspicion. The FBI is going to come for the money and so Andy puts it in the safe. Barney is sure the thief is going to come looking for the money and so he goes under cover, pretending to be a high roller so the thief will think he found the briefcase. The robber, Hennessy does take the bait but when Barney pulls his gun on him Hennessy convinces Barney he’s with the FBI. The real agent arrives and contacts Andy. When Barney calls Andy to tell him he’s working with the FBI Andy knows something is wrong. Hennessy convinces Barney to take the money from the safe and then drugs his milk with knockout drops. . Andy and the agent arrive just in time to stop Hennessy and put Barney to bed.

            The hobo was played by Hank Patterson, who is most famous for playing the farmer Fred Ziffel, the owner of the intelligent pig Arnold Ziffel, on Green Acres. He was the great uncle of Téa Leoni. He was married for sixty years, from 1915 until he died. When he was on Green Acres he was almost deaf but the producers liked his character so much they worked around the problem. A man would be lying on the floor with a yard stick and he would tap Hank’s leg when it was time to say his lines. He also played stableman Hank Miller on Gunsmoke. 

            Hennessy was played by Al Checco who was a comedy partner of Don Knotts when they entertained the troops.