Tom Lester

            On Monday morning I memorized the third verse of "Dernière valse" (Final Waltz) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing "Adieu Bijou" by Serge Gainsbourg so tomorrow I'll look for the chords.

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I'm been in the morning in a week.

            Around midday I walked over to Freedom Mobile and paid for my May phone plan. 

            I called my doctor's office and made an appointment for my annual physical on May 11. I wanted a morning appointment because I would be fasting before the bloodwork but since Covid, Dr. Shechtman works in the mornings at a retirement home and doesn't come into the clinic until 13:00. That means I'll have to fast three hours longer than necessary. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I was almost ready to head out for my bike ride when it started to rain again. That's the second day in a row I've missed a bike ride. The last time I rode downtown was on Friday and the furthest I made it on Saturday because of the rain was Bloor and Ossington. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:15. 

            I finished making the video of my June 19, 2022 performance of "Là bas c'est naturel" and uploaded it to YouTube. 

            Tomorrow I'll start working on synchronizing the video and audio of my June 11, 2022 song practice so I can isolate the song "Kenya" and upload it to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I inserted a clip of the shock machine from a fifties shock therapy demonstration that shows a wooden pointer indicating the voltage meter, to correspond with my line, "just 200 volts at .15 seconds...". The end of the line is "... makes them shake like Jell-O", and so I searched for videos of jelly molds in the shape of brains. There are tons of them on YouTube but it took a long time to find one that shows the brain shaped jelly shaking. I found a fifteen second clip that I think will work perfectly if I switch it to grey scale. 

            I scanned some more negatives. One set of colour negs from 1987 seem to have been so badly developed that the colours actually came off when I cleaned them. I've never seen that happen before. There are also some shots of my ex-girlfriend Diane Hein. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two chicken drumsticks while watching season 7, episodes 10 and 11 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story the Clampetts plan on going to Hooterville for Thanksgiving and ask Mr. Drysdale to look after their house while they're gone. Drysdale always becomes frightened when the Clampetts say they are leaving Beverly Hills. He especially panics now when he hears that Granny is sweet on Sam Drucker, who not only owns the general store but he's also the postmaster and the banker. Drysdale is worried that Jed will put his $80 million in the Hooterville bank. Drysdale locks Jed and Granny in his office to stop them from leaving but Granny busts a hole through the door. Drysdale removes vital parts from the old truck so they can't leave but Jane lends them her car. Jethro drives them while dressed as a Hollywood producer. He's seen pictures of the Bradley girls who live at Petticoat Junction and thinks he can turn them into stars. 

            Jethro walks into Sam Drucker's store and meets Eb Dawson, who is so impressed by Jethro that he agrees to become his flunky. Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo Bradley are also impressed with Jethro as he's promised to make them movie stars. As soon as Eb sees Elly May he doesn't care about being Jethro's flunky anymore. He asks Elly to come down to the pond to skip rocks and she's happy to. 

            At the end they are all at the Shady Rest Hotel sitting around the table for Thanksgiving dinner. Oliver and Linda Douglas played by Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor are also there. 

            In the second story the Clampetts are saying goodbye to Hooterville but Elly's new sweetheart Eb can't be found. Jethro opens up the trunk of Jane's convertible and finds Eb hiding there because he wants to go with them. 

            Meanwhile back in Beverly Hills Mr. Drysdale has to take care of all of Elly's pets, including her full grown bear who he has to bring breakfast in bed, bathe him, and tuck him into bed. He rips Drysdale's clothes if he doesn't make the bed properly. 

            The Clampetts return but Drysdale worries when he hears about Eb, because if Elly falls for a real country boy the whole family might move back to the country and take their money out of his bank. He promises them an authentic farm boy. He threatens Dash Riprock that he won't renew his contract if he doesn't pose as a yokel and court Elly. They all recognize Homer Noodleman as Dash Riprock but the con is that Dash has given up acting for his first love of farming. Granny insists that she meet Homer's father before he can marry Elly. The Clampetts get a call from Sam Drucker telling them that Eb has run away and they think he's heading for Beverly Hills to court Elly. Drysdale promises Jane that he'll give her a big roll if she poses as Homer's father and so she comes in wearing overalls, a straw hat and a fake beard. When Jethro comes in saying there's a whole bunch of rolls in Drysdale's car she realizes that's the kind of "roll" Drysdale promised her and she sabotages the courtship of Elly by telling the Clampetts what a rotten kid Homer is. 

            Eb was played by Tom Lester, who really was a Mississippi farm boy. He graduated from the University of Mississippi with a science degree and taught science and biology in Oklahoma before moving to California. He played Eb Dawson on both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. He co-starred in the movie The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend. He returned to farming and owned a 250 acre timber farm in Mississippi. In 1997 he was named Mississippi's Wildlife Farmer of the Year. He was also a professional motivational speaker. He was the last surviving regular cast member of Green Acres.