John Van Dreelen

            On Tuesday morning I revised my translation of the seventh verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Road) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the first verse of “Baille baille Samantha” (Yawn Yawn Samantha” but “Baille” is pronounced like “Bye” so he’s playing with a double meaning). 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first session of four. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I had planned on going to Rottblott’s to shop for peel and stick tiles but it was raining pretty hard so I’ll go on Wednesday. 

            I checked the course enrollment site at U of T and found I’m down to number 3 on the waiting list for the Creative Writing course in January. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. 

            It was still raining when I got up from my siesta but after about half an hour it eased off so I decided to give a bike ride a try. I rode as far as Bloor and Gladstone and then south. The northbound one-way streets of Gladstone north of Dundas didn’t used to have “Bicycles Excepted” signs and so I’d always avoided taking it south from Bloor until today. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:05. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from August 28 to 30. On August 28 I played my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 7:00 was pretty good until the end, which was not horrible. On August 29 and 30 I played my Kramer electric. On August 29 the take at 15:15 was one of the best electric ones but not one of the best endings. On August 30 the take at 11:45 in Part B wasn’t bad, even the ending. 

            I continued my search for video clips that show an animation of Shiva Nataraj’s Tandava dance. I found a couple of things that might work but what I found yesterday might be better. I’ll download at least one of the clips tomorrow and see how it looks after editing. 

            I scanned two sets of colour negatives and one set of slides. The first set of negatives had shots of the Caribana parade, I assume from 1988, since I got back from Europe too late in 1987 for Caribana. There were some amazing costumes. The other set of negs had mostly street shots but there were some of my late friend Mike Copping’s child Noah. The slides were very dim and had mostly shots of my daughter around 1992. There are 27 full sets of negatives left to scan. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching season 4, episodes 2 and 3 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story there is a charity rummage sale approaching and Oliver and Lisa are going through their things to find something to donate. This story seems be an excuse for flashbacks because Lisa refuses to throw away any of her very large wardrobe of dresses and gowns and every dress evokes a memory and a story. One dress was the one she wore when she eloped with Oliver. A sweater is the one Oliver wore when he broke his leg falling from the ski lift during their honeymoon in Switzerland. The longest flashback comes from a dress she refuses to donate because it was the one she wore when they threw their housewarming party upon moving into their penthouse in New York. Mrs. Wilson is wearing the same dress and so Lisa changes. Then someone else is wearing the dress she changed to and so she changes again. Several workmen show up to do work on the apartment while the party is going on. The plumber’s wife comes wearing the same “designer” dress that Lisa and Mrs. Wilson were wearing except that she got hers from a discount store. In the end Lisa can’t donate anything and so they buy a rummage bundle that Haney is selling. 

            An old boyfriend of Lisa in the Switzerland flashback was played by John Van Dreelen, who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Holland by stealing a German soldier’s uniform from a cloak room. He played Captain Von Trapp in the first national tour of The Sound of Music. He was Richard Rodgers’s first choice to play the role in the movie. His first Hollywood film appearance was in A Time to Love and a Time to Die. He was the first Dutch actor to star on television in Shadow of a Man. He was fluent in several languages. 

            The temporary butler they hired for the party was played by Ronald Long. 

            In the second story there is a meeting of the volunteer fire department. Oliver says the department needs a major overhaul. They vote to fire Joe Carson but that wasn’t what Oliver wanted. Then they vote for Oliver as the new chief but that wasn’t what Oliver wanted either. Lisa thinks Oliver stabbed Joe in the back to get his job. Oliver decides to make everybody want to vote him out and so he goes around giving very strict inspections of people’s homes and businesses and issuing steep fines for infractions. His plan works and Joe is hired back.