Rhoda Williams

            On Thursday morning I ran through singing and playing “That I Love You Now Tell Him”, my translation of “Dis-lui toi que je t'aime” by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have it posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session as I’ve done since September 1 and will continue to do until October 15. This was one of the best sessions of this year’s recording project. I finished “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” in one take without any major mistakes. A lot of songs were done in one take. “Vomit of the Star Eater” took several though. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since September 11. 

            Around noon I took an early bike ride and on the way back stopped at Queen and Peter to meet Brian Haddon in front of what used to be The Black Bull. I was fifteen minutes early so I locked my bike and went to pee at the Peter Pan. Boy has that place gotten fancy! On the window it says “Since 2008” but the Peter Pan has been around at least since the early 80s. I realize that’s because it’s under new ownership but if they bought the name they have a right to claim the full heritage. I unlocked my bike and waited outside what used to be The Black Bull and what will be a sports bar named Score. A guy passing was in shock that the Black Bull is gone. He said it was one of the best pubs in Toronto. Then he lamented that there are very few pubs left in Toronto. He says The Wheat Sheaf is too expensive. Brian snuck up behind me a little after 13:00. We walked along Queen to Spadina, then he wanted to go south. At King we headed west and finally settled on Ruby Soho. They didn’t have Creemore or pitchers and so we each had two pints of Angel Lager while we were there. We also each had a bacon burger. The fries came in a little clay plant pot. The burger was a little sweet but not bad and the fries were great. We were probably there for a couple of hours. We were supposed to get together a month ago but work, a cold, and surgery kept getting in the way. I’m due for a haircut soon and so we’ll probably have lunch in his neighbourhood at the end of October when I go up to Topcuts at Yonge and St. Clair. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where most of the grapes were too soft. I bought one bag of green ones, two packs of raspberries, bananas, multigrain sandwich bread, salsa, and hair conditioner.

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:45. 

            I made a new batch of gravy from Monday’s chicken drippings. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Me and Gravity” I watched about another ten minutes of the 1922 silent film Sky High and edited out parts that don’t fit with my line “It’s the kind of place you leave” in reference to my heart as the Grand Canyon. There are about 36 minutes left. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching episode 18 of The Big Valley. 

            The first person we see in this story is William Shatner as a character named Brett Skyler arriving in Stockton. He enters Jarrad Barkley’s office and tells Esther the secretary he wants to see Jarrad. She says he’s busy but he hands her a half coin and tells her just to put it down on Jarrad’s desk and he’ll know who is here. She does and it turns out they are old friends and old law school roommates. Brett is brought back to the ranch as a guest. A little later a secret service man named Marth comes to see Jarrad and tells him Brett is involved in counterfeiting. Jarrad sneaks into Brett’s room, discovers a false bottom in one of his suitcases, and finds $20,000. He takes a bill to Marth, whose colleague examines it and says it’s not fake. Brett deposits his $20,000 in the bank and asks a lot of questions about the security. He notices there is an electric alarm system. This seems historically accurate, since such systems had recently been invented in 1880 when the show is supposed to take place. Brett withdraws $200 and rides to a little house on the outskirts of town where he meets his two partners Clyde and Ketchie. He gives Clyde $10 from the money he withdrew. In those days banks printed their own money. Clyde says the banker prints his bills from a stereotype and hasn’t spent money on a new design specifically for his bank. Brett says he doesn’t want to be involved with this job because of Jarrad, who offered to have him join his law firm. Clyde suggests he’d be just an errand boy for Jarrad. Jarrad later confirms that Brett would be an assistant at first. That night Brett, Clyde and Ketchie break into the bank, Brett disconnects the alarm and Ketchie cracks the vault. The money is stolen and replaced with counterfeit. The next day Brett comes to say goodbye but before he does Jarrad changes his job offer to that of a full partnership. Brett goes to Clyde and Ketchie who are counting the money. Brett pulls a gun on them and ties them up. He then takes the money back to the bank. Jarrad sees him break in. Brett puts all the real money back in the vault and puts the counterfeit in a sack. He has just closed the vault when Jarrad confronts him with a gun. But then Clyde and Ketchie arrive with guns and are about to leave with the bag when Brett reaches behind himself and reconnects the alarm, causing Clyde, Ketchie and himself to be caught. Marth examines the money and says the cash Brett took out was counterfeit. Jarrad says he’ll be Brett’s lawyer. 

            Jarrad’s secretary Esther was played by Rhoda Williams, who could read and write at the age of three and by the age of five could sing, dance, perform 100 sketches, and had written a book entitled “A Little Girl in a Big World”. She starred in the radio show “We Who Are Young”. She graduated from high school at 14 and later earned a Masters degree in Theatre Arts from the University of California. For five years she played Betty (Princess) on the radio version of Father Knows Best. She was the voice of Drizella in Cinderella. She dubbed the voice of Brigitte Bardot for the US version of Heaven Fell That Night. She did alien voices for Star Trek IV and V. She became a teacher of speech and dialects. She was active in several professional and civic organizations and was a union leader.