Wayne Maunder

            On Friday after midnight I added fresh carpet tape to the edges of my mattress. I lint rolled the curtains between the bedroom and caught a few bedbugs. I lint rolled my bed and pillow and found none. I couldn’t shake out the sheet and comforter on the deck because it was raining. I went to bed around 1:40. It felt like it took an hour to go to sleep. I woke up at 4:00 to pee and then went back to sleep until 5:00. I got up without grabbing my phone as I would normally do. After washing up, before yoga I started yoga later because I went to get my phone. After starting yoga I was lying on the floor and realized I’d forgotten to turn on Radio Canada so I got up to do that. I fell behind a couple of minutes because of those slips of memory. 

            I finished memorizing “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted A Little Money) by Boris Vian. On Saturday I’ll start revising my translation based on understanding the rhythm and the meaning better after memorizing it. 

            I published “The Lucky Tap Dance”, my translation of “La fille aux claquettes” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog and posted the lyrics on Facebook. The next untranslated song on my Gainsbourg list is “L’île enchanteresses” (The Enchanted Isle). I listened to it once and tomorrow I’ll start learning it. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I cleared some more stuff out of the storage area in the bedroom. I threw out some items but most of it is now crowding the kitchen. 

            I weighed 91.85 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos at 18:10. 

            I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I baked a salmon fillet and had half of it with wedge oven fries and gravy while watching episode 3 of the TV series Custer. 

            Custer’s 7th Cavalry comes to escort a trail drive and stops it from being raided by Sioux warriors. The trail boss, Kermit Teller says they’ve been attacked more than once since they left Texas and wonders why the escort wasn’t there sooner. Custer argues that Teller is a week ahead of schedule. He has 1200 steers and 200 horses to deliver to the US Cavalry. 

            Teller arrives with the herd at Fort Hays and says the Cavalry owes him $18 a head plus $20 for each horse. General Terry reminds him his contract states that the cattle must be delivered to Fort Wallace. Teller says he’s lost too many drovers to make that trip. Terry says Custer and his men will help with the drive and take orders from Teller. 

            Custer learns that Teller had been in the infantry in Michigan during the Civil War and has a grudge against Custer and the cavalry because they weren’t there when they needed them. 

            That night some of the cattle get spooked and stampede because the horse soldiers are wearing their swords and such which make clanking noises as they ride. Teller says that’s got to stop. 

            Custer and Teller get into a gratuitous fight. Custer beats him and then Crazy Horse’s warriors attack. Teller is wounded and so Custer takes over the role of trail boss. 

            Three Sioux not associated with Crazy Horse come begging for food, so Custer gives them a steer. When Teller complains Custer tosses him a $20 gold coin and says he owes him change. But when the Sioux men are preparing to slaughter the steer, Crazy Horse stops them and refuses to allow them to beg from the white man. 

            California Joe catches one of the drovers trying to escape the cattle drive and brings him back. Custer says the next man who tries to desert the cattle drive will be shot. 

            Custer tells Sergeant Bustard that if Teller tries to resume control of the drive, tie him to the supply wagon.

            Custer plans on taking the herd through Rocky Gorge but Joe sees 300 Kiowa and Sioux at the gorge cutting that route off. Custer says they’re going through anyway. He tells the men that when they get to the top of the gorge every man should fall back to the rear of the herd. They do so and as the Kiowa and Sioux start charging towards them, Custer has his men stampede the herd through the gorge. The warriors are overwhelmed and the herd gets through. 

            Custer returns control of the drive back to Teller the rest of the way to Fort Wallace where Custer and teller have the fight they’ve been itching to have. Custer wins and then they just continue dissing each other in a friendly way as they go for a drink. 

            Custer was played by Canadian actor Wayne Maunder, who was born in Four Falls, New Brunswick, about half an hour’s drive north of where I was raised. It’s very close to New Denmark where my father was brought up. But Maunder’s family moved to Bangor, Maine when he was 4 years old. I wonder if he was related to the Maunder family that were members of the rock band called The Common People that played at most of our high school dances. While studying Psychiatry in college in California he became interested in amateur theatre and switched to English and Drama. After college he decided to try it professionally in New York. He took lessons from Stella Adler and acted in stock theatre. He got signed to a studio in LA when a theatrical agent saw him in The Knack. He made his TV debut in a guest appearance on The Monroes in 1967. He then starred in Custer in 1968 but the show only lasted for 17 episodes. That was partly because indigenous groups protested their negative portrayal in the series, but mostly because it was defeated by being in the same time slot as both The Virginian and Lost in Space. He co-starred in the more successful western series Lancer. He co-starred in the short-lived police series The Chase. He starred in the movie The Seven Minutes. In his later career he produced independent films. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Luke Perry played a character who was based on Maunder.