I’ve mentioned before about my daily posts to a Sinatra list group where I posted about what Sinatra did on each calendar of the year. For a while, there have been some gaps in our listings of concerts when Sinatra was touring with Tommy Dorsey in 1940, 1941, and 1942. Recently I cam across some interesting news articles that document a Dorsey/Sinatra concert at a Bus Terminal of all places. Here’s that listing:
–May 8, 1941, Consolidated Bus Lines Terminal, Bluefield, West Virginia
Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra with Frank Sinatra
Here’s the accompanying news articles:
I went a little further and did some research and found the following photo and text from the book “Bluefield in the 1940s”:
TWO TO CROON. Frank Sinatra (right) and trumpet great Ziggy Elman posed for this publicity photograph by J.Vincent Lewis of Nunnaly’s Studio at408 Raleigh Street prior to a concert by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on May 8, 1941. The concert was held at Jack Craft’s Consolidated Bus Terminal at 2100Princeton Avenue. (Courtesy of Bluefield Daily Telegraph archives.)
I thought that the listing and the photo were significant enough that I would get some reaction or comments from our Sinatraphiles group. Nothing. So, I have to ask the question again, Is It Me?
My previous blahg to this one, THE HOHNER COMET, debuted my new short story by that name. I posted about it on my Facebook page and even sent it to my children. Again, nothing. At this point, the only one who responded is my wife because I read the story to her. I’m not looking for instant gratification but some acknowledgement would be nice.
I realize the phrase, “Is It Me?” should be followed by “or” in most cases. Like, Is it Me or has the world gotten more hostile? Why are Countries fighting with each other? Wasn’t there two world wars to stop other countries from bullying those around them? Or Is It Me or is there nothing good on television anymore? There isn’t. I like 9-1-1, Abbott Elementary, and a new show called “Elsbeth.” If you really want to know what I’m watching, check out a couple of recent blahgs where I talk about movies I’ve been watching, HAVE YOU WATCHED ANY GOOD MOVIES LATELY? and SCOTT, YOUR CORDIAL MOVIE REVIEWER. I’m going to update that soon because I’ve continued to watch a number of the other DVDs I purchase recently including some Sonja Henie films.
I didn’t think I would enjoy these films but I have and I’m going to finish watching all of her available films. I think there’s 12 and I only have a couple left to view.
Is It Me or is there is there too much anger and sadness and anxiety or depression in the world or are we getting better at spotting it? The past could of days my work has been very troubling because people are holding onto old hatreds and want to trot them out to stir up new ones. Even our politicians are guilty of promoting hatred and ill manners. When the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre is ejected from Parliament for calling our Prime-minister “wacko” and refuses to take back his comment, it doesn’t set any good example. And then his caucus walks out in support? What are you supporting, the bad behaviour of your leader? Grow up people! Is it me or have Canadians stopped being nice?. Isn’t that our stock and trade, being nice?
I choose to put my energy into acknowledging the good that people do. I’d like to hear from you. Give me your good…not your good, your bad, and your ugly.
You’ll probably be confused by the title of this blahg but if you give me a moment, I’ll explain. I’m going to take a break from my DVD reviews and post something fun…at least for me. The title refers to a recent purchase I made at a local thrift store. It’s a Hohner Comet harmonica made in Germany that I found for $20. Here are some photos of my purchase:
I’ve always wanted a nice harmonica and this one is more than nice. It is fantastic but I need to spend some time to learn how to play it. I’ll update you on that later on.
After I purchased the Comet I began to have the threads of a short story idea bouncing around in my head. The result is the short story below that bears the same name as the harmonica and the title of the blahg. Short blahg this time around but a longish short story. I hope you like it.
The Hohner Comet
By Scott Henderson
The Comet was a thing of beauty against the sky. The sun caught it just right and it glimmered and glistened and caught Wade Benson’s focus. He slowly lowered his hands and brought the Comet to his mouth and blew. It sounded even better than it looked.
The Hohner Comet was the harmonica Wade had denied himself all these years. In fact, he didn’t know he really wanted it until he saw it and even then convinced himself he had wanted it all his life. He’d affirmed himself of that and the first sounds he produced from it made him believe even more that the purchase was warranted.
He’d had a toy plastic harmonica when he was younger and there was a small metal one tossed in a junk drawer years ago but they were nothing like the Hohner Comet. The Comet was a gleaming metal masterpiece just over six inches in length with double rows of twenty holes front and back and curved from side to side like a crescent moon more than a comet. At its maximum width on both ends it was three inches and required two hands to handle it properly.
Wade couldn’t believe it when he saw it in the glass case of overpriced items at a local thrift store. He’d almost passed it by because it was surrounded by small antiques and cameras and graphic novels and action figures; all ticketed higher than their value. Nestled in the middle, barely visible in its slightly closed gold case with red trim and lettering, the Comet called to him and this time the price label didn’t induce sticker shock.
“Can I see that case in the middle?” he had asked of a teen-aged attendant. He tried not to show enthusiasm.
The salesperson grabbed up the harmonica and handed it to Wade. It was just another piece of merchandise and the young woman offered it up without any expression or any words passing between her and the potential customer.
Wade gently opened the case and casually removed the Comet and flipped it over and examined both sides. The case was in good shape but the Comet was remarkable.
“I’ll take it,” Wade said, not trying to betray exuberant interest. He handed over the exact purchase price and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He exited slowly and methodically and didn’t look back. Twenty dollars was a bargain and he almost felt like he was stealing it.
Outside, he quickly removed the Comet and held it up against the sun. The Comet was a thing of beauty against the sky. The sun caught it just right and it glimmered and glistened. Wade lowered it to his mouth and blew gently against the scale of notes. The sounds that emanated were even more beautiful than the Comet itself. This was when he knew for a fact that the Comet had been calling to him all his life.
“Lorna will hate it,” he said aloud to himself. Then he realized that Lorna wouldn’t be at home to see it. They were on a break. She’d never understand anyway, he thought. There were things about him now that even he didn’t understand.
It had been a rough year for Wade. It had started with the death of his Father. Wade hadn’t found a way to recover from that. His Father had been sick for some time but with his passing, Wade found himself racked with guilt; lost and searching for something. He couldn’t describe it.
Slowly, it began to affect his relationship with Lorna. He didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t tell her what he was thinking or feeling because he struggled himself to put words to it. He withdrew from her and the more he regressed into himself, the larger the distance grew between them.
Wade shoved the thoughts out of his mind. Standing outside beside his vehicle with a glistening harmonica was not the right place or the right time to try to make sense of things. Besides, his mouth was somehow sticky from his attempt at producing music from the Comet. Wade looked at the harmonica and noticed a slight residue on one side. In his excitement of the purchase he had failed to notice it. Wade wiped his lips on his sleeve, returned the Comet to its case, and then opened his car door; placing the harmonica gently on the passenger seat.
On the drive home he thought about the Comet and the experience of holding it and playing it in the parking lot. He tried not to think of anything else but thoughts of Lorna seeped in and memories of his Father hung around the edges until everything began to mesh with those faint notes of the Comet.
At home, he diligently disinfected the mouth organ and put an even brighter shine to the metal. He cleaned the case and replaced the Comet and brought it to his desk for further examination.
The first thing he did was to research the age and value of his purchase. He was startled to discover that it was as old as he was. More than a half century before, Wade and the Comet had come into existence in the same year. He’d also been correct about it being worth more than he had paid. His Hohner Comet was worth almost five times the price he’d paid. He couldn’t understand why they had let it go so cheaply. He also didn’t know what that residue had been on one side. He tried not to dwell on that. He’d cleaned it well and now it was time to learn to use it correctly.
There had been no instruction manual with the Comet and online information on how to properly play the instrument differed greatly. Wade viewed a few different videos until he stumbled on one that spoke to him about how he felt about the harmonica. It was all about the individual tones and familiarizing yourself with each note in sequence. It wasn’t about jumping into trying to play right away or learning an introductory song like ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’. Wade understood that. The Comet deserved better of him.
In the video, the instructor explained the range of notes on the scale and how you could produce different sounds by blowing directly into the holes and by drawing your breath back again through the same openings. He stressed the need to begin with listening to each of the twenty notes individually and not the sequence or even trying to play two or more notes at once.
Wade followed the advice in the video and used painter’s tape to cover all of the holes except the one note he wanted to hear. The instructor had railed against the use of masking tape because it would leave a sticky residue each time it was removed.
“So that’s what that was,” Wade said aloud to no one in particular. He’d tried not to give much thought to what he’d felt against his lips but the possibilities had not conjured great images. In the end, he’d pacified himself with the notion that it was caused by a child’s grimy hands fingering the Comet. He could have believed that but the residue hadn’t tasted like peanut-butter or jam or anything less offensive so he tried to let it go. The masking tape explanation eventually left him more at ease.
Wade removed himself to the living room and sat in his favourite chair. It was quiet now without Lorna. It wasn’t that she made constant noise or talked incessantly but he we accustomed to her sounds. Now, the house was empty and he was alone with his thoughts…and his harmonica.
He held the Comet to his mouth and began slowly with the upper and lower holes on the far left and listened to the lowest register of the scale. He closed his eyes and listened to the notes echo against the walls. He was right, Lorna would have hated it.
“Stop it,” he said; again, to no one in particular. He’d have to try harder to push thoughts of Lorna out of his mind.
It wasn’t easy. He knew the break was his fault. He knew it was coming. Lorna hadn’t said anything but Wade had seen the signs and he’d done nothing to prevent it. Even his children knew. They were grown and had homes of their own and did not drop in as frequently as they once did. Even his youngest had chosen a University far enough away so that she’d have an excuse not to visit as often. Wade was sorry for all of that.
“I said stop it!” he said again as firmly as he could. Try as he might, though, the thoughts kept coming. Wade was a man alone with his thoughts and alone in the world if he couldn’t find a way to pull it all back together. He was trying his best to concentrate only on the Comet but as the notes reverberated they stirred everything in him he’d been unable to communicate.
Wade was alone. He’d done this to himself. He wasn’t better off alone despite what he thought. His Father’s death had made him feel abandoned and he didn’t know what to do with that. He’d questioned everything and wondered if he’d always felt this way. His Father was gone and so was Lorna. Wade had even distanced himself from his Mother. He took all of that and heaped it onto himself. Sitting there with the Comet breaking the silence he wanted desperately to know what to feel.
He worked his way up the scale; removing and moving bits of tape and covering all the notes he didn’t intend to play. He listened to each solitary note and tried, as the video suggested, only experiencing each note, one at a time. Each note, however, seemed so familiar and significant to him while the recollection and knowledge of all of his relationships entangled with the music; resonating against the walls and returning to envelope Wade in a symphony of memories he struggled to grasp and hold onto.
He paused for moment before attending to the last note on the far right which would issue the highest note in the registry. His hands were trembling and tears were falling against his face. His lifetime was at his fingertips and each note was as joyous and painful as they could possibly be.
Wade wiped the tears and closed his eyes. He braced for the final experience. His breath caught in his throat and struggled to blow through the remaining holes. It would not be a long note because there was little left in Wade to give. His body shook and everything folded in on him as he produced the final sound.
He sat silently and listened to the echo of the final note. Oddly it came back to him in steady intermittent tones. There seemed to be a pattern to it and a steady reverberation every few seconds.
Wade opened his eyes and was met with the brightness of a room that was no longer his own. He was in some kind of medical setting and he was seated in a chair next to a hospital bed with an individual linked to life support. The steady tones he had heard were the chirping of a life support mechanism.
Wade stood up and looked down on the man in the bed. It was his Father.
“No, no, no, not here. Why am I here?” Wade stumbled and sat back down.
It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t really be there. But it was true. He knew this room and he somehow knew the day. This was when it had all ended for him. It made sense. He’d been at his Father’s side constantly in the last days and had stepped out only briefly to speak to his Mother and Lorna. When he’d returned, the machinery had settled into the final unending note that had signalled his Father was gone. Now Wade was here in that moment of his own absence. He hadn’t been there when his Father had died. Now he was.
Wade rose again and grabbed at his Father’s hand while his other hand held the Comet.
“I’m here Dad. I’m here now.” The tears began to come again. How unreal this all was. Wade reached out and stroked his Father’s face and leaned in and kissed him.
“I don’t know what’s happening Dad. I don’t know if this is real or not. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m here now.” He leaned in and kissed his Father. He reached out with both arms to hug his Father and then realized he was still holding the harmonica.
“Look Dad, it’s a Hohner Comet. It brought me back to you. I’m here now. You’re not alone.” He added softly, “I’m here now, you can go.” Wade held the Comet out and at that moment his Father died and the life support let out that long sound which matched the last note in the upper scale.
There was a ‘do not resuscitate order’ so no one would rush in but Wade knew at any moment his other self would return to find his Father gone. Wade didn’t know what to think or what to do. He instinctively raised the Comet to his mouth to match the unending tone from the machinery. He closed his eyes through his tears and tried to blow. He found he couldn’t do it. He began to sob and as he did he began to pull in air through the opposite side and the final note sounded in reverse and Wade was returned to his living room; standing alone and listening to the reverberating note fading into nothingness.
Wade collapsed into his chair and dropped the Comet into his lap. He wept openly and long. It couldn’t have been real but it seemed that way.
After his Father died, that first time, he had cursed himself for not being there at the moment of his death. He knew his Father’s passing would have happened whether he’d been in the room or not but he’d always thought his presence might have helped his Father ease along. The truth wasn’t about his Father but rather about Wade’s guilt. Now the Comet had given him a second chance to experience it. Nothing had stopped his Father from slipping away. The outcome would always have been the same. Wade realized that now. The outcome would always have been the same.
Wade thought of his Mother and Lorna after he had found his Father. He had run from his Father’s bedside to find them. There had been few words and many tears and Lorna had comforted him. His Mother had gone to her husband’s side and stood holding his hand. She had said nothing to Wade but he had felt her actions of turning from her son to be with her late husband was somehow like blame for Wade not being there in the last moments. This was how it had all begun and ended at the same time.
It couldn’t have happened, Wade thought to himself. He couldn’t have been there but somehow he knew it had been real. The Comet had taken him to a significant moment he had missed the first time around. He was confident of that.
Wade picked up the Comet from his lap and stared at it. He turned it over in his hands. It couldn’t have been possible but somehow that one note at the far end had transported him there and he’d heard the last chirps measuring the final moments of his Father’s life before the long tone signalling the end. The pitch had been the same as that from the Comet.
Wade got up and wandered the house; holding the Comet tightly in his hand. All of the notes had faded out in the distance and he was alone in the quiet. He wanted desperately to speak to Lorna and tell her of his experience. He understood how it had been. He’d been distant and he wasn’t there for her. He knew now it could be different. It was like he’d told his Father in the final moments, “I’m here now.”
Wandering through the house and peering in all the rooms, he felt the emptiness of the home he’d made with Lorna. He made his way to their bedroom and stared at the half made bed. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to lying on her side and so it was just as she had left it. His side, with the covers pulled back, was like the disorganization of his mind. There were a jumble of emotions and thoughts and he was trying to piece them all together.
Wade walked over to the dresser and fingered some of the things Lorna had left behind. There was her hairbrush along with some lotions and perfumes. He sprayed one into the room and smelled the mist that hung in the air. This had been her favourite. It reminded him of all the good things about Lorna he’d taken for granted this past year.
“It’s just a break. She’s coming back.” Wade tried to believe that as he stared into the dresser mirror and spoke to himself. “Lorna’s coming back.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at her things on the dresser. She hadn’t taken everything. She’d come back for them. Maybe she’d come back for him.
Wade thought about the experience with the Comet. He felt that if he could just explain all of this to Lorna then it would be a start. He couldn’t be certain. He wasn’t certain of anything. It had only been a few minutes since the Comet had brought him back, hadn’t it? The more time that passed, the more he struggled to hold onto the memory.
He examined the Comet again and wondered if had really happened or, if it did, could it happen again? What if nothing happened? Worse, what if it was the same moment all over again? Could he handle that once more?
Wade closed his eyes and held up the Comet. He had to know for certain. His hands trembled but he managed to bring the Comet to his mouth. It was the only way. He had to know.
The note sounded longer than when he’d first tried it in the other room. He felt the note resonate throughout him and he sensed he was no longer in his bedroom. The note continued and others joined it and a woman’s voice joined in accompaniment.
Wade opened his eyes to find himself sitting in a pew at the back of a Church. Everyone around him was on their feet as a woman at the front sang along to an organist working their way through Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Some of the notes in the song matched the one he had played sitting there alone on the side of the bed.
He instinctively stood like the others and looked around. He knew this moment. His eyes quickly darted from the front to the rear and back to the front again. This was his own wedding! There he was at the front, grinning like an idiot and steps away were his parents…his Father alive again.
Wade turned again and saw the bride being escorted by her own Father. It was Lorna. Wade’s heart broke to see her and not to be able to reach out to her. He also wanted to dash ahead and embrace his Father and then his Mother.
This was a joyous moment and all he could do was watch from the corner and not join in.
“Why here?” he wondered. What was the significance and what was he to learn from this? Had it been caught up in his longing for Lorna? Was that the secret of the Comet? Did it show you what you wanted to see? Did it bring you to moments you needed to re-experience?
Lorna was beautiful. She always had been. She still was. He watched her reach the front of the church and saw her take the hand of his younger self. Wade instinctively looked down at his own hand and saw there the Comet. He wondered if it was time to go. He could stay and watch the ceremony but he knew the takeaway. That grinning idiot of a groom loved Lorna and this Wade, who should have been older and wiser, still did; even though he hadn’t shown that in a while.
Wade put the harmonica to his mouth but before he could draw in his breath, the note sounded all on its own. Wade looked up and saw everyone turn to stare at the organ. The vocalist, Lorna’s cousin Barb as he now recalled, had finished singing but the last note from the organ stuck on the final refrain and continued to everyone’s surprise.
“I remember this,” Wade said aloud. Indeed he did remember. He also knew what came next.
The Minister walked over to the organ and slammed it hard on the back with his palm.
“Sorry about that everyone, it sticks sometimes. But on that note, shall we begin?” The congregation broke out in laughter and so did Wade. “Dearly Beloved,” the Minister began.
Wade knew this was his signal. The Minister had said “on that note.” What was more appropriate? Wade closed his eyes and drew back on the harmonica and was drawn back to his own bedroom in his own time.
The room was the same. Nothing had changed. There were Lorna’s things on the dresser. Wade’s eyes moved further along and stopped on the framed photo at the end. He walked to it and picked it up. It was a wedding photo of Lorna and Wade. There were others in the living room but this had been Lorna’s favourite. There was the groom, Wade, staring at his bride with that ‘grinning idiot’ look that this Wade recognized from his younger self he’d seen standing at the front of the church only moments ago.
Wade replaced the photo and looked away; drawing his focus back to the Comet. It had happened again. He had questioned it when he’d first been transported to his Father’s side but now he’d just returned from his own marriage ceremony. It wasn’t just the memory of having been there both times but the realization that the same note from the far end of the harmonica had been present on both occasions. It had signalled the end of his Father’s life in one instance and the beginning of his married life with Lorna in the other. How strange it was that he now recalled that note clearer than before. How could he have forgotten the key sticking on the organ? The unending sound from the life support machine hadn’t been forgotten; he’d tried hard to deliberately block it out. It had been too painful.
Wade held up the Comet and wondered if that had been all there was to it. Were there just the two defining moments? Something told him there had to be something more. The more he thought of that final note, the more it pressed him to remember something else. Did the Comet hold another secret? There was only one way to find out. Wade closed his eyes, while pursing his lips, and blew long and hard into the far right opening.
The experience was the same as it had been before. He sensed it. He opened his eyes to find himself no longer where he had stood before. Gone was his bedroom and that photo of the ‘grinning idiot’. This new room was a pale blue and decorated with cartoon animal caricatures. It was a nursery of some sort. Wade turned and viewed what he knew instinctively would be there. It was a baby’s crib and inside was a young infant beginning to stir.
Wade did not recognize this room or this moment. He had no memory of this. The only thing familiar were the notes of a musical mobile suspended above the crib. One of those notes was the same note that brought him here. He could hear it winding down and soon it was quiet. But it wasn’t quiet for long. The baby began to stir more vigorously and to cry out.
Wade was confused. Who was this child? Where were they? When were they? He didn’t have time to think long on his own questions because he heard someone coming down a hall. He looked around and spied a closet. Wade quickly hid himself within; leaving the door open a crack so he could watch the scene unfold. He’d had a brief thought when this might be but with no memory of his own, he couldn’t be sure.
He watched as a young woman entered the room and went to the child’s side. Wade had only quickly caught a glimpse of her before she had turned her back to him.
“Hush now, what’s the fuss?” She leaned in and picked up the babe and cradled it in her arms.
“Is everything okay?” Wade glanced over at a young man who had entered the room. At first Wade thought it was another past version of himself but then he realized it was his Father. That meant the woman was his Mother!
The woman walked out into the room with the infant and began to rock him back and forth. Wade could see her clearly now. It was his Mother and she was holding him. No wonder he had no memory of this. He’d been too young to recall it but that note had played and the chord had remained with him.
“It’s all right,” his Mother said to his Father. “The mobile had just run down. Can you wind it again?” Wade’s Father obliged.
“That’s all? Are you sure he’s not hungry or maybe something else? Maybe he, well, you know.” Wade’s Father couldn’t bring himself to say what he was thinking. Silently from his hiding spot, Wade chuckled to himself. He’d been the same way when his own children had been born. He didn’t like to talk about it but he’d pitched in and done his share of diaper changing. Wade wondered how his Father had fared in that department.
“He’s all right, I tell you,” his Mother continued. “You’re going to be all right Wade. Mother’s here now. I’m here now.” The infant Wade was quiet and his Mother placed him back in the crib and both parents silently stole from the room as the mobile played on with its familiar notes.
Wade quietly crept from the closet and looked down at his younger self. This one wasn’t a ‘grinning idiot’ yet but Wade knew it would come. Wade knew what was in store for this child.
“You’ll be okay kid. I think we both will be.” Wade smiled and then closed his eyes; raising the Comet and drawing back against the far right holes.
The return experience was the same. He felt the shift and on opening his eyes he knew he’d be back in his own bedroom. He was.
Wade didn’t dwell on his return or this last experience. He had to try it again. He had to know what else there was to learn. Nothing happened, however, on subsequent tries. There was no folding and no re-experienced memories. Only the note sounded and then was gone. He removed and moved the bits of tape and tried every hole. Only the notes sounded.
Wade placed the Comet on the dresser in front of his wedding photo.
“We’ve had quite the time kid,” he said to his photo, “or times, depending on how you look at.” He looked away from the photo and towards the Comet and then back to the photo again.
It had all been real and that one note had been signalling to him each time. For all Wade knew, it had been signalling to him all of his life. All of that, he thought, from a single note. He’d have to learn them all now. He’d have to learn to properly play the Comet.
“Take care of it for me,” he said to the photo of the ‘grinning idiot’. “I’ll get back to it. There are some other things that need my attention first.”
Wade knew he’d get back to the harmonica and he would master it but he needed to define his focus somewhere else first. He needed to fix things with his Mother and with Lorna. He understood that now. They had never abandoned him. He’d done that to himself.
“I don’t know what this has all been about but I think I get the gist,” he said to the Comet. “You’ll be okay, Wade” he said to his photo. “You’ll be okay,” he repeated to his reflection. He stroked the Comet and turned to leave the bedroom. As if in answer, the final note sounded.
Wade bent down and put and ear to the harmonica. It was silent but throughout the house the final note was sounding. It took him a moment before he realized it was his door chime.
Wade hustled through the house and to the front door. The chime had stopped and he could hear the sound of a key fitted in the lock. The door opened to reveal…
“Lorna, you’re here?” Wade looked at this wife and grinned that idiot smile.
Lorna looked back at Wade and wondered about the smile. She hadn’t seen her husband’s smile in a long time.
“Oh, Wade, I didn’t know you were home. I tried the bell first but there was no answer.”
“I’m here now,” Wade responded.
Lorna looked at Wade and recalled his words. It was something in the way he’d said ‘I’m here now’ that indicated he really was.
Here I am back again which will probably amount to a part two of my last blahg HAVE YOU WATCHED ANY GOOD MOVIES LATELY? I thought of actually titling this blahg “Have You Watched Any Good Movies Lately 2” but that wouldn’t be very creative. I’m working my way through all of the Warner Archive and Fox Manufacture On Demand DVDs that I purchased over my holidays or others I’ve purchased this year. I don’t think I’ll get to all of them but I’ll make a stab it at least.
Since my previous blahg, I have watched only a few more from the pile. I’ll start with the two Warner Archives I watched, “The Oklahoman” from 1957 and “Broadway Serenade” from 1939. First up is “The Oklahoman” with Joel McCrea. I extolled the virtues of Joel McCrea in my last blahg, when I reviewed “Primrose Path” and “Stars In My Crown.” I really liked “The Oklahoman.” It plays more like an episode of the television show “Gunsmoke” but it’s a good movie. McCrea plays a Doctor in a small town raising his little girl on his own and running up against the bad rancher who wants to steal oil from a Native American. Great acting by McCrea in this one. “Broadway Serenade” was also a surprise hit with me. This is another nice one from Jeanette MacDonald with Lew Ayres and Frank Morgan. Morgan is funny in all his scenes but MacDonald and Ayres are brilliant. They’re a vaudeville couple who go their separate ways when her career becomes big and his fails. I know, sounds like the plot of “A Star Is Born” but the ending in this one is better. Talk about the end, the finale produced by Busby Berkley for the song “None But The Lonely Heart” is so over the top that they can do nothing but end the film with it. Great singing and great acting in this one. If you’ve never heard the song “None But The Lonely Heart” then check out Sinatra’s 1959 version in the video below. Sinatra had also recorded it in 1946 and 1947. Thirty years after the 1939 version of that song in “Broadway Serenade” Sinatra released a stellar version:
The only Fox Archive DVD I watched since my last blahg, was the 1949 film “The Fan” with Jeanne Crain, Madeleine Carroll, and George Sanders. It is based on the Oscar Wilde Play “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” I have never seen the play but the most appealing things about this film are the beginning and the end. I snoozed somewhere between. An elderly woman played by a makeup aged Madeleine Carroll tries to retrieve a fan from a London auction house at the end of World War 2. She says the fan belongs to her but the auction house won’t give it to her unless she can supply a corroborating witness. She digs up the makeup aged George Sanders and then there’s a flashback for the rest of the movie about Lady Windermere and her Fan and how Madeleine Carroll came to acquire Lady Windermere’s fan. The end is set again in post war London. Maybe fans of Wilde will like it better but it was just okay to me.
Talking about disappointing films, I really wanted more from the movie “The Moonlighter” from 1953. It’s another pairing of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. They were excellent together in “Remember the Night” from 1939 and “Double Indemnity” from 1944. They even starred together in 1956’s “There’s Always Tomorrow” which I have on a Universal Vault DVD but I haven’t watched that one yet. “The Moonlighter” has Fred as a cattle rustler who escapes being hanged then sets out to exact vengeance against the men who hanged an innocent person instead of MacMurray. Barbara plays an old girlfriend who tries to bring MacMurray to justice. It sounds interesting but there just wasn’t enough for me in this movie. Maybe “There’s Always Tomorrow” will be a better pairing
Another disappointing film was 1937’s “Ready, Willing and Able.” The songs were not memorable but Ruby Keeler was decent enough in it. Her character has the same name of a British star and Ruby and gets mistakenly drafted in the lead of a new Broadway production. The only problem is that she can dance but she can’t sing…at least not well. Even the final production number of dancing on a giant typewriter doesn’t bolster the film.
Okay, back to what I did enjoy. “Killer McCoy” from 1947 with Mickey Rooney was fun. Rooney’s a fighter who gets mixed up with gamblers. The fight scenes are realistic and James Dunn as Mickey’s father is great to watch. Rooney doesn’t overact and it makes for a good solid film. The 1944 film “The Master Race” was stunning. The story is about the fall of Nazis and how one Nazi in disguise is sewing the seeds of hatred and fear in a town in Belgium. You get to see how people came to hate all Germans although all Germans were not Nazis. Watch for a young “Lloyd Bridges.” And finally, “Roughly Speaking” from 1945 with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson. What a great pairing. She’s a single mother raising four children after her husband leaves her and then she marries Jack Carson who’s a dreamer with lots of ideas and ambition but not much luck. The early story of Rosalind Russell’s character from teenager to wife to motherhood to wife a second time is very intriguing and just one of those films where you can’t wait to see what comes next. I like Jack Carson. He’s done some great films and Rosalind Russell holds this movie together. I can’t recommend it enough.
I’m going to end this one with one more disappointment and one more film that I really liked but might seem controversial. Disappointing: “Duchess of Idaho” from 1950. Two great stars, Esther Williams and Van Johnson in a not so great film. It’s a romantic musical of a love triangle between Willams, Johnson, and John Lund. I can’t even remember the songs. I like Esther Williams and most of her films and I really enjoyed her autobiography “The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography.” Fascinating reading. The movie…not so much. “A Majority of One” from 1961 was one I liked. Rosalind Russell is back again but this time with Alec Guinness. She’s a jewish widow who is invited to live with her daughter and son-in-law while the son-in-law is posted in Japan. This is post World War 2 so there’s still some bitterness regarding the Japanese. The controversy is the relationship that Rosalind Russell’s character builds with a Japanese character played by Guinness. The heavy makeup to make Guinness look Japanese wouldn’t fly today because there are Japanese actors who should be cast in these types of roles. The film still is well worth watching but I don’t condone the casting. The best part of it is Rosalind Russell’s character and Mae Questel, the voice of Olive Oyl in early Popeye cartoons as well as the voice of Betty Boop. Questel’s character in this film is a bit of a bigot but she learns and it’s all tongue in cheek. Despite all of the controversial issues, I still can recommend the film.
So where does that leave me? I think I still have to review “Bachelor Mother”, “Colleen”, “British Agent”, “Fallen Sparrow”, “Private Lives”, “The Scarlet Coat”, “So Goes My Love”, “Confidential Agent” as well as the other MacDonald/Eddy films, the solo Jeanette MacDonald films, and all those Sonja Henie films. Oh yeah, the two Boston Blackies and the other MacMurray/Stanwyck film. Is that “Have You Watched Any Good Movies Lately Part 3” or is there a Part 4 after that? Stay tuned.
This is not the blahg I was going to write but I hope it will be interesting nonetheless. I have some new records I’ve purchased and some Canadian music content I want to revisit but couldn’t get started on it. I recently came off of holidays and some of the shopping I did inspired me to do a little write up on my purchases and one of my favourite pastimes, of watching classic movies. I know, I’m a lazy sort of cuss. I can’t get inspired to write the music themed blahg and I’m substituting it with a lazy man’s hobby of vegging out to an old film. Give this blahg a read before you judge me.
I once wrote a blahg titled HAVE YOU READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY? and I talked about some books I had read prior to writing that blahg. This time it’s about movies. I think I have posted in the past about the large DVD collection my friend Bryan and I share. We both do the buying and the movies are eventually stored at my house. We are both fans of classic movies so most of the official releases of classic films are somewhere in my home. We have many boxed sets and single releases. The problem is that most of what people deem as classics are the popular films from the 30s and 40s and 50s and there are lots of older films that never get to be seen. Some have even had no DVD releases at all. That’s where the Manufacture On Demand (MOD) programs through Warner Archives, Universal, Sony, and 20th Century Fox have released a number of films that I think fall in the “classic” genre simply because they’re from the golden age of Hollywood; even though some aren’t consider classic and the stories are a little weaker or less well known.
In the past, I have set out to collect the films of certain artists like Glenn Ford and Bette Davis and many of their early films have only had MOD releases. There are at least a dozen or more films by both those artists, in my collection, that I’ve purchased through the MOD program. The thing about these discs is that they are not readily available in stores and there was a time you couldn’t purchase them at all in Canada. I recall with fondness the big Sunrise Records store in downtown Toronto. In the back, they had several walls of Manufacture On Demand DVDS from the big four studios I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately that store closed in 2014 and finding them new means ordering from Amazon or Ebay. Some are even out of print and hard to find. Used copies, up to now, have been difficult to come across. I think my local used DVD store has only had a handful in the past ten years and I think there was only one I didn’t have. I said “up to now.” That’s where this blahg really begins.
My local used DVD store is called “Chumleighs” and there are branch locations in Kingston and Peterborough as the well as the one here in Belleville. I should note that I have had success at a couple of BMV stores in Toronto (Books Music Video) but I don’t always get to Toronto. As I said, the Belleville store hasn’t had any in a while. On some recent trips to the Kingston Chumleighs I started to see some MODs I wasn’t aware of. Here are some photos of some of my purchased over the last little while:
To be fair, “So Goes My Love” and “Confidential Agent” were purchased from Amazon and of course I posted a picture of “The Scarlet Coat” twice. Last week I got back to Chumleighs in Kingston and purchased a few more and found a couple at the Chumleighs on my visit to Peterborough and some others at two different BMVs in Toronto. Here’s part of my score:
I mentioned a couple of DVDs I purchased on Amazon and then realized there were a few others I had purchased from Amazon over the past few months:
Most of the MOD DVDs I posted above are from the Warner Archive Collection but I did pick up two Sony MODs:
One from the Universal Vault Series:
A handful from the Fox Cinema Archives:
I also purchased the following four Sonja Henie films from the Fox Archives:
So what about the title about watching good movies and the part about sitting on my butt? I thought I’d post my reviews of the films I have watched from my pile but because I haven’t watched them all and I keep adding to them, the pile isn’t getting much shorter.
Let me start with the two Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields films, “Holy Matrimony” and “Molly And Me.” I had seen “Holy Matrimony” years ago but could never remember the title of the film. Of the two films, “Holy Matrimony” is mostly all Monty Woolley and “Molly And Me” is mostly all Gracie Fields. They play off each other well. In “Holy Matrimony” Woolley pretends to be his valet who died and gets buried with the public thinking that Woolley’s character is dead. He then marries Gracie Fields who had been corresponding with Woolley’s valet for the purpose of marriage ever though she had never laid eyes on him. Fun ensues because Woolley’s a renowned artist and some of his new paintings get out into the public…after he’s supposed to be dead. With “Molly And Me”, Gracie Fields, an actress, needs work so she gets the job of managing the household of Monty Woolley’s character. She soon has the entire household staff quit and she has to replace them with her actor friends. A little weaker than “Holy Matrimony” but fun nonetheless.
Before writing about the Warner Archives I have watched, I’ll continue with the other Fox Cinema Archives that I have viewed. Working backwards, I want to discuss the 1950 film “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” with Dorothy McGuire and William Lundigan. The treat here is Dorothy McGuire. I’ve always been a fan of her acting. She was phenomenal in “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” and the movies “Claudia” and “The Spiral Staircase.” I don’t think you can go wrong with a Dorothy McGuire movie. Her last film before “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” was in 1947 with “Gentleman’s Agreement” for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” is a delight after a three year film absence from Dorothy. She plays an innocent woman who finds out the hard way what it’s like to be married to a Doctor who’s always on-call. The movie would have been a second rate movie I think if Dorothy’s role was played by someone else. Every scene she is in is a delight and the film is worth it if only for seeing an innocent and naive Dorthy learn to hold her own against some other jaded people.
The other two films I’ve viewed from the Fox Archives that I’ll quickly mention are “Hold That Co-Ed” and “Thanks A Million. Let’s start with “Hold That Co-Ed” from 1938. The description for this film is “A sly Southern governor creates a winning state college football team in order to sway constituents to vote him into a higher office.” It stars John Barrymore, George Murphy, Marjorie Weaver, and Joan Davis. I don’t think I would have picked it up except the description was intriguing and I think John Barrymore is fun when he tries to play comedy. Check out the screwball comedy film “True Confession” from 1937 with Barrymore. He’s a hoot. He’s also a hoot in “Hold That Co-Ed.” I don’t remember any of the songs but Barrymore and Joan Davis have all the comic moments. “Thanks A Million” from 1935 is the weaker of the two films. Dick Powell is a vaudevillian who ends up giving a speech for an inebriated gubernatorial candidate and then gets backed for Governor himself by a crooked political machine. The songs are not memorable in this one either and you’d think with talent like comics Fred Allen and Patsy Kelly that it would amount to something. It doesn’t. Raymond Walburn as the drunken candidate replaced by Powell steals every scene he’s in. I think that’s the only saving grace about this film. Even having Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra add nothing to this film. The “Yacht Club Boys” are a musical quartet that add some other humour and their musical numbers are comedic and not so bad. As for the other Fox Archives films, I have yet to watch any of the Sonja Henie films or “The Fan” with Jeanne Crain. “Come To The Stable” I saw a long time ago so I won’t comment on it until I’ve seen it again.
Where to being with the Warner Archives films? I have not watched “There’s No Tomorrow” from the Universal Vault Series or either of the two Boston Blackie films from Sony. Of the Warner Archive films shown earlier in this blahg, I have watched 24 of them. This blahg would be extremely long if I chose to review all 24. Let me pick and choose a few and then I’ll do a second blahg, maybe, highlighting some of the others.
I happen to like Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. A few years ago I found the two films “Girl of the Golden West” and “New Moon” starring both of MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. It was on two separate occasions at the same thrift shop that I came across these films and only paid $2 each time. Quite the bargain each time. I’d always wanted to see “New Moon” because the great comic Buster Keaton had a role in the film but most of his scenes had been cut. Still, you can catch him in the background or crowd scenes. Both “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” are charming films. Eddy and MacDonald made eight films together including these two and “Naughty Marietta”, “Rose Marie”, “Maytime”, “I Married An Angel”, “Sweethearts”, and “Bitter Sweet.” I always wanted to own all of their films and Chumleighs from Kingston supplied me with the other six films with the exception of “Naughty Marietta” which I ordered from Amazon. I haven’t watched them all and I won’t discuss “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” but for the purposes of this blahg, I will write about “Rose Marie” and “Bitter Sweet”.
“Rose Marie” was probably the first Eddy and MacDonald film I ever saw from years ago. The plot is simple. In rural Canada, Jeanette is trying to get to her brother who is on the run from the RCMP for murder and Nelson is the RCMP officer tracking her brother. It is noteworthy that this 1936 film was one of James Stewart’s first roles as Jeanette’s brother. The chemistry between MacDonald and Eddy is what makes this film work. It’s a great story with great characters and beautiful singing. It still remains my favourite film of this pair. The 1940 film “Bitter Sweet”, I’ll be honest was not as good as “Rose Marie”. It is based on the operetta “Bitter Sweet” by Noël Coward. It tells the story of the romantic relationship between a music teacher and his prize pupil. The chemistry is still there between the two leads but the story set in the late 19th century Vienna drags and by the end, I found myself dozing off. Even Noël Coward didn’t like the film adaptation. Oh well, I have four more of their films to watch so I’ll look forward to those.
One of my other favourite actors is Joel McCrea. In my recent purchases were the two films “Primrose Path” from 1940 and “Stars In My Crown” from a decade later in 1950. These two films couldn’t have been more widely different. “Primrose Path” also has Ginger Rogers and she is a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who quickly marries McCrea’s character and then tries to keep him from finding out about her family. There’s some great scenes between the two leads but other scenes are also stolen by other cast members like Henry Travers as Gramp, Queenie Vassar as the Grandmother, and a young Joan Carroll as Rogers’ baby sister Honeybell. Just a very nice story with lots of humour. “Stars in My Crown” features McCrea again but this time as a preacher whose faith tames a rural town by inspiring the townspeople. He also butts heads with the new Doctor in town who is also the son of the old Doctor who was well loved and respected but sadly passed on. Watch for a young Dean Stockwell in this one. McCrea’s style of quiet acting is powerful and this film reminded me of another Warner Archive McCrea film called “Wichita” where he plays Wyatt Earp as the new marshal of Wichita. I can highly recommend other McCrea films “The More The Merrier”, “Foreign Correspondent” directed by Alfred Hitchock, and “Sullivan’s Travels” directed by Preston Sturges.
There were also two Hedy Lamarr features in my recent haul. These were “Crossroads” from 1942 and “Experiment Perilous” from 1944. Hedy Lamar is very sultry in both films but I’ll give my credit in “Crossroads” to William Powell. The description of this film from Wikipedia is “Powell plays a diplomat whose amnesia about his past subjects him to back-to-back blackmail schemes, which threaten his reputation, job, marriage, and future. Basil Rathbone plays a sleazy blackmailer in this one and the story and acting are all good. Hedy Lamarr plays Powell’s concerned wife. “Experiment Perilous” is a gaslighting type film with Hedy Lamarr as the victim. George Brent is a Doctor friend who is trying to unravel the relationship between Lamarr and her domineering husband played by Paul Lukas. It was an interesting movie but I think there could have been more to it. George Brent is an underrated actor but certainly does the best he can with the script.
I don’t want to keep going much further on this particular blahg and I’m certainly not at the point of writing up about all 24 of the Warner Archives I have seen. I’ll pick out a couple more that I enjoyed and save the rest for next time. “Hard To Get” from 1938 is a fun film with Olivia de Havilland and Dick Powell. Dick Powell certainly fares better here than he did in “Thanks A Million.” Powell’s the manager of a gas station who has to put up with the stuck up rich character played by de Havilland. She sets out to get even with him but of course romance ensues. I’d characterize it as a romantic comedy and Charles Winninger, who plays de Havilland’s father, steals every scene he’s in. The other film I really enjoyed was 1948’s “Night Song” with Merle Oberon and Dana Andrews. She’s a wealthy woman who falls for a blind pianist but then she pretends to be blind so she can have a relationship with him. Of course, he gets his sight back and she has to pretend to be someone else with a phony accent so she can interact with him. The fun is, again, not the leads but the interaction between secondary characters Ethel Barrymore and Hoagy Carmichael. Their interactions are worth the price of admission alone. Without them, this might have been a heavy handed soap opera but they provide the comic relief to prevent the story from becoming too melodramatic. Going back to Olivia de Havilland, I just want to mention a film of hers with Charles Boyer I watched recently called “Hold Back The Dawn” from 1941. Fantastic movie. Again, it comes down to the chemistry between the leads. The only problem with the film is that it has not had a DVD or Blu-Ray release in North America. There’s apparently a nice Blu-Ray release in the United Kingdom. It needs to be released over here!
That’s it for now. Obviously there’s more here I can review or comment on but I’ll save some of that for future blahgs. These old movies have some great stories and great performers in them. Sometimes it’s the supporting cast though that make a movie. Of course some of the stories also have things that don’t hold up well. There’s a scene in “Hard To Get” where Dick Powell dons blackface and it made me cringe. There were also some films where Asian or African American actors had subordinate roles. I won’t condone any of that but if you go into a movie knowing these things are wrong, it’s okay to enjoy the movie if it makes you laugh or cry. I’m glad that Warner Achives, Fox, Universal, and Sony issued these movies. I’m hoping that some of the others I’ve yet to view will entertain me as much as some of these I’ve written about. Time will tell…but that’s another blahg and another day.
This will be a quick blahg with exciting news. My novel, “Pippa’s Passing” is finally ready to order from Amazon. I started writing the book in February 2022 and now, two years on, it’s been edited and fine tuned and ready for readers to take it on.
When I first started writing it, I published a blahg, PIPPA’S PASSING about two months into the writing process. And in mid-June of 2022 in the blahg, SOME THINGS TO CELEBRATE…TEN YEARS ON I commented how I had finished writing my book. Here’s what I said:
I have been meaning to write this novel for ten years and finally started it in February of this year. It’s a hard process to describe. Once I had started, the characters began to speak to me and told me what to write. I had no conceived notions where the book was going at times but when I sat down each day, the words were there and formed the story. I’ve always had the beginning and ending over the last decade but I had not idea what direction it would take. I’m happy with it. Now I have to send it out to see if I can get it published.
I did send it out to a few publishers over the past couple of years but with no success. The publishing market is probably flood every year with submissions and I guess I didn’t do a good enough job of promoting it to them. So, I decided to go the Amazon route and have spent the last couple of months working on the format for both the Kindle electronic version and the paperback version.
The cover design for my book has always been based on my daughter Abbie’s artwork. This is how the Kindle cover version will be displayed:
When it came to the paperback version, Abbie and I consulted and thought a wrap around cover might look better. We had to consider the spine and what text would be on the back. The initial layout, as designed by Abbie, looked like this:
You can’t really read the back cover text but below are the front and back covers broken out and you can click on them to view a larger version.
The proof copy of my book arrived last weekend. Here’s what it looked like:
It took me all week to read through it at 385 pages. I had to check every word and line. Some of the software I used caused some formatting issues and of course I may have missed a quotation mark or odd comma or period. I made no major changes but managed to tweak a little to make it even stronger. Here’s a photo of me that Jeanette took when I first received the proof:
I also made the bold decision to update my Facebook page with my real name and posted about my book being available through Amazon. I’ve never had a public Facebook page before but if I want to promote my book then I have to get on with it.
What’s left to say? Oh, I know, PLEASE BUY MY BOOK! Here’s the link:
Parts of this blahg may be wholly unbelievable but are nonetheless the truth. It’s probably best to get into the current topics without too much preamble. So here goes.
The easiest thing to start off with is this year’s Christmas Tree Launch. In a blahg last year about the 2023 Christmas Tree Launch, HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS? I recalled how I had written a blahg in 2019 called MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS and described my tradition of launching my Christmas Tree in the creek at the bottom of my property:
I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree. At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts. Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in. It’s swept up in the current and disappears. I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometre before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight. In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea. More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.
So now it’s 2024 and time for me to post the video of this year’s Christmas Tree Launch. To be clear, the tree was from Christmas of 2023 but it’s being launched in 2024. Here’s a picture of what it looked like last week as it lay on my deck waiting to be rediscovered:
Well, the snow melted and I was able to get at the tree. Here’s the 2024 Launch:
The next launch that I want to discuss is the launch of my book “Pippa’s Passing.” I have posted before that I finished the book in the summer of 2022. I had published a blahg, PIPPA’S PASSING when I was part way finished writing it. It’s a good place to start when trying to find out what the book is about. I’m currently looking to launch it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats. My daughter Abbie designed the book cover. Here is her original version of that cover:
I am quite happy with the cover but a colleague pointed out that the child on the cover has no mouth. Last night, Abbie and I were toying around with possible book cover designs and I mentioned possibly adding a mouth. Here’s what she sent me:
You’ll have to click on the image to see a larger version. The truth is, I don’t think adding a mouth adds anything to the cover. In fact, when I thought about it, I thought not having a mouth was better. The novel is a fictional memoir of Jeff Carter who tells the story of the relationship he once had with the title character, Pippa. At the beginning we learn that Pippa has died and so it’s up to Jeff to tell her story. The cover represents a mural described later in the book that Jeff wonders if it is a representation of a young Pippa. The fact that Abbie’s interpretation displays the girl without a mouth could mean that Pippa is no longer able to tell her own story. Clever, right? At least that’s my interpretation of Abbie’s interpretation.
One of the layout versions for the book is a wraparound version and would look something like this:
This is a screen capture from the Kindle/Amazon program. Abbie likes the wraparound layout but she’s not keen on the text placement on front, spine, and back. She’s going to play around with it in another program and come up with something a little better. I’m still wordsmithing the text on the back but this is what I have so far:
I thought I would never write this down. It wasn’t that I thought I might write this down but had no faith in myself that I would get the task accomplished. No, I believed I would never write this down because I had convinced myself that I shouldn’t write this down even though I had promised someone once that I would write her story.
“If you ever become I writer I want you to write my story. Write our story. Write about everything. Write about how I am now and how you and I got here. It’s important. Promise me you’ll write my story.”
It had been eleven years since that last night together. I never saw her again. There were no phone calls or letters or even cards. The last notice was the one I held in my hand in my mother’s kitchen telling me she was gone.
This was the end of a story I thought I would never tell. Pippa was gone. Her obituary had been very short on details. It was a sad culmination of a life that had once been entwined deeply with mine. Sitting there re-reading the summary of Pippa’s passing, I realized she deserved better. I knew then I had to fulfill my promise and write her story.
So begins “Pippa’s Passing”, the fictional memoir of 44 year old Jeff Carter who learns that an old love, Pippa Bailey, has died. He relates their story together from their first meeting in high-school up to eleven years before her death when he last saw her. The bulk of the story begins with their first meeting in the fall of 1977 and details their relationship up to their last encounter in 1993. In the telling, mysteries are revealed and Jeff‘s memories recall an intense relationship between the two. Although the novel starts with Jeff learning of Pippa’s passing, his subsequent recollections bring her to life. Secrets are revealed in the final chapter and it is almost impossible not to feel sad at the ending but also hopeful.
Actually, it’s much shorter than that. My wife and daughter both thought I was giving to much away and suggest I shorten it to the following:
Pippa once said to me “If you ever become I writer I want you to write my story. Write our story. Write about everything. Write about how I am now and how you and I got here. It’s important. Promise me you’ll write my story.”
So begins “Pippa’s Passing”, the fictional memoir of 44 year old Jeff Carter who learns that an old love, Pippa Bailey, has died. He relates their story together from their first meeting in high-school up to eleven years before her death when he last saw her. The bulk of the story begins with their first meeting in the fall of 1977 and details their relationship up to their last encounter in 1993. In the telling, mysteries are revealed and Jeff‘s memories recall an intense relationship between the two. Although the novel starts with Jeff learning of Pippa’s passing, his subsequent recollections bring her to life. Secrets are revealed in the final chapter and it is almost impossible not to feel sad at the ending but also hopeful.
I’m still not entirely keen on it and that last paragraph needs some work. Hopefully in the next week or so the book will be finished to the satisfaction of both Abbie and myself and will be available for purchase. Keep reading my blahgs and I’ll announce it.
Okay, now for the really bizarre and unbelievable bit. This is the ‘relaunch’ part of this blahg. I am 61 years old and I’ve written a few blahgs about who I am such as WHO I AM, WHAT IS 60?, and WHEN A GOOD MAN GOES MISSING. I gave details of my life and what I’ve done over the past six decades. The problem is that this was all based on a lie…or rather a mistake.
Let me explain. I was born on September 23rd, 1962. At least that’s what my mother has always told me and I’ve always celebrated it on the 23rd. The problem has been that my Health Card and Birth Certificate have always recorded me as September 22nd. I’ve just chosen to live with it. Add to that the fact that my Driver’s License has my birthday as September 23rd and all my Revenue Canada information also has me down as the 23rd. That’s crazy right? Recently, on a hospital trip, detailed in the blahg UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE., I was encouraged to try and sort out the discrepancy issue with my Health Card. Here’s where things get strange.
I went into our local Service Ontario branch where you go to try and sort these things out. Unfortunately the person I spoke to said she didn’t know how to handle this and gave me a phone number to call for more advice. The telephone number was for the Service Ontario call centre. After my quick explanation, and a considerable silence on the other end, I was told they would mail me a package of information to fill out to make the changes to my birth certificate and health card. It took almost ten days to get the material and after reading through it, it said I had to provide proof I was actually born on September 23rd! I guess my word or the word of my mother who was there, or so she tells me but hey it was the 60s and there were probably drugs, wasn’t good enough for the Ontario government. Acceptable proof could be a baptismal certificate, which I don’t have, publication of the birth in the newspaper stating I was born on the 23rd, which never happened because by then I was the third child of my parents’ union and the excitement and need to proclaim my birth to the world had probably waned, or I could provide a letter from Belleville General Hospital stating I was born on the 23rd. This last option seemed the best avenue.
I reached out to the hospital and, shorter story here, a nice woman went down and pulled the September log of births for 1962 and discovered that my birth was written down as occurring on September 22nd! They had my mother’s name correct and the address where we were living at the time. There was no mistake…wait, yes there was, there was the mistake that I had been erroneously celebrating my birthday wrong all this time! I was flabbergasted to say the least and I even jokingly asked if the log book made any notation of me being adopted. Nope.
There is an old phrase, “a day late and a dollar short” which is another way to say too little too late. Unfortunately, I’m not a day late, I’m a day earlier. There’s no phrase for that. Maybe there should be. “A Day Earlier But Not A Day Wiser…Or Richer…Or What Have You. This too, is something I’m wordsmithing. How did this happen? When I asked my mother about it she said the hospital is wrong and they can go rub salt. This is my mother’s fallback slur but she’s never clear where or why people should rub salt or if the salt should be kosher, sea, table, or road. If she did tell me, she’d probably get that wrong…LIKE MY BIRTHDAY!!!
So now I’m relaunching. I’ve known for about a week that I’ve been celebrating the wrong day. I think that makes me only a week old because I had to relaunch myself again and start the count over. By the way, I tried to explain to my wife that our marriage is probably invalidated because I signed the marriage certificate using my 23rd birth date but she just said, “no, we’re married.” I also tried to hit my children up for birthday gifts backdated to the year they were born. Emily was born in 1990 so I thought she should give me 29 or 30 gifts back to that year because her gifts to me had been given on the wrong day. My son weighed in, first saying no then highlighting that his birthday is next month and he’ll be 30 and all my focus should be on him. Nice. Can’t I get a moment of pity?
I’m going to sidetrack for a moment and give some positive news. I finally finished all 30 Cool and Lam books. In my previous blahg, UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE., I detailed how I had about four to read. This is a detective series by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”) using the pen name of A. A. Fair. There were 30 books and I finally finished “All Grass Isn’t Green” this past weekend. So that’s something off my to do list for 2024.
Getting back to my birthday. I’ve decided after some soul-searching to continue to celebrate my birthday on September 23rd. I’m used to it now. It’s the same birthday as Bruce Springsteen and I’d prefer to say I share it with “The Boss” rather than the second-raters who were born on September 22nd…no offence to those born on September 22nd but Springsteen is pretty cool and who wouldn’t want to be somehow associated with him.
I wanted to close with something inspirational about having an incorrect birthday all these years but nothing sprang to mine. I did, however find a short song called “It’s Not My Birthday” by the band “They Might Be Giants” that’s fun. Here are the lyrics:
… Well the rain falls down without my help I’m afraid And my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consent When this grey world crumbles like a cake I’ll be hanging from the hope That I’ll never see that recipe again
… As I walk, I think about a new way to walk As I think, I’m using up the time left to think And this train keeps rolling off the track Trying to act like something else Trying to go where it’s been uninvited
… It’s not my birthday It’s not today It’s not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me? When the word comes down “Never more will be around” Thought I’ll wish we were there, I was less than we could bear And I’m not the only dust my mother raised
… So, I’m rattling the bars around this drink tank Discreetly I should pour through the keyhole or evaporate completely But there’d be no percentage, and there’d be no proof And the sound upon the roof is only water
… And the rain falls down without my help I’m afraid And my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consent When this grey world crumbles like a cake I’ll be hanging from the hope That I’ll never see that recipe again
… It’s not my birthday It’s not today It’s not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me? When the word comes down “Never more will be around” Thought I’ll wish we were there, I was less than we could bear And I’m not the only dust my mother raised I am not the only dust my mother raised
Here’s the video:
You know, I used to say to people I didn’t want any more friends because I had no vacancies but if anyone wanted to leave their name and number, I’d get back to them if something opened up. Well, all my friendships were based on the 23rd and I have no friends for the 22nd. I guess I’m taking applications!
I’m finally getting around to unpacking my 2024 False Ducks Video Ramble. I posted that video in my blahg from earlier this month, 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE. In that blahg, I rambled about a number of things that I wanted to talk about this year. I try to always talk separately about the things I speak about in these rambles but time passes and I don’t always get on with it as quickly as I’d like. You’ll soon find out why.
One of the hopes I had for this year was for good health. Unfortunately I didn’t start out well with that. I became sick again. In another previous blahg, “THE CHRISTMAS MAYONNAISE” I mentioned how I got Covid at the beginning of December and then how I felt generally unwell going into the holidays with my Christmas Malaise or the Christmas Mayonnaise as I call it. During the first week of January I started to have a very sore back. It was the area at the top of my buttocks and spread across from right to left. On one particular day, I also experienced a very sore right testicle. I know, too much information, but if it hadn’t been for that soreness in my testicle, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong. You see, I had this about ten or more years ago. It was the testicle thing that sent me to the Doctor at that time and I had to go on a ten day treatment of antibiotics. So, on January 7th I went to the hospital in Picton and described my symptoms and the on-call Doctor diagnosed me with Epididymitis. I believe this is what I had way back when but I didn’t remember the term. Here’s a description of symptoms:
It is most commonly caused by a bacterial infection but can also result from a virus. Symptoms typically include testicular swelling and pain on one side, which may start out as dull but can become more intense or sharp. In some cases, pain may also be felt in the abdomen, pelvis, or low back.
Yep, that was me. I wasn’t sleeping well because the back pain was intense at night. From December 24th and for the next two weeks I was up for at least an hour each night trying to deal with the pain. I finished my course of antibiotics yesterday and you’ll be happy to know I feel better and won’t talk about my testicle again in this blahg.
So, now to unpacking the Ramble. First, let me re-post the Video Ramble:
I already addressed the health issue so let’s hope I don’t have to address that again. The next thing I make reference to is the “Cool and Lam” books. Wikipedia describes Cool and Lam this way:
Cool and Lam is a fictional American private detective firm that is the center of a series of thirty detective novels written by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”) using the pen name of A. A. Fair.
I started commenting on the Cool and Lam series in a blahg from 2021, called THIS IS 100, PART ONE. Here’s what I said then when I talked about books I had recently read:
Instead, I’ll mention two that I recently read, “The Bigger They Come” and “The Knife Slipped” by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair. Gardner is famous for creating and writing about Perry Mason. Cool and Lam is a fictional American private detective firm run by Bertha Cool with Donald Lam as her main operative. Gardner published 29 books in the series from 1939 to 1970. I first became interested in the Cool and Lam series due to my interest in Frank Sinatra. The second book in the series “Turn On the Heat” was adapted for the June 23, 1946, broadcast of Hour of Mystery with Frank Sinatra as the first actor to portray Donald Lam. Unfortunately that broadcast does not appear to circulate. I always thought about reading the book from the series, “Turn On The Heat”, that the broadcast was based on. That meant starting with the first book “The Bigger They Come.” I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s the late 1930s into the 1940s gritty detective novel.
I was then going to turn my attention to “Turn On The Heat” which was the second published book in the series. I discovered, however, that this wasn’t the second book written in the series because Gardner had written “The Knife Slipped” after “The Bigger They Come.” Here’s what Wikipedia says about it: “Originally written to be the second book in the Cool and Lam series but rejected by Gardner’s publisher, The Knife Slipped was found among Gardner’s papers and published for the first time in 2016.” Hard Case Crime published “The Knife Slipped” and after reading it, and enjoying it even more than “The Bigger They Come”, I was drawn back in again to that gritty thirties Los Angeles noir. Hard Case Crime also republished “Turn On The Heat” and that’s the copy I have to read next.
Well, my goal was to read all thirty in the series. When I recorded the Video Ramble I mentioned I had still to read four more: “Cut Thin To Win (1965), Widows Wear Weeds (1966), Traps Need Fresh Bait (1967), and “All Grass Isn’t Green (1970). Well, I’m happy to say that since the Video Ramble I have read three of those and now only have “All Grass Isn’t Green” to read. I hope to read it this weekend. I highly recommend the series.
The next two topics from the Ramble were the Polar Dip and the Christmas Malaise. I’ve already linked above to the Christmas Mayonnaise blahg but I’ll re-post here the video of my Polar Dip on January 1st:
There’s not much to say on that. It was cold and it was wet and I survived. Next stop, an ocean!
Next up was mention of the Christmas Tree launch. I’ll just re-post (I’ve used that term three times now and it’s as good a word as any) what I have said before about my annual Christmas Tree launch:
I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree. At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts. Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in. It’s swept up in the current and disappears. I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometer before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight. In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea. More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.
Here is the video of the 2022 Christmas Tree launch attempt.
This year’s tree is still sitting on my deck and is now covered in snow.
I gave mention in the Ramble to my Jerry Mathers autograph. I can’t believe I didn’t post about that here. In June last year, I went down to a convention in Niagara Falls, Canada and got Jerry Mathers’ autograph on a still I found of Bob Hope and Mathers from the movie “That Certain Feeling.” That’s one of my favourite Bob Hope movies. Most people remember Jerry Mathers as ‘Beaver’ from “Leave It To Beaver.” Jerry Mathers was very nice and had fond memories of Bob Hope. Here’s that photo with Mathers’ autograph.
I found a nice video on YouTube of an interview Mathers did when he was in Niagara Falls last June:
Today is the anniversary of my Dad’s death in 2019. Wow, five years gone. I don’t want to dwell on my Dad’s death. Here’s the photo again of my Dad that I mentioned in the Ramble. I found it recently. It’s from December of 1966. My mother says it was taken at my Aunt Muriel’s house and she thinks it’s one of my older brothers in the picture
One last thing I want to pick out of the Ramble is that this year is a Leap Year. There’s an extra day to enjoy and I suggest making the whole year one to enjoy and to discover new things. The last Leap Year was in 2020 and I wrote a blahg about it, sort of, HOW I MET MY WIFE OR BEST LEAP DAY EVER! The point is, take the year and treat it like it’s a gift or an extra and find things to do that make you happy. Discover new things. In these Blahgs I am constantly talking about new things and people I’ve discovered. I’ve written blahgs on Linda Keene, Dottie Reid, Marie Carroll and about different things associated with Frank Sinatra. I’ve mentioned before that I send out daily posts about what Sinatra was doing on a particular day. For example, here’s one of the entries for yesterday, January 18th:
Television
1958 Club Oasis
Saturday Evening
Network: NBC
Time: 9:00 – 9:30 P.M.
Sponsor: Club Oasis Cigarettes
Host: Frank Sinatra
Guests: Pat Suzuki, Stan Freberg, Hy Gardner
SONGS:
I’ve Got The World On A String
All The Way
Just One Of Those Things P. Suzuki
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore P. Suzuki
Tell Her You Love Her
Come Fly With Me
That television show is not in circulation but yesterday I discovered that someone had posted the audio on YouTube for all of Sinatra’s songs. I had never heard these performances before:
Well, I’ve probably rambled enough about the False Ducks 2024 Video Ramble. I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom, ala Sinatra’s songs from that 1958 Club Oasis appearance. It’s a Leap Year and you get an extra day. Say to yourself, “I’ve Got The World On A String” and try to seize every moment and don’t do it half-heartedly but try and do it “All The Way”. If there’s someone special in your life “Tell Her You Love Her” or him or them every day. I’ll catch you in the next blahg when I invite you to “Come Fly With Me” and we’ll make some new memories for the upcoming year.
It’s January 1st, 2024 and time for my 2024 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble. I recorded the ramble this afternoon after getting back from North Beach on Lake Ontario where I did the following Polar Dip:
I ramble quite a bit in this year’s 2024 video ramble and I’ll unpack details on it in another blahg. Right now, I want to get this posted so it looks like I accomplished something on this first day of 2024:
I reference a couple of things in this video that I will post now and talk about later. Here’s the photo of my Father, George Henderson, that I found earlier today. It says December 1966 on it and I was only four so I don’t think it’s me with him in the photo but rather my older brother Tim or Todd:
I also mention the song “Joy” by Scott Mulvahill. Here’s the music video for it on YouTube:
That’s it for me on this first day of 2024. All the best to everyone and let’s find that peace in the world, peace among ourselves, and peace in our self we all desperately need. Happy New Year!
I think I’m over my Christmas Malaise. I decided to write this short blahg on Boxing Day to say that I’m okay. I had a great Christmas with my wife and children and son-in-law and I wasn’t anxious or depressed once. I managed to even write a short new Christmas story on Christmas day which I will debut here. My wife and son both described it as “cute” and Noah even went on to say it was “sweet.” I’ll accept that. More about the story in a bit.
Here’s a wonderful photo taken today before Emily, Charlie and Noah had to head back to Toronto:
From left to right are Abbie, Emily, Charlie and Noah. You can tell it was around Christmas because the tree is partially visible on the right. In 2022 it snowed so much that Emily, Charlie and Noah couldn’t get to our home until Boxing Day. What a difference a day makes.
On Christmas Eve I lay in bed and the germ of a story was floating around in my head. I hadn’t planned on writing anything and this was my first Christmas story since “The Stolen Christmas” which I penned over the first month and half in 2021 and I debuted in my blahg, A LATE CHRISTMAS STORY…OR AN EARLY ONE. At least this one was written in time for Christmas of 2023. I fell asleep thinking of the story and awoke in the middle of the night not remembering most of it. Luckily, by mid-morning on Christmas Day it had come back to me. A little polishing and by early evening I was happy with it. The original title was “Carnival Barker” but I thought that was a giveaway and certainly didn’t suggest the story had anything to do with Christmas. I gave it the new title of “A Very Quiet Christmas Plan”. Here it is:
A Very Quiet Christmas Plan
by
Scott Henderson
Philip decided he was going to have a very quiet Christmas. That was his plan. It hadn’t been planned if you went back several months but the current plan seemed suitable.
Margo had left after Labor Day. She hadn’t been happy for a while and she told Philip she was leaving to find herself. Philip found himself…alone…after Margo left and took Carnival Barker with her. Carnival Barker was their dog. Really, Carnival Barker was Philip’s dog because it followed him home one day. It barked after him the whole way from the park and it sat in the street and barked continuously until Philip came down from his second floor apartment in an effort to make peace with the dog and his neighbours for the continuous barking.
“You should be a Carnival Barker the way you carry on,” Philip said to the dog. The name stuck and, anyhow, Carnival Barker didn’t object.
Margo objected.
“You don’t know where the dog’s been or who he might have belonged to,” she explained to Philip. “Either he goes or I go.”
In the end both of them went but not before Carnival Barker stayed and Margo stayed but she always referred to him as ‘Barker” although Philip slipped in the full ‘Carnival Barker’ whenever he and the dog were alone; which was often because Margo had been trying to find herself for quite a while and that meant she was always out trying something different which didn’t always include Philip or even Carnival Barker.
“Why did she have to take Carnival Barker if she was trying to find herself?” Philip had said this aloud numerous times since Margo left when he wondered about her which was less often than when he wondered about Carnival Barker. His little joke to himself was that maybe Carnival Barker was a guide dog and was helping her find her way. He fantasized often that the dog came back and Margo stayed wherever it was she found herself. He still held that fantasy as it got closer to Christmas and imagined that he’d wake Christmas morning to the sound of Carnival Barker extolling the virtues of his name down in the street until his neighbours pounded on his door and told him to “quiet that hound.” After all, wasn’t that the exact phrase they’d shouted when Carnival Barker had first followed him home.
Philip wondered what it had been about him that made anyone or anything want to follow him home. There had been Carnival Barker but before that there had been Margo.
Margo had followed him home from another walk in the park. He hadn’t noticed her at first until she eventually piped up and said “if you hadn’t noticed, I’m following you. I don’t usually do this but I’m in this whole seize the moment stage and I saw your face and thought I should just follow this guy home and see what develops.”
What developed was a six month relationship where Margo moved in and Philip let her. He liked Margo. She was take charge or forward ho or a number of catch phrases that challenged her to do something different like following someone home and building a relationship.
There was no courtship with Margo. Philip had been alone and then there was Margo. She saw him every day. She talked incessantly but she asked numerous questions about him and that seemed appealing. No one had ever asked him so much about himself in so short a time and no one had ever followed him home from the park just to see what developed. It was nice.
Philip did not think he loved Margo. In fact, he knew he did not love her or loved her less when she left and loved her even more less or lesser when she left and took Carnival Barker.
No one ever claimed Carnival Barker; except Margo in the end. Philip had put up posters and read the papers but there were no lost dog inquiries that matched the description of Carnival Barker. His main feature was his bark which had been incessant when he wanted Philip to invite him into his home and ceased after he’d gained entry.
This was akin to how Margo stopped her incessant talking and personal questioning of Philip after she too had moved in. No one claimed her either. He never met her family, if she had one, and her only friends seemed to be Philip and Carnival Barker or anyone involved in her finding herself activities when she went out and left man and dog alone.
Philip missed that dog. He missed the padding of his feet or how Carnival Barker would stare at him when Margo was out and Philip could just imagine the dog saying it was another evening in for the boys and Philip would stare back and then tell Carnival Barker that an evening alone with him without Margo was more than worthwhile. The dog hadn’t been large or small and not exactly somewhere in the middle. He was the size he was which was right for him and besides his bark, his other distinguishable feature was his colouring. Margo would use flowery descriptions of autumnal shadings of leaves or beach sands after receding tides when Philip clearly thought Carnival Barker reminded him of the colour of turkey gravy from a can. It was little things like that widening the gap between Margo and Philip that eventually led to her leaving. She’d left a note that was a panoramic description of the chasm developing between them as she sought to find meaning while Philip seemed to be rather happy in the status quo.
Philip liked the status quo. Margo was gone and so was Carnival Barker. It was Christmas now and he moved through it as he liked and the current plan of a quiet Christmas was enough. At least it should have been.
It started with the turkey. This had not factored into Philip’s plans. A quiet Christmas meant to Philip no fuss or bother or commitment to any holiday plans other than a quiet Christmas. The turkey changed everything. He’d won it in a holiday raffle at work. He wasn’t even sure what the proceeds of the raffle went to support. He’d been cajoled into buying a ticket and just assumed the proceeds would go to pay for the cost of the turkey that would be won by some poor sucker.
Philip was that poor sucker. And it was a fresh turkey, and not frozen, and given out two days before Christmas so he’d have to plan something for it and upset his plan for no real plan for Christmas.
Of course if you have a turkey and you have to cook it, which is a plan far better than throwing it away or trying to fawn it off on someone else who had even less plans than Philip, then you have to build on that and soon there’s potatoes and stuffing and cranberries and pie and gravy and of course that would remind Philip completely of Carnival Barker. And if you have all that and you’re suffering melancholia for a dog who followed you home from the park and not the woman who had tried that trick before the dog then you have to alter all plans and invite others in to share in your newly best laid plans that altered your regular plan in the first place. And if you’re all in on the meal and inviting others then you have to plan for decorations and a tree and lifting your spirits without artificial spirits so no one knows the melancholia was about all you could stomach without the turkey and the decorations and the whole Christmas with trimmings.
In the end, Philip was alone. No one came. No one was available and yet all the plans had been made and he had committed himself to those plans and when the plan of a quiet Christmas did materialize despite Philip’s best efforts to expand the raffle turkey into an extravaganza evening, he was a little disappointed to find himself alone on Christmas Eve with the thought that the next day was Christmas and he still had all that cooking to do with the raffle turkey and no one to share it with and slip turkey to under the festooned table.
On Christmas Eve, Philip did nothing. He stared at the tree he’d been obliged to include in his failed plans and the lights dancing on the tree lulled him to sleep. He dreamed fitfully.
In his dreams Philip was back at the park and there was Margo and Carnival Barker and they were chasing him and he was trying to avoid being caught by hiding behind various trees but secretly relishing in the notion that Carnival Barker could sniff him out but that Margo would have no such talent and might eventually give up and go on with her life. Ultimately Carnival Barker’s bark would betray him and Margo would hone in and find him as if she’d had some talent after all and not give credit to the dog she simply referred to as Barker.
Margo would pull Philip close and kiss his face and tell him he’d been found and he’d laugh and wonder how it easy it had been that she had found him, with Carnival Barker’s help, yet she had a difficult time finding herself.
Philip woke up Christmas morning and could still feel Margo’s wet dream kisses upon his cheek. It wasn’t though. It was dog slobber. It was Carnival Barker.
“Carnival Barker, how can you be here?” he said aloud to the dog.
Of course it wasn’t the dog who replied, it was Margo, standing in the doorway looking no more found than she had when he had last seen her in September.
“Barker and I thought you might be a little lost without us and I know a thing or two about lost and found and we found ourselves alone and determined that you should not be and so here we are and I’m famished.” She’d not even stopped to take a breath. Typical Margo. She was gone and then she was back. Philip recalled how she had never left her key behind after she left. Philip didn’t care. Carnival Barker was back.
There was nothing for it after that and Philip had to cook the Christmas dinner and spend it with Margo talking about her travels over the past few months and her enlightenment and not once mentioning how Carnival Barker had factored into any of it and all the while Philip grinned and slipped the dog pieces of dark meat and marveled at how much his coat really did resemble tinned turkey gravy.
Margo moved back in and then shortly after New Year moved out again after following someone else home from the park and calling up Philip and saying she’d found her soulmate, as if he’d been lost to her until then, and that she’d call for Barker but not sounding convincing at all…about retrieving the dog and not the bit about the soulmate. The soulmate was just some poor sucker who probably deserved Margo as much as Philip had deserved a fresh not frozen turkey that upset his plans for a quiet Christmas.
Philip didn’t care. Carnival Barker was back and he was determined to change his locks and that nothing planned or unplanned would take Carnival Barker from him again.
As it so often does, Philip’s plans did change, though. He eventually met someone else and he married and there were children and there was still Carnival Barker. And there were great Christmases and Philip would often think back on that one extraordinary Christmas. Not the one where he had won the turkey and Margo had come back but the following year when he cooked a turkey again and it was just him and Carnival Barker and Philip set a place for the gravy coloured dog at the table.
The End
I hope you enjoyed that and I hope the remainder of your holiday season for 2023 and into 2024 is everything you hoped for.
My friend Bryan used to talk about his Christmas Malaise. It seemed to be an all encompassing thing that he would trot out around this time of year. I thought it was just him being impatient with everyone and having to stand in lines and not really having a family of his own with whom he could celebrate his Holiday season. (See how I used “whom” in a sentence? The English major in me comes out sometimes.) I used to refer to Bryan’s malaise as his “Christmas Mayonnaise” as he would bring it out and spread it over everything joyful during the yuletide and sometimes I thought he was laying it on a little thick. Once, I thought about writing a humorous story about his Christmas Mayonnaise but, in the end, I thought I was making too much of it…until it happened to me.
I looked up the word “malaise” today and was struck by the definition provided:
A general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.
Yep, that was me yesterday. If I’m being truthful, that’s been how I’ve felt for the past week or so. Back up to the end of last month and it starts to fall into place. At the end of last month, November 30th, I got sick. My wife had been home for two days with a bad cold. I tried to avoid it and even slept in another part of the house. That didn’t help. On Friday November 30th, I woke up with the head cold and aches and a headache. I stayed home from work because the next day I was going to Toronto and nothing was going to stop me.
Jump back even further to my birthday on September 23rd of this year. I was in Toronto that day as well. I had gone up to Toronto to be taken out to lunch by my daughter Emily. Her husband Charlie, my wife Jeanette, and my son Noah were there. Abbie was still in Britain at the time. We all had lunch at a nice deli that served Reuben sandwiches because that’s what I wanted. Here’s a nice photo of Emily and Charlie from that lunch:
Here’s Noah from the same lunch:
Sorry, I don’t have a picture of my sandwich. I’m not one of those people who takes photos of their meals to try and impress everyone. My story should be enough. Emily and Charlie paid for the lunch so that was their gift to me. Noah surprised me by announcing he had purchased tickets for both of us to go see Martin Short and Steve Martin on December 1st.
So that brings you up to speed. I was sick on November 30th but I had to make it to Toronto for Steve Martin and Martin Short on December 1st.
I wont detail the evening with those two great comedians. It was awesome. I was full of medication and felt okay. I had taken the train from Belleville to Toronto on Saturday afternoon and stayed over at a hotel near downtown Toronto. I didn’t sleep well after the concert because I found the city too noisy and the head cold was taking hold again. The next day I did some shopping before taking a mid-afternoon train back to Belleville. By the time I got home, I was extremely sick. The head cold, the aches and pains, the headache, and tiredness had knocked me down. I did a Covid test and I tested positive. It was my first time getting Covid. This was after me getting my most recent booster a week before. My wife did a test and she tested positive as well. I stayed home for the next three days. I pushed myself to try and get back to work because there were some things happening that I felt I needed to be there for. I didn’t do myself any favours. I was weakened but I pushed through it.
Last week I tried to be on top of everything but felt I wasn’t getting ahead. I was planning for our own Christmas, trying to help my aging Mother with her diabetes, and trying to prepare for a Christmas lunch at work to feed around fifty people. By this past Saturday afternoon, I was sick again. I had felt better in the morning and late in the afternoon my wife and I went to do some shopping at the Belleville Walmart. I started feeling dizzy and while browsing the bedding aisle I felt weak enough that I had to sit down on the floor. Then I was lying on my side on the floor. I’m not sure what my wife was thinking but she was concerned and asked if she should call an ambulance. I said no and managed to get up and go outside to our car. The fresh air helped but I wasn’t feeling well for the rest of the night or the next morning. By Sunday afternoon I felt better but I had a twinge in my lower back that hurt and wouldn’t subside.
Skip to yesterday. Another busy week with lots happening at work and me at another building yesterday for yet another big Christmas lunch. Later, I had to go back to work and then find time to go out and look for a turkey for own Christmas dinner. I had been to three other grocery stores and hadn’t found anything I liked. I finally managed to find one at Walmart, where I managed to stay upright for the time I was there, and did some Christmas shopping for my wife. Unfortunately I found out later that I had bought something in the wrong size and it would require another trip back to exchange the item. On the way home I had to go out of my way and stop off at a fishing depot and pick something up for my son-in-law for Christmas. Driving home, I started to feel worse with a neck pain, headache, and that lower back twinge was increasing. Add to all of that, earlier in the afternoon my Doctor’s office called to say the result of my blood test from the previous day showed that my fasting sugars were too high.
When I got home I was tired and sick and pretty well angry with everything. In short I had a general feeling of discomfort, illness, and uneasiness whose exact cause was difficult to identify. I was suffering Bryan’s Christmas Malaise. I didn’t realize it then but when I went back to Walmart to exchange the item I mentioned earlier, I began to remember that this was just how Bryan had felt and the Mayonnaise was spreading over me rather thickly. It was time to start taking better care of myself. I had to lay down on the bed and I just started crying, uttered a few profanities, and just grumbled to my wife. She wanted me to stay home from work the next day but I couldn’t do that. I was determined to push through it and try to get back on track. When I finally realized it was the Malaise, I was able to step back and say to myself that I needed to slow down and just enjoy the rest of the holiday season.
My house has been festooned for Christmas for a few weeks so one thing I did was to take some photos of our decorations inside and my display outside. It helped me to focus on why I love this time of year. Here are some photos of our mantle display, our nutcrackers and our Christmas tree as well as a light-up angel we like to put out.
The outdoor display has been a bit of struggle. I had an inflatable snowman but the motor recently died and my inflatable moose had to be taken in because he wasn’t inflating fully. I had put a new motor in the moose so I think it needs to be adjusted. I also had a plastic caroller set of three children and their dog that finally had to be retired because it was cracked and broken. Here’s what my outdoor display currently looks like:
Of course it all looks nice with a little bit of snow on the ground but I’ve heard it will all be gone by December 24th. Compare that to last year when we had so much snow on Christmas day that they closed the roads in my area and my children from Toronto couldn’t get home until the 26th. You can read all about that in my blahg, HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS? By the way, the pictures below show the snowman, the carollers and the moose from previous years.
One other thing that bothered me this year was related to Sinatra and Ireland. I have this app on my Ipod that plays Christmas classics. For some reason, in the past two weeks, the announcers or disk jockeys have an Irish accent and the sponsors seem to be located in Ireland. Last weekend they had a dedicated Sinatra weekend and they kept making announcements about the next song in the rotation and would give a big buildup to Sinatra. Unfortunately, it was never Sinatra. Sometimes it was Bing Crosby or Andy Williams or Nat King Cole. It got to the point where I started to believe that people in Ireland didn’t really know who Sinatra was. One of the songs they introduced was “The First Noel” and it turned out to be by Nat King Cole. If you want to view a nice rendition of Sinatra singing this song from a 1980 special, “The Most Joyful Mystery”, check this out:
A number of years ago I put together a collection of Sinatra Christmas Rarities. These were rare versions of Christmas songs from Sinatra radio and TV shows ranging from 1943 to 1985. I thought about shipping it to Ireland but just sending a CD to the entire population of Ireland seemed a bit much. Instead I’ll post some tracks here and hope that Ireland is listening. The very first is a version of White Christmas that Sinatra sang on his Songs By Sinatra radio program from December 19, 1943:
In the middle of the compilation is a beautiful version of “Let It Snow” from another Songs By Sinatra program on December 25, 1946:
There’s also a very funny version of Sinatra singing “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” from the “Your Hit Parade” radio broadcast of January 1st, 1949:
There’s also a funny parody of “Jingle Bells” with Sinatra and Bob Hope from the radio broadcast of The Bob Hope Show, December 24th, 1953
I’ll close with another video of Sinatra singing but this time it’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” from a TV Special from 1985, “All-Star Party for ‘Dutch’ Reagan. That’s former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in case you didn’t know.
If that doesn’t lift your Christmas Mayonnaise then nothing will.
IS IT ME? I guess I would also have to ask WHY IS IT NOT ME? I’ve been writing these blahgs for over 12 years. It will be 13 years in October. One of the biggest questions I have about that is if anyone is reading this? I know in the past that some people have. After writing a three part blahg series on Linda Keene, TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 1: THE FLORENCE SUTTLE YEARS, TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 2: THE MOMENT IN MY LIFE, TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 3: ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD, I was contacted by Fresh Sound Records about providing liner notes for their new 2 CD set of Linda Keene which you can check out here: https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/linda-keene-albums/55313-one-more-for-the-road-the-dixie-songbirds-complete-recordings-2-cd-box-set.html. At least that came of one reader. Is there anyone else out there? 
First up is “The Oklahoman” with Joel McCrea. I extolled the virtues of Joel McCrea in my last blahg, when I reviewed “Primrose Path” and “Stars In My Crown.” I really liked “The Oklahoman.” It plays more like an episode of the television show “Gunsmoke” but it’s a good movie. McCrea plays a Doctor in a small town raising his little girl on his own and running up against the bad rancher who wants to steal oil from a Native American. Great acting by McCrea in this one. 
The 1944 film “The Master Race” was stunning. The story is about the fall of Nazis and how one Nazi in disguise is sewing the seeds of hatred and fear in a town in Belgium. You get to see how people came to hate all Germans although all Germans were not Nazis. Watch for a young “Lloyd Bridges.” And finally, “Roughly Speaking” from 1945 with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson. What a great pairing. 
These two films couldn’t have been more widely different. “Primrose Path” also has Ginger Rogers and she is a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who quickly marries McCrea’s character and then tries to keep him from finding out about her family. There’s some great scenes between the two leads but other scenes are also stolen by other cast members like Henry Travers as Gramp, Queenie Vassar as the Grandmother, and a young Joan Carroll as Rogers’ baby sister Honeybell. Just a very nice story with lots of humour. 
“Crossroads” from 1942 and “Experiment Perilous” from 1944. Hedy Lamar is very sultry in both films but I’ll give my credit in “Crossroads” to William Powell. The description of this film from Wikipedia is “Powell plays a diplomat whose amnesia about his past subjects him to back-to-back blackmail schemes, which threaten his reputation, job, marriage, and future. Basil Rathbone plays a sleazy blackmailer in this one and the story and acting are all good. Hedy Lamarr plays Powell’s concerned wife. 
