Fourth Lake, Chapter 8

Wednesday morning, Judy and Phil woke up a little later than normal as their bodies were still dealing with their trek across Fourth Lake in a canoe.  It had been exhilarating, but now their muscles were sore.  Phil opened his eyes first and let Judy sleep a little while longer.  He didn’t move for fear of waking her.  He also didn’t move in order to protect himself from agravating his body aches.  It had been many years since he had worked so hard physically.  He used to play a little basketball at a local gym after he had started his CPA career, but that was long gone.

When Judy did wake up, she leaned over and gave Phil a light good morning kiss on his lips.  They spoke for some minutes recollecting their adventure of the previous day.  Slowly, gradually they got up and started the new day, with a promise to each other to take it easier than yesterday. 

For breakfast, Judy had cold cereal with milk and a sliced banana, while Phil had some toast with butter and strawberry preserves.  They both enjoyed orange juice from a bottle and coffee. 

There was another Watergate reference on television.  White House staffer, Pat Buchanan, told a repórter that the Nixon Administration was considering a strategy of going directly to the Senate.  It was the first time that the White House was acknowledging defeat in the House of Representatives.  Nixon’s supporters in the House Judiciary Committee received this news with anger and disbelief.  Disbelief was also a word that Phil used when he heard the report.  Both he and Judy shook their heads.

After showering and dressing in their swim suits, Phil and Judy both sat on their deck chairs looking out over Fourth Lake.  They both had brought books, works of fiction, from home for just such a time.  Phil was reading The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, while Judy had just started The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  Eventually, Judy put hers down, and starred out at Dollar Island and its unoccupied house.  After some minutes, Phil noticed that Judy wasn’t reading any more.

“What are you looking at?”

“Over there.  Dollar Island and that house on it.”

“Are you interested in buying it?”

“No, silly.  But, wouldn’t it be fun to go there and check it out.  You said that nobody was there now.”

“I don’t remember anybody over there inviting us for dinner.”

“So what?  I’m just so curious about it.  To live in such a house, so isolated from peering eyes and nosey neighbors.  And it’s such a big house, a mansion.  You said it’s owned by some rich family.  It must be beautiful inside.”

“So, you’re curious.  Unless you can get an invitation or see an open house ad, I don’t see what we can do.”

“Phil, have you no sense of adventure?  Think of it?  We could take a canoe over there, walk around a little, and peek in the windows.  Maybe the doors aren’t even locked.  The crime rate around here is probably zero.”

“And what if we get caught?  We would be arrested and I could lose my CPA license.”

“Oh, Phil.  You’re getting to be such an old man.  It would be fun and exciting.  We could bring some wine and make love over there.  Just think about it.  Don’t say yes or no right now.  Please!”

After some hesitation, Phil said, “Ok, I’ll think about it.  Speaking of wine, why don’t we walk down to that bar we saw on Sunday and have a drink this afternoon.”

“Now, that is a good idea.”

Before lunch, the two swam around a little in the lake.  After a light lunch of sandwiches, they laid on the deck to improve their respective tans.  Later, Phil and Judy dressed up a bit and walked into Inlet for drinks at the Laughing Loon Tavern.  A short distance from their cottage, they passed Joe Williams returning to his.

“How are you, Judy?” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.  Phil and Judy hadn’t noticed him until he spoke, and then he was gone.  Judy was pleasantly surprised.  Phil, having not met Joe when they arrived on Sunday, didn’t know who this young man was who called his wife by name.

“Who was that?” asked Phil.

“That was Joe, Joe Williams.  He’s our landlord.  You haven’t met him?”

“I thought our landlords were some old couple.”

“He’s their nephew.  They had to go to Albany for some medical thing, so he’s here in their stead.”

“He certainly gave you a big smile.  I think he likes you.”

“Are you jealous?”

“What?  He’s just a kid.  Why should I be jealous?”

Judy was disappointed that Phil did not express any jealousy.  A little later, in Inlet, May Flanagan was on her cigarette break in front of the grocery store.  When Phil and Judy walked by, she smiled and said, “Hi, handsome.”

They both heard her comment.  Phil tried to ignore it.  But, Judy asked, “Who is that?”

“Her?  As I recall, she’s the cashier in the grocery.  You remember her from Monday?  I suspect she’s a big flirt.  Are you jealous?”

“You bet I am.”  She turned and sneered at May, who kept right on smiling at them.

Shortly, they entered the Laughing Loon Tavern.  There were very few customers there at that hour of the day.  Mitch Riley was tending bar.  Phil and Judy sat down on the stools directly in front of him.  Mitch was very happy to see Judy again.

“What can I do for you folks?” Mitch asked.

“What would you like, Judy?” asked Phil.

“I’ll have a cosmopolitan, please,” she said looking directly at Mitch, with a friendly smile on her face.

“Right away.  And for you, sir,”

“I think I’d like a whiskey sour.  Do you have V.O.?”

“Of course.  Give me a minute.”

While they were waiting for their drinks, Phil and Judy eyeballed the Laughing Loon and compared notes.  They were making more small talk when Mitch returned with one cosmopolitan and one whiskey sour.

A little later, Phil went to the men’s room, leaving Judy all alone.  By then, her cosmopolitan was almost gone.  Mitch came over to her.

“Say, Judy, can I buy you another drink?”

“I thought you were supposed to sell drinks, not buy them.”

“If I give good service to my customers, maybe they’ll come back for more.  That’s good business.”

“Do you buy drinks for all of your customers?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Okay, I accept.  I’ll have another cosmopolitan.”

“Great.  By the way, my name is Mitch.”

“Thank you, Mitch.”

When Phil returned from the men’s room, he didn’t notice that Judy was on her second cosmopolitan.  Judy didn’t mention it.  Neither did Mitch.
 

 

High Noon RevisiTed

The plot of the 1952 Western movie classic, High Noon, intrigues me greatly.  I wrote about it in this blog on March 22nd.  The basic story is that four notorious gunmen, led by Frank Miller, a man originally convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, but later pardoned, his brother, Ben, and two associates, Jack Colby and Jim Pierce, were determined to kill Will Kane, the ex-marshall of Hadleyville, a western town, some time in the late Nineteenth Century.  Their reason was revenge for Kane’s involvement in Miller’s murder conviction.  At his trial, Miller made his threat to kill Kane well-known. 

Killing Kane would of course be against the law, but these four men could care less.  Kane, recently married, had to think not only about his own safety, but that of his bride as well.  He first decided to run away.  He had about an eighty minute head start before the gang would all meet at the Hadleyville train depot.  Kane then changed his mind and decided it would be better to confront his enemies in Hadleyville, hopefully with the help of some friends.  In order to give himself some clout, he acted as if he was still the marshall, which was not true. 

According to my research, it is a crime in the United States to threaten someone.  Such threats can be written, verbal, or made by gestures or body language, depending on the law of the state.  However, the threat cannot be vague or unreasonable.  It must be credible, real, and imminent. 

Was it a crime when Miller first threatened Kane at the trial?  It probably wasn’t credible and imminent since Miller was on his way to prison to be executed.  Five years later, after being pardoned, Miller’s threat was being taken very seriously in Hadleyville.

What does someone do if their life is threatened and the threat seems real?  You can make a criminal complaint with the police.  The police should then investigate your complaint.  They will decide if there is enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the person who made the threat.  If charges are brought, there will be a trial to determine if the accused is guilty of a crime.  If found guilty, they will be punished in some fashion, perhaps imprisoned.

But what if it is just your word against the person’s making the threat?  What if there is not enough substantial evidence to support your charge?  What if the police can do nothing?  What if all you have is a restraining order from a judge?  Then what do you do?

Someone in Hadleyville suggested that Kane should have arrested Ben Miller plus Colby and Pierce while they were waiting at the train depot for brother Frank.  Kane said it was not against the law to wait for someone at the train depot.  Maybe he was wrong.  Perhaps they were guilty of a conspiracy to attempt murder.  They were not there to give Frank a welcome home party.  What about when they removed their spurs, loaded their weapons, and started marching toward the main street of Hadleyville looking to find and kill Kane?  When do they actually commit a chargeable offense?  Not until they fire on Kane?  But since Kane drew on them first, they could claim self-defense.

In the 1962 film, Cape Fear, we see a similar story.  There, an ex-convict, Max Cady played by Robert Mitchum, blamed another man, Sam Bowden played by Gregory Peck, for his having spent eight years in prison.  Bowden was a witness to Cady’s crime of assaulting a woman and testified against him at his trial.  In Cady’s warped mind, it was Bowden’s testimony, not his own actions, that sent him to prison.  Following his release, Cady stalked Bowden and his family.  His ultimate goal was to assault and rape Bowden’s young daughter as revenge for his lost eight years.  After a friendly police chief had exhausted all he could legally do to help, Bowden took personal responsibility to protect himself and his family.

Perhaps, like Bowden, at a certain point, you must take personal responsibility for your own or your family’s safety.  Perhaps you need to protect yourself.  Perhaps you need a gun, like Sam Bowden did above.  In the State of North Carolina, for example, a resident of the State can legally buy (with a permit) a pistol and carry it on their person with the State’s Concealed Handgun Permit.  Without any friends, save his wife, Kane took responsibility for his own safety.  What else could he have done?  Running away would have only postponed the inevitable.  Any comments?                

       

The Fourteenth Colony

First, happy birthday to my son, Bret.

Now to my weekly post: Two hundred and thirty-one years ago tomorrow, on August 16, 1784, the British colonial government in North America officially divided the colony of Nova Scotia in two (at the Chignecto Isthmus), naming the western and northern portions New Brunswick after the German duchy of Brunswick- Lunenburg.  Of course, today New Brunswick is one of ten provinces that constitute Canada.  Happy birthday, New Brunswick. 

Why do I mention this rather obscure fact?  Because it is part of Canadian history.  And because I want to talk about Canadian history as it relates to American history and what might have been.

By the middle of the Eighteenth Century, France and Great Britain were competing colonial powers in North America.  The French colony of New France was concentrated along the St. Lawrence River Valley, with the thirteen British colonies to the south, mostly hugging the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean.  In the interior, the French and British colonies were rubbing up against each other and disputes over territorial boundaries erupted.  The French built Fort Duquesne near present-day Pittsburgh in the disputed Ohio Valley region.  The British Colony of Virginia claimed the area as well. 

From 1754 to 1763, as a result of the many competing claims over land, Great Britain and France fought a war Americans call the French and Indian War (referring to the enemies the British fought during the war).  Canadians call it the Seven Years’s War.  As a result of the British victory in the war, it acquired the territory of New France or Quebec and its roughly 75,000 French-speaking citizens.

Over the next ten years, a movement developed amongst some of the British citizens in their original thirteen colonies which eventually led, after several years of armed conflict, to their full independence.  This was ratified when the Treaty of Paris was signed between the thirteen newly independent states and Great Britain in 1783.

In 1774, 1775, and 1776, the First and Second Continental Congress (gatherings in Philadelphia of representatives of the thirteen original British colonies) sent letters to the inhabitants of what became the province of Quebec in Canada.  Since these inhabitants had no representative system at that time, the First and Second Continental Congress had no other way of communicating with them.  The purpose of the letters was to try to draw the French-speaking population into the cause of North American independence from Great Britain.  Sadly, no one from Quebec came to Philadelphia to participate in either Congress.  It would have been the fourteenth colony.    

However, two regiments of Canadian soldiers did join the American cause.  Unfortunately, their numbers were not as large as was hoped for by the letter senders.  On the other hand, the rich landowners and the Catholic clergy in Quebec rallied around the British governor.  They did not trust their southern neighbors.    

In 1775, American General Philip Schuyler led a military expedition up Lake Champlain to assault the cities of Montreal and Quebec.  On November 13, 1775, the Americans, after a successful campaign by General Richard Montgomery, began an occupation of Montreal after the British garrison withdrew.  On December 31, 1775, the American forces, this time led by Montgomery and General Benedict Arnold, attempted to capture the City of Quebec as well, but were soundly defeated.  The American military maintained a seige of the city until the following March. 

Meanwhile back in Montreal, American General David Wooster proved to be a harsh and oppressive administrator.  Thus, the hoped for support of the inhabitants of Montreal was slipping away.  To try and save the situation, Benjamin Franklin (a man in favor of independence and whose face is today on the $100 bill) was sent to Montreal to win local favor.  Franklin was accompanied by a Jesuit priest whom he hoped would have some influence with the Catholic population of the city.  However, nothing worked.  After an occupation which lasted 188 days, the Americans withdrew and the British regained control of Montreal.  (There was another failed American attempt to capture Canada during the War of 1812.)  The fourteenth colony was not to be.  What a pity! 

The American War of Independence created not one, but two countries, the USA and Canada.  Unfortunately, the American failure to lure those from the former French colony to their side in that war gave the British a foothold to maintain a presence in North America until 1867 when Canada became an independent sovereign nation.  After the British acceptance of the American independence in 1783, many of the colonial loyalists, a number of runaway slaves, and some of the Hessian soldiers hired by the British to fight those in rebellion emigrated to Canada to continue living under British rule. 

Since July 4, 1776, there has been an artificial line that separates the people of Canada and the people of the United States.  During those ninety-one years (1776-1867), the British were able to keep the two peoples, who had more in common than differences, separate without the necessity of an occupying army.  One major way they accomplished it was by spreading anti-American propaganda amongst the Canadians, who came to see themselves as different from the Americans.  And what is a Canadian?  Well, at least he is not an American.  Or at least he is not an American citizen.      

However, what if things had been different and the Canadians had joined the American revolution?  Let’s also assume that their elected representatives had ratified the Constitution and what is today Canada had become part of the United States of America.  How would the area north of the Rio Grande be different?

The estimated population of the USA (2014) is about 319 million people.  The addition of Canada would increase that population by another 35 million, or by 11%.  The size of the USA is 2,959,000 square miles.  The addition of Canada would increase that size by another 3,800,000 square miles, or by 128%.  In other words, the size of the USA would more than  double.

With the addition of Canada, the USA would add a tremendous amount of natural resources.  Estimates are that Canada’s oil sands would make it the second largest petroleum reserve in the world.  A combined USA-Canadian oil sands production would make it energy self-sufficient by 2035.  According to Diane Francis, the Canadian-American journalist, entrepreneur, and professor, Canada “is the world’s third largest producer of aluminum, ranks fifth in diamonds and second in uranium, is in the top five in molybdenum, nickel and salt, and in the top ten in gold and copper.  This is despite the fact that most of Canada has never been explored or visited by humans.”

Also according to Francis in her book, Merger of the Century, Why Canada and America Should Become One Country, “The United States is the only nation with the capital, scientific prowess and motivation to fully develop (and defend) Canada and its wilderness in a sustainable and responsible way.  And Canada’s resourses and Arctic region, the world’s future Panama and Suez Canals, would bestow upon the United States unbelievable opportunities.”  Can the course of history be corrected in the Twenty-first Century to create one giant combined superpower?  I’m all for it.  What about you?       

Chef

I have always enjoyed cooking.  I remember my first experience, standing by myself in the kitchen of our home on West Seneca Street.  I was eleven or twelve years-old and my mother had given me permission to cook my favorite dessert, chocolate pudding, all by myself.  I read the directions on the My-T-Fine package: “Stir mix into two cups of milk in médium sausepan. Bring to full boil on médium heat, stirring constantly.  Serve warm or chilled.”  I preferred chilled.  Making the pudding took only about fifteen minutes.  It was a lot of fun to do and then I could enjoy the resulting dessert a few hours later, all by myself.

After my initial success, my mother gave me another cooking assignment.  We basically ate the same meal every night, what my father liked best.  It was beef, very well done, boiled potatoes, and a lettuce and tomato salad (dressing was a combination of ketchup and mayonaisse).  My job was to boil the potatoes.  First, I peeled them.  Then I cut the potatoes into quarters and put them in a pot of water.  I also added, as part of my mother’s recipe, a small piece of an onion.  Then I would boil the water until the potatoes were soft.  These experiences with the pudding and the potatoes added to my sense of self-esteem.

Unfortunately, my father was utterly helpless in the kitchen.  He could do nothing.  On the rare occasions when my mother was not around to prepare his meals, he had two options.  His favored one was to go to a restaurant.  When he didn’t want to do this, he asked me to make him an omelette.  My recipe was to crack two eggs and put them in a bowl.  Add a little milk and stir.  Then fry until firm enough for his tastes to eat.  Nothing to it.

When I had my own children later in life, I often had to cook for them.  I loved making pancakes for breakfast (using real maple syrup in the batter).  It took me a while to learn how to do it well, but now nobody makes better pancakes than I do.  Of course, spaghetti and meat balls or meat sauce is easy to do.  I got a great recipe from my sister-in-law, Noreen (see March 8th post), for fried chicken cutlets.  One of my favorite side dishes is rice, the way it’s cooked in the United States.  Rice led to a disaster one day in August of 2001.  But that is a story for another day.

I like to make an eggplant dish.  I cut the eggplant into small cube-shaped pieces and place them in a bowl.  Then I add a variety of seasonings such as olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic salt, orégano, and basil.  Finally, I top it off with a generous portion of tomato sauce.  Stir and cook in the oven for about forty minutes.  Yummy and healthy.

My favorite recipe is meatloaf.  Typically, one uses ground beef when making meatloaf.  However, I found an idea on the Internet which calls for combining various types of ground meat, to create new flavors.  I have used, besides ground beef, ground turkey, ground chicken, ground pork, and ground bison in various combinations.  How about ground lamb?  I use about two and a half pounds of meat, then add one cup of bread crumbs, one egg, two teaspoons of salt, one-half teaspoon of pepper, some orégano and basil to taste, some chopped onions, some chopped garlic, three tablespoons of butter, a half cup of hot water, and tomato sauce (or a can of tomato soup).

First, you melt the butter in the hot water.  Then you add all of the above ingredients, save the tomato sauce, and mix.  Then, shape the mixture into a meatloaf.  Place it on a heating pan and cook it in the oven at three hundred fifty degrees for approximately forty minutes (until completely cooked inside).  At the thirty-five minute mark, pour the tomato sauce on top of the meatloaf.  I am confident you will be very happy with the result.

When I was living in Chapel Hill, I cooked breakfast everyday (oatmeal plus blueberries and maple syrup).  I also cooked dinner everyday as well.  Besides the above recipes, I enjoyed grilling chicken thighs and salmon along with a salad using many different components.

For my recent birthday, I made fudge, not known in Brazil, for dessert.  Using an Internet recipe, I mixed 50 grams of unsalted butter with a can of sweetened condensed milk and put it in the microwave for two minutes.  Then I stirred in about four hundred grams of chunks of chocolate, half milk and half dark.  I placed the mixture on a baking pan and put it in the refrigerator of two hours.  Then it was ready to be cut into pieces and enjoyed.    

I don’t get to cook much here in Brazil as our maid prepares our main meal six days a week.  Sometimes I ponder, if I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently if I were twenty years-old.  As I really enjoy cooking, I believe I would go to culinary school and become a chef.  Maybe I’ll go to culinary school anyway to learn how to cook better.            

Leave Her to Heaven

In Act 1, Scene 5 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Ghost urges Hamlet not to seek vegeance against his mother, Queen Gertrude (for marrying the man who killed his father), but to “leave her to heaven.”  In 1944, writer Ben Ames Williams used this phrase as the title of his novel.  The following year, director John M. Stahl made the film adaptation of Williams’s work of fiction.  It starred Gene Tierney (who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, but lost to Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce), Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price, and Darryl Hickman.  The film won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color.  It was Twentieth Century Fox’s highest grossing film during the decade of the 1940s.  Acclaimed Academy Award-winning film director Martin Scorsese (The Departed) said it is one of his favorite movies. 

It is a story of an obsession which has deadly consequences.  In my opinion, such consequences could have been avoided.  Ellen, a beautiful, rich young woman, meets Richard, a handsome young novelist, who bears an uncanny resemblence to Ellen’s late father.  Since Ellen was obsessed with her father (when he was alive, she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, plus at her death she wanted her ashes spread in the same location as his), she seems to transfer her obsession to her new friend, boyfriend, fiance, husband.  Ellen proposes to Richard who is very much attracted to her.  He accepts, but is not quite sure what to make of her.  They marry within days of their meeting.  Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. 

Ellen wants Richard and only Richard, all the time.  However, she quickly discovers that her new husband’s life is complicated.  And she also learns he is not willing to meet her half way.  Richard is a writer who likes to write.  He refuses her offer to allow her to support him.  Plus, Richard has a younger brother, Danny, a teenager and an invalid, who cannot walk without the aid of crutches.  As Richard and Danny’s parents are deceased (and also because of Danny’s handicap), the two brothers have developed an unusually close relationship.  Ellen learns that her new husband wants Danny to live with them instead of attending a boarding school where he would be with those of his own age.  In addition, living with the newlyweds is a sort of handyman/friend of the family.  To make matters even worse (for Ellen), Richard secretly invites Ellen’s mother and adopted sister (to whom Richard pays a lot of attention) to come for an extended visit.  Isn’t this what every a new bride wants, an extra four people around the house?            

There is an especially significant scene early one morning when Ellen crawls into the bed of her sleeping husband (1945 meant separate beds even for married couples), gently blows air in his face, kisses his lips, perhaps to arouse him for...  Then we hear from the other side of the paper-thin bedroom wall a knock and a good morning greeting from his brother, Danny.  Apparently, in preference to making love to his beautiful wife, Richard goes swimming in the nearby lake with his brother. 

When Ellen tries to encourage Danny to go off to boarding school in another city, Danny says he wants to wait until Richard is able to come live nearby the school.  He cannot bear to be separated from his brother, not even for a short time.  When Ellen tries to complain about what she thinks is wrong with their marriage, Richard points the finger at her with, “What’s wrong with you?”  I don’t think this was a match made in heaven (where according to the title, someone is going to be left for their comeuppance). 

Then, perhaps on the spur of the moment, Ellen committs an unpardonable act, a crime.  Out on the lake, Ellen and Danny are in a row boat.  Danny wants to swim to the other end of the lake, quite a feat.  Ellen encourages him to test his upper body strength (he cannot use his paralysed legs).  At first, all goes well.  Suddenly, Danny starts having trouble and calls out to Ellen (an excellent swimmer) to save him from drowning.  Ellen thinks this is her chance to have Richard all to herself.  Wearing her sunglasses and with absolutely no expression on her stone cold face, she does nothing until Danny disappears forever under the water.  She claimed she could not reach Danny until it was too late.  There were no witnesses, so she is deemed to be not guilty of any crime.  The above scene is one of the most ghastly I have ever witnessed on the silver screen. 

Later under duress, Ellen confesses her guilt to Richard who claims to be not totally surprised.  To me, Danny was not only a victim of Ellen’s cruelty, but also of Richard’s stupidity in marrying a woman, though beautiful, who was not in the least bit compatible with his life style or he with hers.  Let that be a lesson to us all.  However, if you are a fan of Alfred Hitchcock suspense films, I am sure you will enjoy Leave Her to Heaven.