Weekly Update

These look like ours, but they aren't

We have asparagus growing in our garden. Darling planted some tiny little plants at the beginning of last week. We pulled weeds on Tuesday evening and I noted the little stalks. Now they are over a foot long! Who knew asparagus grew that fast? Well, I'm sure some people did, but I sure didn't. Maybe it's really a weed.

And where does asparagus grow in the wild, anyway. Stalking the Wild Asparagus - good name for a book title, isn't it? This was actually the first book by Euell Gibbons, published in 1962. According to Wikipedia it was an instant success. Well, no wonder, with such an amazing title.

I still don't like asparagus, but it looks like I'll be eating some.

The taming of the kitten progresses, albeit slowly. Darling managed to snag the little beastie and brought him in to hold him and pet him and speak sweet things to him for almost half an hour. He then bolted when she took him back outside. His name is still pending.

Hallmark Channel has a new series on television: Cedar Cove. It stars Andie MacDowell as Judge Olivia Lockhart and has a blonde Teryl Rothery as Grace. It's Hallmark. The only reason I even mention the show (though we did watch the pilot and I like Andie MacDowell) is that the show is based on Port Orchard, Washington, up near Seattle (but not filmed there). Why is that a big deal? We used to live there. My brothers and I once decided that we would all move there when we grew up. I still have fond memories of our small five acres, our horse Cocoa and all the chickens. My brothers do too!

Maybe when I grow up I'll go back and live in Port Orchard.

So I (finally) went to the Doctor on Wednesday for my persistent cough and discovered I have bronchial pneumonia, whatever that is. It did explain the pain in my left side, though. The Doc said if I waited a few more days I'd be in the hospital. Bad news must make me feel bad, because I picked up a fever that night and stayed home from work for a few days.

I watched westerns, and since I was sick everybody just smiled and indulged me.

The Rounders has Ben and Howdy (Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda) are a couple aged cowboys who spend a hard winter gathering a herd of strays for Jim Ed Love (Chill Wills). The focus is really on their relationship with a mean-spirited, ill-tempered horse. Of course, the movie tosses a couple of pretty girls into the mix. I don't know if Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda made any other movies together, but they are a couple of my favorite actors. This was a fun movie, though a bit slow and tame for today's audiences. There is a bit of a twist at the end.

Probably my favorite part was where Vince Moore (Edgar Buchanan) is sharing his moonshine with Howdy and asks where he got his name. Howdy replies that his given name is Marion, but no cowboy can go out on the range and bust broncos with a name like Marion, so he changed it to "Howdy." Now when people say "Howdy" he already feels like they know him. The inside joke, of course, is that John Wayne's given name is Marion Morrison, and I know they must have laughed over that.

I forced the Young Man to watch Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He endured it. This is a John Ford movie. Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) and Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart - I just can't call him James) are in contention on two fronts. First, since it is a John Ford movie, they have their eyes on the same girl, Hallie (Vera Miles). Secondly, they have contrasting views on surviving in the old west. Ransom wants to bring civility and law to the Territory (as well as statehood), but Tom still believes that the gun is what maintains law and order. Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) is the villain who still rules through fear and intimidation in the small town of Shinbone.

An aged and respected Senator Ransom Stoddard has returned to Shinbone and relates the true story of Liberty Valance to the newspaper editor. At the end Stoddard says to Maxwell Scott (the editor) "You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?" In reply the editor says "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

C'mon, that's priceless.

I also watched John Wayne in McLintock! (1963), but I didn't make the Young Man watch it. This one is typical John Wayne, who plays the wealthy cattle baron and eventually chases his wife, Maureen O'Hara, through town, a scene reminiscent of The Quiet Man (1952), though I thought the younger version did it better. I will say, that in the intervening years Maureen O'Hara lost none of her charm. Can't quite say that about the Duke.