Too bad Bill D's local channel dropped "The Red Green Show." For some bizarre, unexplainable reason, this is one of my favorites, and a "no-miss." The first few times I saw it, I thought it was the dumbest thing that had ever appeared on television, but someplace along the line, I got hooked.

What makes the matter even more bizarre is that Monday through Friday, one of the two local PBS channels plays two episodes, between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. And they seem to have a limited number of them in stock, because it's not too many weeks before you start seeing the same shows again. I can practically do "sing-alongs" on some of them. And increasing the bizarreness index is that my wife watches it too. In fact, even though it's pretty easy to assume it's a "guy show," I know several women who watch it regularly (I think they sit there snickering knowingly and feel kinda smug).

Barbara likes Harold, and tries never to miss the "Possum Lodge word game." She's also quite fond of Mike Hamer. One of my favorite characters is Ed Frid, the animal control officer who is terrified of any living thing larger than a bacterium, followed by Hap Shaughnessy, whose accomplishments (according to him, include playing "catch-and-release" with Moby Richard—

Red:    Don't you mean Moby Dick?
Hap:    Nah! I don't really know him that well!

and when he was a SAC pilot, saving the world from nuclear annihilation one Christmas eve by notifying SAC headquarters that what they had identified as a nuclear missile headed their way was actually Santa Claus in his sleigh. "I didn't actually meet Santa, though," he admitted). Gordon Pinsent is one helluva fine actor, incidentally; I've seen him in a number of serious roles.

Red Green has become one of my role-models (although I'm probably a bit more like Ranger Gord)

Quando omni flunkus moritati.

Don Firth

I'm a man,
But I can change,
If I have to
. . . I guess. . . .