tter than the campfire。 It's strange； but it's true。
So I don't watch TV during the day。 Sometimes I walk； sometimes I read； mostly what I've been doing for the last month or so is writing this memoir among the plants in the solarium。 I think there's more oxygen in that room； and it helps the old memory。 It beats the hell out of Geraldo Rivera； I can tell you that。
But when I can't sleep； I sometimes creep downstairs and put on the television。 There's no Home Box Office or anything at Georgia Pines … I guess that's a resource just a wee bit too expensive for our Resource Center … but we have the basic cable services； and that means we have the American Movie Channel。 That's the one （just in case you don't have the basic cable services yourself） where most of the films are in black and white and none of the women take their clothes off。 For an old fart like me； that's sort of soothing。 There have been a good many nights when I've slipped right off to sleep on the ugly green sofa in front of the TV while Francis the Talking Mule once more pulls Donald O'Connor's skillet out of the fire； or John Wayne cleans up Dodge； or Jimmy Cagney calls someone a dirty rat and then pulls a gun。 Some of them are movies I saw with my wife； Janice （not just my ladyfriend but my best friend）； and they calm me。 The clothes they wear； the way they walk and talk； even the music on the soundtrack … all those things calm me。 They remind me； I suppose； of when I was a man still walking on the skin of the world； instead of a moth…eaten relic mouldering away in an old folks' home where many of the residents wear diapers and rubber pants。
There was nothing soothing about what I saw this morning； though。 Nothing at all。
Elaine sometimes joins me for AMC's so…called Early B