Edward Adrift

readings for Billings, Montana, where I live. I started keeping these logs on January 1, 2001, when it occurred to me that Billings, in addition to having wildly variable weather, has poor excuses for weathermen. Their forecasts are notoriously off base, so I’ve come to distrust what they say. I prefer facts. Every morning, my copy of the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
provides me with the facts about the previous day’s weather. I then write it down, and my data is complete.
    For example, yesterday, December 6, 2011, the 340th day of the year, saw a high temperature of 34 and a low temperature of 16 in Billings. There was no precipitation, meaning we held steady at 19.34 inches for the year. It’s been a bad year for precipitation in Montana, and a lot of places have had floods, although not Billings. Scott Shamwell lives in Roundup, which is 49.82 miles north of Billings, and his town flooded badly. He said one time that he was going to start driving “a cocksucking rowboat” to work, but I don’t think he ever did. I wasn’t there every day that he was, as ourschedules didn’t fully align, so while it’s conceivable that he could have driven a cocksucking rowboat to work, I have to believe that he or someone else would have told me about it. Belief can be dangerous, of course. I prefer facts. We did have an oil spill in the Yellowstone River, which mucked things up, and last year a tornado blew down our sports stadium, so it’s not like Billings is getting off light as far as catastrophes go. I guess everybody is having trouble these days.
    Anyway, tracking the weather data is how I maintain stability, as Dr. Buckley suggested. She also suggested that I find something that gives me pleasure. That has been more difficult, especially since I was involuntarily separated from the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
. I should just try harder, I guess. But how?

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2011
    From the logbook of Edward Stanton:
    Time I woke up today: 8:23 a.m. The 17th time in 342 days I’ve awoken at that time.
    High temperature for Wednesday, December 7, 2011, Day 341: 37
    Low temperature for Wednesday, December 7, 2011: 22
    Precipitation for Wednesday, December 7, 2011: 0 inches
    Precipitation for 2011: 19.34 inches
    This year just keeps getting worse.
    Harry Morgan died yesterday. I read about it in the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
.
    It was a small story, on the bottom of page A3. I could quibble with certain things about that story. For one thing, it’s too short. Harry Morgan lived to be ninety-six years old, and he worked steadily in Hollywood from 1942 to 1999. It’s impossible to give a full accounting of that in a seven-inch-long article. I could also make a credible case that Harry Morgan’s obituary should have gone on the front page of the newspaper, but I will concede that this falls into the area of news judgment, and reasonable people and newspaper editors can disagree on that. The one unassailable (I love the word “unassailable”) point I would like to make isthat the newspaper editor made a huge error by running a picture of Harry Morgan dressed up as Colonel Sherman Potter from
M*A*S*H
. That was a nice role for him, don’t get me wrong, but it’s clearly secondary to Harry Morgan’s role as Officer Bill Gannon on the ninety-eight color episodes of
Dragnet
.
    Let’s examine the facts of this situation:
    Fact No. 1: On
M*A*S*H
, Harry Morgan’s character was a replacement after McLean Stevenson’s Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake was killed off at the end of the third season. If Colonel Potter was such a great role, why did it come second? (That’s a rhetorical question—I love the word “rhetorical.”)
    Fact No. 2: Before Harry Morgan ever played Colonel Potter, he appeared on
M*A*S*H
as a character named Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. Observant viewers, like me, have a hard time reconciling that. Both characters are clearly played by the same man. Did the producers of
M*A*S*H
think we wouldn’t notice? (That, too, is a rhetorical question.)
    Fact No. 3: At best, Colonel Potter was the number three character on
M*A*S*H
. Officer Bill Gannon was a clear number two on
Dragnet
, and he was much funnier than Sergeant Joe Friday, so that made him memorable.
    The facts are on my side. The
Billings Herald-Gleaner
blew this one.
    I used to watch
Dragnet
on videocassette, one episode each night at 10:00 p.m. sharp (and then, after I started at the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
, at 12:30 a.m., because I