again.
Cut!!!
Take three. And my fist once again connected with Van Cleef’s snout.
Let’s take five!
Even though this was a few years before
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,
I could hear the Ennio Morricone music sting as he sauntered over to me. He got right into my face, obscuring the sun and all of my hope for the future, leaned down, and growled, “If you do that again, I
will
. . . knock . . . you . . . out.”
Terrifying, which brings me to one of the most important of Shatner Rules, which is . . .
RULE: Don’t Punch Lee Van Cleef!
(NOTE: Lee Van Cleef died in 1989. This should probably be the easiest rule to follow.)
While in the tunnel, I figured that if I could survive my encounter with Lee Van Cleef, I could certainly survive my encounter with a wounded wild pig. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and trudged forward.
How did I get into this situation? Well, I love Thanksgiving. I love to say the word “Thanksgiving.” It’s a beautiful word and the intrinsic meaning of the word, to me, is “love.” And I would be spending that Thanksgiving—the Thanksgiving of 1969—without my loved ones.
I had just divorced my wife Gloria, and she and my daughters were spending the holiday elsewhere. I would be alone. And do you know what’s more terrifying to me than a wounded and angry wild boar? Being alone.
I hate being alone. I’ve spent most of my life filling up my existence with reservoirs of company, family around me, friends. I cherish the people I love for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that they keep me from being alone. I went through a lot of loneliness as a child, as a kid, and as a young man, and I fear it more than anything.
(NOTE: If you are seated next to William Shatner on an airplane, please be quiet. He doesn’t hate being alone THAT much.)
Fortunately, a couple of days earlier,
Star Trek
cinematographer Al Francis called me and invited me over to his house for the holiday. I was thrilled. I asked, “What can I bring?” He suggested ham. And for some reason, my mind leapt to wild boar! I didn’t want a piece of meat in a can you had to open with a key. I wanted a slab of meat on the hoof you had to kill with an arrow!
I must admit, for some reason Thanksgiving and danger sometimes go hand-in-hand with me. In recent years, my family has been witness to William Shatner’s Thanksgiving Blastoff. And no, “blastoff” is not something having to do with bowel abnormalities. It refers to my fondness for deep-fried turkey.
Deep-fried turkey is the most delicious turkey I’ve ever tasted. The oil sears the skin, so the oil doesn’t go into the meat. Amazing! The only problem is, the specific gravity of a turkey and the amount of oil you should have for the boiling period is never carefully calculated.
You don’t want to have too little oil, because any turkey above the oil line won’t cook. You’ve got to completely immerse the twenty-pound turkey in boiling oil, heated by an open propane flame below. So you don’t want too much oil. Do you see the potential problem?
Every year I could be seen sprinting, in my shorts and sandals, away from a plume of flame, a trail of liquid fire leading to our house, my fork in one hand, oven mitt in the other.
Elizabeth eventually destroyed my deep fryer. She didn’t sell it. She didn’t donate it. She didn’t leave it out on the curb—she destroyed it. She decided that William Shatner’s Thanksgiving Blastoff would never again claim another victim with its fiery deliciousness.
So in 1969, in the fine tradition of Shatner Thanksgiving danger, I chose to hunt and kill a wild boar for the Francis family and their guests. I grabbed my bow and arrow, hired a guide, and took off to San Clemente. I noticed my guide had a .45 strapped to his side, explaining, “If things get really bad, I’ll use the gun.”
My guide, the expert, had a gun, and I had a bow and arrow. It then occurred to me:
What
Cut!!!
Take three. And my fist once again connected with Van Cleef’s snout.
Let’s take five!
Even though this was a few years before
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,
I could hear the Ennio Morricone music sting as he sauntered over to me. He got right into my face, obscuring the sun and all of my hope for the future, leaned down, and growled, “If you do that again, I
will
. . . knock . . . you . . . out.”
Terrifying, which brings me to one of the most important of Shatner Rules, which is . . .
RULE: Don’t Punch Lee Van Cleef!
(NOTE: Lee Van Cleef died in 1989. This should probably be the easiest rule to follow.)
While in the tunnel, I figured that if I could survive my encounter with Lee Van Cleef, I could certainly survive my encounter with a wounded wild pig. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and trudged forward.
How did I get into this situation? Well, I love Thanksgiving. I love to say the word “Thanksgiving.” It’s a beautiful word and the intrinsic meaning of the word, to me, is “love.” And I would be spending that Thanksgiving—the Thanksgiving of 1969—without my loved ones.
I had just divorced my wife Gloria, and she and my daughters were spending the holiday elsewhere. I would be alone. And do you know what’s more terrifying to me than a wounded and angry wild boar? Being alone.
I hate being alone. I’ve spent most of my life filling up my existence with reservoirs of company, family around me, friends. I cherish the people I love for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that they keep me from being alone. I went through a lot of loneliness as a child, as a kid, and as a young man, and I fear it more than anything.
(NOTE: If you are seated next to William Shatner on an airplane, please be quiet. He doesn’t hate being alone THAT much.)
Fortunately, a couple of days earlier,
Star Trek
cinematographer Al Francis called me and invited me over to his house for the holiday. I was thrilled. I asked, “What can I bring?” He suggested ham. And for some reason, my mind leapt to wild boar! I didn’t want a piece of meat in a can you had to open with a key. I wanted a slab of meat on the hoof you had to kill with an arrow!
I must admit, for some reason Thanksgiving and danger sometimes go hand-in-hand with me. In recent years, my family has been witness to William Shatner’s Thanksgiving Blastoff. And no, “blastoff” is not something having to do with bowel abnormalities. It refers to my fondness for deep-fried turkey.
Deep-fried turkey is the most delicious turkey I’ve ever tasted. The oil sears the skin, so the oil doesn’t go into the meat. Amazing! The only problem is, the specific gravity of a turkey and the amount of oil you should have for the boiling period is never carefully calculated.
You don’t want to have too little oil, because any turkey above the oil line won’t cook. You’ve got to completely immerse the twenty-pound turkey in boiling oil, heated by an open propane flame below. So you don’t want too much oil. Do you see the potential problem?
Every year I could be seen sprinting, in my shorts and sandals, away from a plume of flame, a trail of liquid fire leading to our house, my fork in one hand, oven mitt in the other.
Elizabeth eventually destroyed my deep fryer. She didn’t sell it. She didn’t donate it. She didn’t leave it out on the curb—she destroyed it. She decided that William Shatner’s Thanksgiving Blastoff would never again claim another victim with its fiery deliciousness.
So in 1969, in the fine tradition of Shatner Thanksgiving danger, I chose to hunt and kill a wild boar for the Francis family and their guests. I grabbed my bow and arrow, hired a guide, and took off to San Clemente. I noticed my guide had a .45 strapped to his side, explaining, “If things get really bad, I’ll use the gun.”
My guide, the expert, had a gun, and I had a bow and arrow. It then occurred to me:
What
Similar Books
It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age
Phil Callaway, Martha O. Bolton
