Henry's Tale

            This is Henry.  He's my dog.  He's the BEST DOG EVER.  He's been my buddy for a long time now.  I had been looking for a dog, after losing my Golden Retriever a year or so before.  I visited the pound and the Humane Society, but all they had were little yapper dogs.  Definitely not my bag.  So I went to this weird little rescue near my house.  The rescue was house in an old, one story conch house that was in desperate need of a coat of paint.  It was run by a woman who, I guess, just really loved dogs.  If she couldn't find them a home, she kept them forever.  She had a farm with lots of room, so I guess it was a pretty good deal for the dogs, 

            So anyway, I went to her rescue to see what kinds of dogs she had.  Surprise, surprise...many, many little yappers.  I was really disappointed.  So I went outside and, as I was heading to my car, I noticed this old man sitting in a camp chair under a big Banyan tree.  He had this great looking dog with him.  A real dog.  So I walked over and asked if he was up for adoption.  Turns out he was.  So I bent down to pet him.  He sniffed me a little from his spot on the ground, in the shade of the Banyan.  I didn't rank a kiss, but he did roll over and request some tummy rubbing.  I obliged.  I asked if I could take him for a walk, and the old man said “sure”.  Off we went.  He was happy to come along, even though we weren't going anywhere.  That was it for me.  I took him back to the old man and asked what I needed to do to adopt him.  By the way, his name was Onyx – what a stupid name.  Anyway, I went inside to tell the woman that I wanted to adopt Onyx.  She said I couldn't. ???  What?  Why not?  She said I would have to foster him for a week before I would be allowed to adopt him.  Well, okay.  But why?  Turns out he was a problem child (like I wasn't sold already).  He had been returned 3 times, which is pretty amazing seeing that he was only 11 month old.  The first two times were due to wives not wanting a big, unruly puppy knocking over their little kids (clearly no sense of humor).  The third time he was returned because he was aggressive.  Funny, he didn't seem aggressive to me.  So I asked her what she meant by “aggressive”.  She handed me a sheet of paper on which the previous owner had written his excuse for the dog's return, along with comments by the rescue staff.  

            So here's what happened:  They brought Onyx home, spent a little time with him, then left him in the house while they (Mom, Dad and 3 kids) went out in the backyard to swim in the pool.  They had sliding glass doors that led out to the pool, where Onyx paced and barked at them while they swam.  The poor dog lost his mind.  He is a Bouvier Des Flandres, which is a herding dog.  They are very protective of their flock (kids) and they really aren't big fans of water.  Hence the reason the dog lost his mind.  He then proceeded to eat the sofa. When the man came back into the house and saw the sofa, he beat the dog.  The dog growled at him.  So that was that – they brought him back to the rescue, saying that he was aggressive.  What an asshole.  I was actually glad to hear he growled at the guy.  That's my king of dog! 

            So I took him home for the week.  I bought a kennel for him for when I wasn't at home.  It took Henry (he desperately deserved a new, better, name) 2 days to figure out that when I picked up my keys, that I was getting ready to leave, and also getting ready to put him in the kennel.  On the 3^rd day, I picked up my keys, and Henry went into the kennel on his own.  He turned around and watched to see if I was going to come and shut the door.  I did shut the door, but that was the last time.  I left him out the next day, and, I am happy to report, he did not eat the sofa (or anything else).

            Over the years, Henry has had his moments.  Because of the abuse he experienced, he has never been trusting of men.  He will warm up to them, but it takes him a little time to do so.  I was a single Mom with 2 kids, 7 and 8 years old; a big dog that barked and growled at strange men totally worked for me.  There were a couple of men that he never warmed up to, even when they were making a sincere effort to befriend him.  I should have listened to the dog and never dated those guys.  However, when I walk him down to the riverfront park at night here in Old Town, and an old drunk guy from the VFW Hall walks up to him to pet him, he thinks that's just fine.  Go figure.  He was great with my kids, when they were little.  He enjoyed herding them.  This was a favorite game for all involved.  They would run, Henry would chase them and nip at their heels.  When this wasn't enough to stop the kids, Henry would tackle them.  For some reason, my kids thought this was a great game.  I know I enjoyed watching it.  He never did get past the water thing.  When the kids were small, I would take them and the other neighborhood kids over to the park in the afternoon to swim off of the boat ramps.  Henry would bark the entire time.  He would occasionally go in the water and attempt to pull them out.  This didn't work out very well for him, but he tried. 

            Through the years, he has eaten some shoes, pooped in the house now and again, and has gotten into the garbage more times than I can count.  He has barked at the mailman every day of his life, and occasionally he has chased the cats (our cats – the same ones he naps with). But Henry has also always been the house referee.  He takes his role of herd tender very seriously.  He has always made sure that the cats didn't eat the birds, or the rats, or the hamsters, or the squirrel, or the ferrets.  He took care of the kids when they were small.  No one was allowed to approach them unless Henry gave it the okay.  He was also very adept at breaking up the kids when they fought with each other.  He accomplished this by barking (a lot) and, if that didn't do it, he would physically stand between them while continuing to bark.  After a couple of minutes of nonstop barking, the kids would get annoyed with him, which seemed to cause them to forget what they were fighting about in the first place.  What a smart dog.

            The kids are grown now and no longer live at home.  It's just me and Henry.  Well, not quite.  We also have a Newfoundland (Sophie) and a Standard Schnauzer (Emmett), along with a couple of cats (Little and Victor) and a Sun Conure (Zeke).  But Henry is still top dog.  He is getting old now, which fills me with sorrow.  He's getting a little arthritic.  Some days he can't quite make it up into my Suburban, and I have to give him a little assistance. Some days he can't quite make it up on the couch, so I lift him.  He is full of lumps which are fatty deposits.  It's another sign of old age.  His fur is no longer black.  He is gray and faded.  When I get up in the morning, he no longer leaps out of bed with me, like he used to.  He now opts to sleep in, coming downstairs about a half hour later.  Winters are getting to be hard on him.  He walks very carefully, so he doesn't slip on the ice. And if it's really cold, he won't go outside without his sweater.  He's an 80 lb. dog and he looks silly in a sweater, but he likes it, so what the hell?  He's 12 ½ now.  I know our time is limited.  I am sobbing at the thought of no longer having Henry in my life.  Some days, when he is having a hard time moving well, I simply sit and cry because it hurts me so much to see him growing old.  When this happens, he comes and comforts me. I wonder if he knows why I am sad?  Does he feel old?  Does he understand the passing of time?  I hope not.  In looking back over my life, my relationship with Henry is the most successful I've ever had.  Sometimes I feel guilty because I know I could have been better to him.  When we were all younger, I took him for granted.  He was always there; he was constant.  I knew I could count on him.  His limitless capacity for love and compassion never ceases to astound me.  It awes me that he loves me.  I'm not sure I deserve it.  He is the best person I know.

Lost in the Woods

When I was a kid, I had the privilege of attending summer camp in the Missouri Ozarks. From the ages of 8 to 16, I went to camp every summer for a month. As the years progressed, the activities that we were allowed to participate in became more advanced, because we actually learned things at camp, and built on our skills from year to year. Camp Zoe was primarily a horseback riding camp, but we had many other activities including canoeing, riflery, archery, art and crafts, and nature crafts. What exactly is “Nature Crafts”? Nature crafts consisted of learning about plants and animals, nature hikes, spelunking, catching crawdads (and cooking and eating them), and orienteering.

When I went to camp during my 13^th year, I had a new nature crafts counselor. He was a long haired hippie freak. His name was Chris and he gave us 13 year olds far more credit than we deserved in regard to our nature crafts skill set. He came up with lots of new activities for us and, unfortunately, assumed we had the skills to pull it off. One such activity was orienteering. He gave us a quick lesson on how to use a compass, figure out a heading, and theoretically, find our way out of the woods. Great! We can do that! No problem!

So one evening, after dinner, he gathered us up and drove us off into the woods. He reviewed the map with us, showed us where we were, and the compass heading we needed to follow to get back to the road, where he would be waiting for us. It was around 6:00 in the evening and the sun was still up. We had about 2.5 hours of daylight left to find our way back. Great! We can do that! No problem! So off we went in groups of 4, leaving 15 minutes apart from each other. Alone in the woods – at last, no grownups, no rules, captains of our destiny.

We walked with purpose from the dry dirt road into the scruffy weeds that bordered the forest. I thought to myself, “shorts were probably a bad choice”, but continued on, undaunted. Approaching the edge of the forest, the trees, towering over our heads, were a beautiful, deep emerald green. The forest was filled with sounds; birds, mosquitoes and squirrels. The forest floor was littered with pine needles and twigs and, as we walked under the canopy, they seemed to absorb the sound of our footsteps. As we entered the forest, the light changed – dramatically. The deep emerald green was suddenly painted with a gray wash that dimmed our view. It felt a little eerie. The four of us exchanged glances of mild concern, giggled a little (as only 13 year old girls can do) and continued onward.

At first, the going was pretty easy. Just a pleasant walk in the woods. But then the terrain started to get a little more challenging. The scruffy weeds became more dense with lots of ferns and saplings and the occasional fallen tree, and the ground became more hilly. The increasing density of the floor growth changed the quality of the sounds in the forest. It felt muffled. Even our own voices seemed to be dampened by the green moisture surrounding us. The birds seemed farther away and the squirrels seemed to have disappeared. However, the mosquitoes remained our constant companions. What was lacking in birdsong and the chitter of squirrels was replaced by “other sounds”. To four 13 year old girls, this could have been anything! We did our best to ignore these sounds, and failing that, to make jokes about them (OMG it's a turtle!). This worked for the first hour and a half. At least we thought is was an hour and a half; no one had a watch.

As we continued on our way, we diligently checked our compass and felt confident that we were going the right direction. We certainly hoped so, seeing that the sun was beginning to set, casting an even deeper grayness throughout the forest, as well as over our sense of humor. Our continued trudging brought us to the edge of a very small, very deep valley. It was breathtaking in its isolation. Deep, deep green, no sounds at all and an overwhelming aroma of rich dirt; this was the real forest. Checking our heading once again, we headed down the slope to the bottom of the valley, where we ran straight into an enormous dead-fall. It was truly impressive in its magnitude. There must have been a hundred dead trees all piled up together in various stages of decay. There was moss growing on some of them; ferns and mushrooms growing out of others. A couple of them still had green leaves suspended from their branches. In retrospect, I am grateful that I had no idea who Stephen King was at the time, as this would have quite possibly been my undoing! It was huge; there was no way around it. Up and over was our only option. The trees at the bottom of the pile had the most moss, ferns and mushrooms growing on them, which made them slippery. We all had our moments of stepping down on a log, only to have our feet disappear into its rotted interior. But we forged onward. We were really beginning to feel the stress of our current situation: Four girls wandering the woods with diminishing daylight, a map, a compass, and no flashlight. Hmm...maybe we need to pick up our pace a little bit. So we did our best to conquer the dead-fall as quickly as we could. As hard as we tried to reach the other side of the dead-fall in a short amount of time, we were not very successful. By the time we alighted on the other side, the remaining daylight was ebbing quickly.

As we ascended the other side of the valley wall, the light seemed to stabilize, as did our mood. We once again consulted our map. Surely we should be near the road by now. We searched through the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of dirt ribbon, but saw nothing but dimming greenness, rapidly descending to only shades of gray. The stabilized light, along with our stabilized mood, were short lived. Fear. Plain and simple. Our only saving grace at this point was that I was on the road to juvenile delinquency and had a Bic lighter in my pocket. We consulted the map and the compass, trying to see something far enough in the distance to set our bearing on. We were doing this every 10 minutes now because we could only see a 25 feet ahead of us. A funny thing happens in the forest when the light leaves. The sounds arrive. Thinking of turtles, squirrels and other benign forest dwellers quickly evolved into bears and bobcats, both of which are plentiful in the Missouri woods. We managed to keep some of our wits about us and pressed on. Where was the f***ing road? Our fear increased with every new sound and shadow that stalked us that night. It felt like hours had passed since the final light left our green canopied cave. It dawned on us that we now really understood that safety in numbers thing. In light of this new found understanding, we linked arms and continued, the monsters surely at our heels. To make ourselves feel better, and to drown out the sounds of the encroaching monsters, we started singing. I don't know who started it, but we all fell solidly into the Wizard of Oz mantra of “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My.” We were banishing the monsters back to their dark lair. What resourceful little children we were! Our singing served an additional purpose. Our counselor heard us! It took us a while to hear his panicked screaming over our song, but finally we did. We were, finally, a mere 10 yards from the road!

There seems to be a universal belief that long haired hippie freaks are uber calm individuals. If the vein throbbing in Chris' forehead that night was any indication, I believe this to be untrue. In retrospect, this was a man who had clearly experienced one of the worst nights in his life. He was not calm. He was not cool. He was not collected. We didn't understand why he was so upset. In a fashion that only the young and immortal can muster, we looked at him with confusion on our faces and said “What?”

 

 The next year when we all showed up for our month of fun, Chris was not there. Neither was the after dinner orienteering activity.

Acquiring Cats

One of my cats and I have a morning routine. When I awake, one of the first things I do, as do many people, is to visit the bathroom. The routine part of this equation is that my cat, Little, is there waiting for me. I sit, she sits on my lap. I give her her morning dose of affection; she rubs her head on my face and gives me mine. It's really a very pleasant way to start the day. This morning, while having our morning affection fix, I got to thinking about cats in general – my cats in particular. On very few occasions have I actually gone out and intentionally acquired a cat. I got to wondering if, in fact, cats pick their person, as opposed to people going out and picking a cat. This thought spun on to my reflection of the cats I have had over the years, and how they ended up in my house.

One autumn day, many years ago, my husband, my six week old son and I went for a walk at the beach. We weren't actually on the beach because strollers don't behave well in the sand. This particular beach was a block from our house in Florida. Autumn in Florida can be very pleasant. A reprieve from the summer heat is something to be anticipated for most of August. It was a blustery day. The sky was gray with heavy clouds that promised rain, and the wind was whipping through the palm trees, but not strong enough to pelt us with sand. Even though it was September, the air was warm and humid. One might think that weather like this might keep people in their homes, for fear of being caught in the rain, but the truth is the opposite. The beach was packed! There were lots of people like us, walking on the sidewalk, but there were just as many people out on the beach, playing in the washing machine-like surf.

As we strolled along, enjoying the breezy day, I thought I heard a cat. At first I wasn't sure, because the wind competed with all the other sounds of the day. So we walked on a little further. Then I thought I heard it again. I stopped. I listened. I heard it again. When I asked my husband if he heard it, he said “no”. I think he was lying. Another few moments passed and I heard it again, more constant and insistent this time. I finally located the source of the meows. Across the street from the beach were a few houses. In the driveway of one of the homes was a little tiny kitten. He must have been about the same age as my son. He was staring at me, crying, and trotting in my direction. Out of all the people walking at the beach that day, he picked me. I met him in the middle of the street and scooped him up. I couldn't imagine who would leave a barely weened kitten out in the yard. At this point, my husband had his hand over his eyes and was shaking his head: He knew how this was going to end!

I guess it goes without saying that we took him home. My husband named him Astro and, for many years after, referred to him as “The cat Willow stole.” I don't see it that way.

Brief Bio

               

I am a nontraditional student who graduated from EMCC in May of 2012.  I’ve actually been a nontraditional student for many, many years.  My first nontraditional foray into higher education was in 1980, when I was 16 years old.  In retrospect, this was not a great move as I was too distracted to achieve any success in a college environment.  When I turned 18 years old, my parents retired and, moving onto their sailboat, left for warmer climes. I became a roving teenager.  I moved to several different states and had many different jobs.  Overall, I had a pretty fun time and some questionably legal adventures.  During this period (about a decade, give or take) I hopped in and out of schools several different times.  By my mid twenties, I decided it was time to settle down.

I got married at 27 and had two children, who are 16 months apart.  When my marriage ended, my kids were 2 and 3 ½. I knew I needed to do something to be able to support them. I sold real estate for a while and ran an art gallery, among other things.  I went back to school, yet again, but found it to be overwhelming with two kids under 10 years, a full time job, bills to pay, etc.  I decided that school would have to wait until my kids were older.

Finally, the kids made it to high school.  I thought “this is now the time to pursue my education.”  I applied to EMCC, had all of my transcripts sent from various schools, and signed up for classes.  I was determined to get into the nursing program.   I worked really hard that first year, and did well in all of my classes.  This was quite an accomplishment for me because I was taking a lot of science courses, something I hadn’t done since junior high school.  At the end of my first semester, I applied for the nursing program.  I took the entrance exam, and did well on it.  In February, I got my acceptance letter.  I actually cried tears of joy when I received it in the mail that day.  To make a long story short, apparently nursing was not for me (at least that was the impression I got from others). So instead of graduating with my nursing degree, I graduated (with honors) with a degree in Liberal Studies.

After graduating with my AA, I enrolled at UMA, where I am completing my Baccalaureate in Liberal Studies, with minors in biology and secondary education (and possibly English, if I can rack up enough credits).  I hope to complete my studies within about a year.  I am looking forward to teaching at the high school level. Teenagers are way too fun!

My New Blog!

So, thanks to Mr. Goldfine, I have entered the strange, frightening world of blogging!  I am curious to see how this will go.  I am now going to attempt to correctly execute steps 1, 2 and 3.  Wish me luck!  It seems appropriate to say that I will keep you posted as to my success!