When Dogs Die

One of the great dogs in our neighborhood passed away yesterday. Our next door neighbor’s French Bulldog, Vander crossed the golden rainbow, leaving them sad and bereft. I’m not sure but Van probably was there at the birth of all three of their kids, so the loss will be even harder for the kids. Ever since I found out, I’ve been thinking about the dogs I have lost. The memories are both bitter and sweet.

Our first Golden Retriever was a beautiful big-headed blond named Murphy. Pam and I had only been married for a year when we got him. We immediately built a fence around our backyard to accommodate Murph. Although he spent plenty of time inside with us, he was largely an outside dog. Both of our children were born while Murph was with us and he loved them dearly and endured all of their horseplay with supreme patience and dignity. The first winter after we moved into this house, Murphy passed away on Christmas Eve. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Prior to Murphy, all of my childhood dogs had been outside animals and would quietly wander off deep into the woods when it was their time to go, sparing us the sadness. But, there I was laying on a cold tile floor at Gayton Animal hospital on Christmas Eve holding Murphy close while they administered the injection. Nothing I had ever experienced in life had prepared me for that moment.

Twelve or thirteen years later it was our second Golden, the indomitable, never to be replicated Molly who left us after a beautiful life. She was without question the most loving, affectionate animal I have ever known, and easily the smartest. She was the unofficial dog of the Grove Avenue Baptist church 200 student strong youth group. She was raised in a house crawling with teenagers on the weekends and she quickly warmed to the task of being showered with affection. When she was diagnosed with cancer at age eleven we were devastated. The Vet told us she had two weeks tops. She made it three and only showed outward signs of suffering in the last 24 hours. She died in our arms on the living room floor at four in the morning. It was excruciating. I’m not sure that Pam has ever gotten over it, she loved her so.

Now, our crazy neurotic Lucy is only eight and healthy as a horse. She has plenty of time, but her day will come and it will be horrible. Its the bargain we all make when we introduce a dog into the family. God allows us the privilege of their company for a limited time, and then he calls them home. The joy and happiness and laughter they bring to our lives means that when they go home they owe us nothing. They have given everything they had to us, holding back nothing.

But with the passing of time, I have a different perspective of their passing. I think that it should have been a time of celebration. Our dogs lived wonderful, full lives. They were cared for, adored and pampered. They enjoyed the love and devotion of children. They spent their days sleeping in front of warm fires and snuggling with us on sofas. They truly lived their very best lives in our care.

As far as Van is concerned, I would tell those sweet kids that he lived a great life and I bet if he was given the chance to live that life over again, he would chose them…again. Why wouldn’t he? What greater life could there be than one where you are loved and cherished by your family? Would that all of us could say the same.

Trying My Best to Grow Up

It’s six o’clock in the morning and all is reasonably well. Today I have an audit to endure from my broker-dealer, which is always a highlight of any year. This one will be my first virtual audit…the gift that keeps on giving from the COVID Era. I suppose my discomfort will also be virtual.

Speaking of discomfort, I ran across an excellent dad joke this morning:

How do you say constipation in German?

Farfrompoopin. Except in the region of Bavaria where the word is stoppenzeploppin.

My wife will eventually read this and when she does I bet she will ask herself this question: “My husband is getting ready to turn 65 years old. When in God’s name is he going to stop with these juvenile dad jokes??” This is a perfectly reasonable question for her to ask. With age is supposed to come wisdom, maturity, and seriousness of purpose. I suppose it’s not a good look to be making bathroom jokes at this stage of the game. I mean, the country is 31 Trillion dollars in debt, our President is within months of incontinence, and people are dying in Ukraine and what am I doing? Inflicting cringeworthy dad jokes on my beleaguered readership. Well, I am seriously considering growing up…but first there’s this:

A dinosaur named Sarah opened a women’s clothes store.

She called it Try Sarah’s Tops.

You should never challenge death to a pillow fight…

Unless you’re willing to face the Reaper cushions.

The Air Force has built new missiles filled with strawberry jelly.

They are designed to jam enemy radar.

Learning New Tricks

I fixed dinner tonight. This isn’t something I do very often. First of all, Pam is a terrific cook, while I’m more of a terrific consumer. This symbiotic relationship has served both of us quite well over the years. However, there are times when she needs a break from the kitchen. She hasn’t been feeling great for a couple days and this afternoon came home from work with an ailing, albeit sexy voice. She had planned on making my favorite soup. The recipe was laying on the counter. I glanced over it and thought, “I got this.”

It didn’t seem all that complicated, just a bunch of slicing of vegetables and what not. I gathered all the ingredients and laid them out on the counter and got to work. Along the way I did have to bother her with questions—which was a pain, because if I hadn’t the poor thing would have taken a nice long nap on the sofa. Instead I kept asking stuff like…When it says one Tablespoon of Olive Oil, what kind of olive oil do I use?? There’s like four different bottles in here and they all say different stuff! She also had to remind me that the minced garlic called for in the recipe would be the kind in the refrigerator, not the minced garlic in the spice rack…that kind of thing. Nevertheless, once I got started it was quite fun. Cutting up the celery, carrots and onions was cool. I found myself making a game out of it, seeing how fast I could cut up an entire carrot without slicing off the tips of my fingers—probably not a wise move. The most time consuming part of the process was shredding up the collard greens. Pam says she always takes off the big thick veins that run down the middle of each leaf. That was kinda boring. Once I got everything chopped and in the pot I had around 30 minutes to kill. So, I got everything together to make the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits, since any idiot knows that you can’t have Black Eyed Peas and Collard Green soup without biscuits. Pam was ambivalent about the notion of me cooking two separate things at once and offered to make the biscuits herself. But, I refused her offer because I wanted her to rest and I was feeling it.

So I look in the pantry and see that there is a box that had already been opened. Pam had used half the ingredients a few days ago to make just five biscuits for the two of us. I look at the box and think…this is perfect. I’ll just half the ingredients and make another five. Everything was going perfectly. The soup was simmering and smelling wonderful. I had preheated the oven like a champ. All I had to do is dump the mix, some cheese and some water in a mixing bowl and get the biscuits in the oven. But when I started mixing everything up I knew that something was wrong. Instead of dough that could be fashioned into biscuits the bowl was swimming with thin, yellow dough-soup! I had halved every ingredient perfectly except the water. Pam calmly walked into the kitchen and opened a new box of Red lobster biscuit mix, and handed me half of the flour to correct my error. Embarrassing.

But, I am happy to report that everything was delicious. Pam’s voice is even lower than it was when she got home. But at least she didn’t have to make dinner!

A Thousand Words

My big brother is ten years older than me. He’s retired and lives in Maryland. He’s the oldest and I’m the youngest of the four Dunnevant kids born to Emmett and Betty Dunnevant. Even though our father passed away eight years ago, Donnie never fails to remember his birthday. Today he posted a short tribute to him on Facebook along with a very rare photograph that I never remember having seen before. From looking at it I’ll estimate that it was taken probably 60 years ago. I have been mesmerized by it all day.

On the far left are my grandparents, my Dad’s folks. Then Mom and Dad. Donnie is standing next to Dad, then to his right is Linda. Next to her is Paula, and on the bottom row is me, maybe four or five years old. Looks like we were probably at a picnic. Dad and Donnie were playing badminton. Almost everyone was wearing white so it was probably in the summer. It is an image frozen in time from long ago when we were all different people. John Kennedy was in the White House, still a year away from his rendezvous with an assassin’s bullet. My Dad was 38 years old, my mom 32. I look at my Grandparents and notice that they are the only ones not smiling. It wasn’t because they were unhappy. It was because they were both born in the 19th century, and back then people their age never smiled for photographs. I wish I knew who took this shot.

But there’s something else, something that I have noticed in similar photos from back in the day. Linda always is pictured holding tightly onto my shoulders. And behind her, our mother seemed to be holding on to Linda. I’m wondering if they were concerned that I might make a break for it and ruin the picture. And…what’s with my shirt? There are stains all over the front. Everybody else looks fresh as a daisy. Paula looks like she doesn’t want to get anywhere near me, afraid I might get her in trouble or give her cooties. But in fairness to her, I look like I am up to no good. But seriously, what was going on with that haircut? No doubt it was one of those at home specials, probably given to me by Linda who did everything she could to make me look like Adolph Hitler.

60 years ago. Its just the four of us now.

Attention All Husbands

I have been married to the beautiful and beguiling Pamela J. Dunnevant for nearly 40 years now. It has proven to be the single finest decision I ever made. Nevertheless, after all these years one would think that I would know everything there is to know about her. You would think that I would have picked up on all her unspoken idiosyncrasies, all of the non-verbal cues that woman are famous for. Well, imagine my surprise when during lunch with friends a couple weeks ago, I discovered that for 38 years, 8 and a half months, I have been folding the towels incorrectly. Not to put too fine a point on it but actually I’ve been folding them just fine—but I have been placing them in the linen closet totally wrong.

Ok, I should admit up front that before Pam and I entered into marital bliss I had never folded anything that came out of a laundry basket. when I was a kid my Mom did that sort of thing. When I moved out of the house after college, I shared an apartment with my sister who did that sort of thing. So, everything I know about folding clothes I learned by watching Pam.

So, there we were at Glory Days after church having lunch and the conversation drifted into the dangerous waters of stuff my spouse does that annoys me. Like any self-respecting husband who knows what’s good for him, I couldn’t think of a single thing, at least nothing that I was dumb enough to bring up. It was then that I was stunned to learn of my towel-folding inadequacies. Pam says to my sister, “Yeah, he folds them right but then he always puts them in the linen closet wrong side out!! Can you believe it?”

Since that bombshell discovery, I have been hesitant to remind her of my past failures. Consequently, this has been sitting on the floor in our bedroom for several days now…

…mocking me. Today when I was home for lunch I made a command decision that I would dive right in there and get it right this time. So, I folded the towels and laid the finished product out on the bed and tried desperately to remember which side goes in first??!!

This way??

…Or this way?

Then as I looked at the two options it occurs to me that having the rounded edges outward would perhaps look better. Perhaps they would also be easier to grasp when removing them for use. But then I thought…there are only two human beings who will ever see how these towels were placed in this linen closet, and one of us could not possibly care any less. So, this is all for Pam’s benefit and the benefit of her advanced organizational mind.

Which brings me to today’s lesson. Gentlemen, it matters not whether you are a newlywed or a 50 year veteran, there is always something new to learn about your wife. The key is always…communication. Everybody remembers that Christmas years ago when instead of getting anything fun all you got was dumb stuff like…underwear. Well, even Santa and Mrs. Claus have had trouble communicating…

Men, don’t let this happen to you!

An Act of Kindness

My back is better, although still not 100%. I’ve been laying low, taking muscle relaxers and pain meds at night to help me sleep. The most frustrating part of having a bad back is when your wife stops you from attempted even the most common of household tasks with, “Get away from that! Don’t even think about lifting that until your back is all the way healed!!” But the absolute worst thing about these past six days has been the fact that I have not been able to do yard work, which has allowed the falling leaves to take over, making my yard look like nobody lives here!

So, there I was this morning around 10:15 sitting at my library desk when I heard the sound of a leaf blower next door. Immediately I was jealous that it wasn’t me. But then I noticed that the sound of the thing was getting louder and louder. That’s when I got up and walked over to the window. There was my next door neighbor, Stewart Garland doing this…

He had blown all the leaves onto the lawn and was now mulching them up with his mower and bagging up the clippings. This man is a married father of three high energy kids less than 12 years old. It’s not like he doesn’t already have enough to do, but there he was cleaning my front yard like a boss.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we love our neighborhood and our neighbors. Its also one of the reasons why we still live in the same house we had built 26 years ago. I suppose its also fair to say that this is what happens when you spend almost an entire decade spoiling the Garland kids to death. Their dad has pity on the old guy and takes care of his yard when he throws out his back. No matter the reason, I am so grateful and thankful that I get to live in a neighborhood like Wythe Trace.

Good News/Bad News

What follows is a good news/bad news story. First, the bad news.

Despite two solid months of diligent work done clearing my yard of fallen leaves cumulating in the pre-Thanksgiving sweep, the relentless downfall continued over the weekend. I was informed Sunday evening by my ever-vigilant wife that the County of Henrico was scheduled to visit our neighborhood to pick up bagged leaves this week. So, when I finished lunch yesterday afternoon I thought I would at least make a start. I decided to use the leaf blower to collect all the leaves in my driveway into a large pile first. After this uneventful task I turned my attention to the back yard, where I decided that I would simply pulverize the offending leaves with my lawn mower and dispose of the resulting mess into bags. This took a little less than an hour. At that point, I probably should have called it a day and gone back to the office. But for some reason I decided to bag up the leaves in the aforementioned pile in my driveway. Once the bag was in place I bent over to scoop up my first armful of leaves when I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. It was excruciating and quite familiar…almost one of those seeing stars moments which may or may not have resulted in a brief face-plant in the pile of leaves. Fortunately for my self-respect, there were no witnesses to this episode. Once back on my feet, I eventually managed to get inside the house where I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between heat and ice compresses.

I know what some of you are wondering. So, you went to the doctor or Patient First or something, right? The answer to that question is a resounding “NO”. Could I use a few muscle-relaxers right now? A couple decent pain pills? Sure. But in order to obtain them I would have to go to a doctor’s office and sit next to germ-spewing, flu-besotted people for half an hour. That’s a hard pass. Besides, I know how this throwing out your back business works having experienced it many times before. It’s painful and annoying for three or four days before it eventually works its way out of trouble and back to normal. I would rather suffer through the next few days than risk coming down with the FLU. 

So today, despite taking almost ten minutes putting my shoes and socks on, I limped in to the office for a while and actually accomplished a couple of things that were on my list. I intend to keep a lunch appointment at noon with a friend. After that I will collapse into my recliner and set my vibrating heating pad to STUN for the rest of the day.

So, what’s the good news? Well, the good news is that this back thing didn’t happen the last day I was getting leaves out of my yard…Thanksgiving Day. What a bummer that would have been. There’s always a silver lining to every dark cloud. Mine was timing…and the fact that there wasn’t anyone with their cell phone camera filming me in that pile of leaves!