I'm finally off from school for a few days, gettin' ready for a new semester to start on Tuesday.

And it's Friday again, and I've got to go get a haircut and take dad to our regular big Friday feed. The kids I've been teaching down in Florence graduate tonight from High School, and I guess I'll try to be there. They've taken my classes for two years, half their high school life. Amazing to me that it's been that long since I started down there. Time flies.

I've been stayin' up late recently, scannin' old pictures from old times. It's been fun to go through these old shots and find stuff I haven't seen in a while. Here's a shot of me, happy as a clam, Christmas morning, Wichita Falls, Texas, about 1966, covered in pug puppies from our dogs second litter. They used to have a hell of a time keepin' me away from these babies.



Mom and Dad sold all of them eventually to people in the neighborhood, and that always made me mad. Some people didn't treat dogs the way we did, as if they were part of our family. One guy down the block bought one we named Brutus, and used to tie him up in the front yard. I'd ride my bike around and play with him when I could, but the folks there didn't like it. I have a vivid memory of riding by on the street and seeing Brutus just inside their screened-in front door. When he saw me he jumped up and started scratching at the door, trying to get to me.

We soon moved away again, to England, and mom and dad decided not to let Missy have any more pups till they were ready to keep them. When we went to England, Missy had to do a few months in the slammer, fulfilling their rules about quarantine. We'd drive over and visit her every weekend till we could finally bring her home. Here's a shot of Mom and I visiting.



You can sure see the love in my eyes. We kept her last litter , and when Missy died, in about 1971, Prissy and Wrinkles became my best friends. Here's my buddy Wrinkles, sitting on my bed in Kansas City, Missouri, where we moved to after leaving England in 1970.



They were both born in this house, in a cardboard box in the basement. Those were always wonderful times. Magical to me. Wrinkles and I used to tromp through the woods together, running through the creek that ran behind our house. He was my best buddy, at a time when I didn't have many others. There's NOTHING like the bond between a boy and his dog, even if the dog isn't a breed that people would associate with movies like Lassy or Old Yeller.

I'll never forget one day in Missouri, towards afternoon, we were standing out on the porch overlooking our back yard. The yard was huge, with about twelve trees on it, the grass stretching down to the creek and the woods beyond. Missy and her to pups were there, when all of a sudden a pack of dogs came running out of the woods and into our yard. At least a few of them were German Sheppards and there were a few other big dogs. Before we could stop them, the three of these little dogs took out after this pack of bug bruisers, and to our amazement and amusement, they ran those mutts out of the yard and down the creek, before trotting back, a look of happy satisfaction on all their little faces.

Both Wrinkles and Prissy died in the early 1980s, and it was ten years before the grief would allow us to think seriously about going out and getting another Pug. Finally, around 1990, dad and I took a trip to the east side of Arlington, to check out a huge flea market called Traders Village. I'd been there many times with friends, and had always seen lots of people selling golf clubs. I told dad he needed to check them out (he was a huge golfer back then). Never had I seen one pug there for sale. To my amazement we got there and found several people selling Pug puppies. It was like the stars had aligned there just for us.

We looked through several litters in several places, and dad picked one out while I went to the ATM to get the money. By the time I returned he'd put that first one down and picked out another, who we eventually named Rascal. Here's an early shot of Dad and Rascal in out back yard in Ft. Worth.



That's a golf ball he's playin' with. Our cat, Charley, can be seen surveying the situation, in the garden right in front of the Bike tire. Eventually these two became fast friends, and would lay around the house or yard chewing on one another playfully.



Most of this relationship developed while I was a way on ships. I'd come home and Rascal would have grown bigger, and the play time between he and Charley would have grown more hilarious.

Rascal was really dad's dog while I was away, and we think that their relationship, and the daily walks with both the dog and cat, helped my dad get over a jolt of open heart surgery that he'd had just before we got the dog. That's right, the cat would go on walks with them. People in the neighborhood were always amazed to see this old man, his dog on a leash, and a yellow cat following along. We've got it on video. One of these days I'll have it converted to digital and post it.

Eventually I stoped going out on the ships, and Raz became more my dog, as I spent more and more time playing with him. He was a great friend. Here's a shot ow us playing with his squeaky toy. He's trying to get it from me and I'm trying not to lose an eye as he comes at me with those paws. Fun times.



Anyway, inevitably, Rascal got older as time went by, and his health declined. We eventually realized that he was going deaf, and was slowly loosing the use of his back legs. I resisted the inevitable, wanting to try to get him some of those wheels that you see dogs using, but mom and dad made the call. It was time.

I knew from the memories of handing Wrinkles off to a vet, and the look on his face, watching me as he was walked away, that this time I'd hold Raz myself while these strangers gave him the shot. He was old and arthritic by then, but as he slipped away, all the tension in his body was lifted from him and he was the same old boy that he'd been years before. I stood there for a while, talking to him and petting him, and then mom and I walked away. I didn't erupt into tears till we were driving back in the car. I can't imagine a greater grief, probably because I still have both my parents with me.

I've got a house full of cats now, picked up while I lived in the cliff dwellings (apartments) before buying this house. I wake up on a bed full of pooties every day.



Love them to death, but there's nothing like the love of a dog. I'll have one again some day, and it'll be another pug. Part of me wants a big dog, but I think you need a big yard to really give a dog like that the life it deserves. Maybe one day I'll build a place out on my property, seventeen acres, and turn into one of those old guys with a huge pack of critters. Can't imagine a better way to go.