The Old Coot makes a
request.
By Merlin Lessler
This is my only complaint
about dog owners. Call it a PSA (public service announcement). Some of you are
making our species look bad, walking around with a leash in one hand and a bag
of dog poop in the other. I’m not against dogs, just the image that some of you
are creating, though very much appreciating that you pick it up! Most of you,
anyhow. As a matter of fact, I love dogs. Cats too. I’ve had dogs since I was
three years old and my parents let me keep a stray that had been wandering
around the neighborhood for weeks. They got quite a surprise three weeks later
when “Lassie” delivered seven pups in our basement. We kept one and named him
Topper because he left the litter, climbed to the top of the stairs and poked
his nose into the kitchen.
So then we had two dogs,
mother and son. Lassie was an unrelenting car chaser. My father, a design
engineer, rigged up all sorts of contraptions using wire coat hangers and twine
to try to retard her ability to race after a car. To no avail. She eventually was
adopted by a friend of my father who lived in the country where traffic was
extremely light. This was the 1940’s after all. There were such places then.
Topper was at my side for
eleven years, except when I went to church or to school. Otherwise, he was my
constant companion – in the woods camping and building forts, at the ball field
playing pick-up games. Even to downtown Binghamton, waiting outside a store or
the movie theater. No leash; he just plopped down by the door and waited. I had that first love of my life until I was
14 and he passed away.
I’ve had a succession of
dogs for most of my life; I don’t have one at the moment, but when I feel the
need for some canine interaction, I go to the dog park or to my daughter’s house.
There is nothing like a greeting from a dog – a happy show of affection, no
strings attached. Even if you are an old coot.
That’s a long route to get
to my point, but I’ve been taking lessons from Andy Haefer on how to string out
a short story. He’s leaving town, moving to Georgia, so I plan to carry on his
storytelling tradition. Back to the point! I’m asking the dog owners who are walking
their dogs and carrying a bag of you know what, to put the bag in an old purse
with a shoulder strap or in a small messenger bag, so the aliens who watch us
from their UFO’s don’t assume that dogs are the superior life form. It’s up to
you to save us Earthlings.
Comments – Send to
mlessler7@gmail.com
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