A Dogs Tale Or My Life And Strange Times

Heart and Soul

2009-08-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

Life takes many twists and turns before you finally hit a straight spot in the road that allows you to see a little further in to the distance. Over the last few months my road has had more twists than Lombard St. , the famous zig zag brick road on a hill in San Francisco, just one endless switchback after another. Yesterday though something happened that made me take pause and think about the things in life that we live for, of the things that makes you keep both hands on the wheel as you maneuver the twists and turns . I have never been a fan of cats, I have never liked the " I'm a cat person" or " I'm a dog person". One should never pigeonhole themselves into such selective categories. Cats serve a purpose in our society I'm sure, we still have mice and rats that need to be disposed of. Right ? As far as the argument that a cat is as good of a companion as a dog......... Please stop blowing hot air up my kilt, you'll never convince me of that. A cat is an accessory for an apartment. A cat will only show you as much affection and loyalty as the next dish of food. Shut off the gravy train and open the door you'll never see Puss and Boots again they'll be down the road to the next house with a food dish.

The reason people love dogs is simply because THEY HAVE SOUL. No cat in the history of catdom has ever given it's life for it's master except maybe by waking them up as they clawed across their owners chest on the way out the window of a burning house. I know cats are smarter and more independent than dogs, I've heard this one too. You don't have to be smart or independent to have soul. The heart and soul of a dog is closer to that of a humans than any other animal in the history of mankind. The bond between you and your dog is like no other. That is why it hurts so bad when we have to let them go. When we know we are saying goodbye to them for the last time. The pain, sadness, and emotion are inescapable. In your mind you know that it has to be done, you know you are doing the right thing, what is best for a companion who is most likely in pain, who's quality of life is rapidly diminishing right in front of you. The friend you have had at your side for so many years, through good and bad making no judgements and loving unconditionally, is leaving your world for the great unknown and you have to let go, you have to be the one to send them on that journey. This is a very hard thing to do this letting go, being the one who has to say yes to the inevitability of it all.

So how do we do this this incredibly hard act of love for a companion that knows nothing of the decisions that have to be made. You can never talk yourself into distancing your emotional attachment far enough away from your friend to make it a logical action. You tell yourself it is for the best, that the pain will be gone, that another life, a better life is waiting for that four legged beast staring into your eyes just like they have done a million times before but it never makes it easier. You will end up holding them in your arms when the last breath of life leaves their body and they drift off into the universe.Then in an instant that seems as though it was an eternity you are alone in a little room . You are now the only soul left in that little room with the linoleum floor and the formica counters. The memories of all the events of your life with that motionless body in your arms rush through your head like a tidal wave even though there is nothing but silence all around you. And just like that the little puppy that you spent years raising, taking care of, and loving is gone and you will cry. You are human and you will cry for the loss of your friend. If you don't cry at that moment you will cry before the day is done because you are human and you have a heart and soul like no other animal that walks the earth. Well with the exception of one.

In the end we are left with memories and pictures , in some cases lots of pictures because that's what you do, of our lives with these animals who are family to us. Relish and relive those moments that defined your lives together.What was it that brought this dog into your live. Why this one and not another ? Who can say. All that you know is that they were here in our lives for a short period of time. Hopefully they made your life better, and hopefully you did the same for them. Always remember with happiness and not sorrow, because all dogs go to heaven and if you loved them with all your heart and soul you will meet again. I have had the idea that when my time comes, if I'm lucky, that as I head toward those pearly gates I will be greeted by all my Chow Chows, and Danes waiting there with tails wagging ready to run and play once more.

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2009-01-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

My parent's home was a standard four bedroom, two bath ranch style that was extremely popular in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The neighborhood was situated on rolling slopes that had once been an olive orchard. Each home in the development had it's own olive tree in the front yard. During the Spring the branches of these trees would explode with blossoms laden with enough pollen to put the average person into an allergy induced coma. If you were cursed with any type of hay fever allergies like my brother is just the sight of that tree covered in a blanket of off-white blossoms, and the choking heavy smell of the pollen in the late afternoon heat of the San Joaquin valley would cause your eyes to water and your throat to start to constrict. Our tree was located directly out the front door of the house causing a daily dilemma for my brother. From Spring until mid Summer when the blossoms on the tree were replaced by tiny green olives my brother would have to enter and exit through the garage door located at the other end of the house. Our front lawn was basically a thirty foot slope from the front door to the sidewalk that bordered the street. When we were kids we would try to play football , a game normally played on a vast flat surface, on that treacherous slope to no avail. Someone would always end up on the sidewalk rolling around in pain. You might be compelled to ask why then didn't we play on someone else's yard better suited for the game ? The answer is very simple; my dad was the only one in the neighborhood who didn't care what his lawn looked like. It was always a source of frustration to have the only yard that nobody wanted to play on, yet the only one that we didn't get chased off of by some one's dad. The irony of it was that our yard was probably tougher than most of the other yards in the neighborhood due to the fact that ours was ninety percent crabgrass. While all the other dads in the neighborhood were out every weekend busily grooming, fertilizing and watering their yards my dad would be reclining on the couch watching the Major League game of the week with Joe Gargiola and Tony Kuebeck on the TV. My dads theory was that if he kept it mowed short and watered every so often that from a distance you couldn't tell the difference between Kentucky Bluegrass and Northern California Crabgrass. So every other weekend dad would go out with his thirty-five dollar Kmart special push mower and give the yard a cut so short it would have made a Marine Corps barber envious. Then he would turn on the sprinkler and go back inside to watch the baseball game until one of the neighbors would knock on the door and tell him his water was running across the sidewalk and into the gutter. Of course it was running across the sidewalk we lived on the side of the Matterhorn for Gods sake it had no other place to run but across the sidewalk ! Most of the other dads in our neighborhood had expensive self propelled, rear bag mowers made by Snapper or Torro, but not my dad. Every Spring dad would go out and attempt to start his Kmart special that had been sitting in the garage since last Fall. The mower never started on the first try, or the second try, or on any of the subsequent attempts that my dad stretched out over most of a Saturday. The mower still had the old spark plug, the same gas, and a dirty air filter from last Summer when he had mowed the yards for the last time and parked it in the corner of the garage. I don't think we ever owned a mower that had the air filter, or the oil changed as a matter of fact I'm pretty sure my dad didn't even know that the mower had oil in it. When one of the neighbors would eventually come over after watching him struggle in vain in the garage, and ask him the basic questions concerning the maintenance of a gasoline combustion engine dad would just stand there and nod his head confirming that he had followed all the proper Spring tune up proceedures. They might as well have been talking about the inter workings of the space shuttle. Since the level of my fathers mechanical ineptness was never a point of debate around our house we all new it was only a matter of time before he would declare that all mowers were poorly built and thus not designed to last more than one season. That was why he just couldn't see paying two or three hundred dollars for one.This speech was usually given as he was putting his wallet in his pocket, grabbing the keys, and heading for good old Kmart and another thirty-five dollar mower. The only question that has never been answered to this day is what happened to all the old mowers ? Did he bury them somewhere in the yard ? Did he just put them out by he curb and wait to see if someone would take it ? Was there a place like a car junkyard for mowers ? By the end of football season all those other yards that had been so painstakingly manicured all Summer long looked like a herd of cattle had stampeded through them as the one by one capitulated and let us play one game on their yard. There sat our sloping hill of a yard not looking any different than it did at the height of the Summer lawn care season. You couldn't tear that crabgass with a John Deer tractor. Little did I know that on this Christmas Eve all the pain and scars that being rolled off that slope and onto the sidewalk had caused would be erased in just a matter of moments.

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2009-01-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

Not knowing Jerry that well at this point in our strange relationship I didn't realize how deep of an effect the holiday season had on him. Jerry's level of sentimentality was quite out of character for a man who normally had such a hard time expressing his emotions. The depth of his sentimentality did seem to increase in direct proportion with the amount of alcohol he had consumed. On this Christmas Eve as Jerry strolled through the front doors of his restaurant his level of sentimentality could be measured at about a fifth. A fifth of what you may ask, what type of device could possibly measure someones sentiment. Well there is no device that I know of that is capable of measuring emotion. The fifth I'm talking about is a measurement of liquid, it comes in a bottle and I'm guessing the bottle was once full of brandy. Jerry had consumed so much sentiment on this particular evening that he felt he could not properly convey his feelings without donning a full Santa suit complete with beard, hat, and jingle bells on the boots. Just as I was slipping out the backdoor of the restaurant Jerry was staggering through the bar doors and breaking into his best Santa routine. He had arrived with cheer in his heart, and an empty glass in his hand to wish all his employee's, and patrons a merry Christmas. Once Jerry had worked his way through the dining area and back to the kitchen, his glass once again full, he eventually realized that his favorite neighbor was not in attendance. The night shift manager told Jerry that I was part of the crew that he had let go early since business was so slow that night. Jerry just assumed that I would be heading home, not knowing anything about my personal life. Jerry didn't dress up as Santa just for the benefit of his employee's and patrons of the restaurant, he was planning to head home to treat his children to a visit from old Kris Kringle. I did find this somewhat odd being that Jerry's three kids were all in their early to late teens. I guess Christmas is all about believing no matter what shape it comes in even if it's in a rented Santa suit that smells of brandy. After making one more stop in the bar to wish the bartenders happy holidays as they hit him with one more quick shot of holiday spirit it was into the car and off to the ole homestead. Somewhere between the restaurant and Stollwood Dr. Jerry realized he could kill two birds with one stone by stopping over across the street to to wish his favorite neighbors a Merry Christmas. That was pretty clear thinking considering how much "Santa" had consumed in the spirit of the season. Jerry wasn't the quickest whip in the corral and just this one time it might have been in Jerry's best interest to have stayed at the bar a bit longer and forgot who lived across the street from him.................

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2009-01-11T17:55:00.000-08:00

It was about this same time that my relationship with my girlfriend, whom would later become my wife, started getting serious. I found myself spending more time at her house than I did at my own. Quite often I would go over to her house after work to see her and end up spending a good portion of the evening there. This left my parents home alone at the mercy of Samson for the evening. By this time Samson was pretty much a full grown male Chow weighing about sixty-five to seventy pounds. He had a full set of adult teeth now all of those little pin sharp puppy teeth were gone, and when he clamped down on your forearm now you were not going to get away without a serious tussle. Samson's canine teeth were at least an inch and a half long and the force that his jaws produced was immense. I would have loved to have had one of those devices that scientists use to measure the foot pounds of pressure a shark produces when it bites something and had Samson bite down on it. I don't know how much pressure his jaws produced, but once he had you you weren't going anywhere until he decided to let you. The strange part of the evening ritual with Samson was that he never ever tried to do anything to my mom. She would look at him from her rocking chair and give him a stern,"No Samson !", and that would be it. Samson would follow my mom around the house but not in a aggressive way. I think he was just doing what Chows do best, protecting his family. Many times I would come home and find him sleeping at her feet while she sat and sewed, or knitted in her rocking chair. Years later she would comment that once Samson was full grown she never felt unsafe in her house ever again. A comment like that from my mom was in my opinion about the highest praise that any dog could ever receive. My mom was not a person who handed out praise unless it was deserved. The funny part of Samson's evening routine was that he just loved to attack my dad. Samson would wait for my dad to settle in on the couch after dinner preparing for his pre bedtime nap, a nap that usually started about seven P.M. and ended right before he got up and went to bed about nine P.M. Samson would start out in the backyard running around chasing anything he thought he could catch and kill. Once he had a full head of steam up he would gallop for the living room through the sliding door. Even though he was a good sized dog he had incredible speed and acceleration, very few things rarely escaped Samson when he was on the hunt. He would come flying up the two patio steps, through the open sliding door, and run the full length of our long rectangle shaped living room / dining room area ending up in the kitchen at the far end of the house for a drink of water. Once Samson's thirst was quenched he would stand at the edge of the kitchen and stare down my dad, who by that point knew exactly what was coming but never got up to stop him. Dad would sit at the far end of our living room couch, which was about eight feet long, propped up in the corner against the arm in pre nap position trying to ignore the impending attack that was now charging at him full speed from the kitchen, nothing more than a red blur before he became airborne just past the the arm at the close end of the couch. Samson would land one cushion away from dad on the couch and let his momentum carry him right up on top of dad who was now flailing about and screaming at the top of his lungs trying to ward off the red beast. During the summer when all the windows in the house were open our next door neighbor Bob Gibbs said it sounded like World War Three was being waged between dad and Samson. My mom who would be sitting across the room in her rocking chair trying half heartily not to laugh all the while telling Samson to stop, but she would be laughing so hard she couldn't get the words out. She said it was one of the funniest things she had ever seen. Samson, for all his growling fury, was very careful never to hurt dad though, never any puncture wounds, stitches, or trips to the hospital. That is how you can tell if a Chow is playing with you or if he means business, there would be other people that Samson wasn't playing with and when he was done they knew it. Dad would eventually dig his way out of the corner of the couch that Samson had stuffed him down into and start whacking him with a rolled up newspaper or magazine, whatever was closest. That was like trying to stop a charging Rhino with a fly swatter. A note to any future Chow owners; beating on a Chow does not usually deliver the desired effect. Samson thought dad was playing with him and instead of backing down he would attack whatever dad was trying to hit him with. There was many a night I would come home from work to find a newspaper section or what was left of Time magazine on the living room floor shredded to pieces. There would stand Samson waiting outside on the patio steps, the sliding door locked, exiled to the backyard for the rest of the evening. A sort of canine time out if you will, my dads last line of defense. Dad would wait until Samson locked down on his makeshift magazine baton and drag him towards the sliding door, not an easy feat through shag carpet, when Samson's grip would lessen dad would yank the magazine from his mouth and either throw it or pretend to throw it out the sliding door with Samson in hot pursuit. The sliding door would slam behind Samson and lock before he could turn around and head back for the house. This was my parents typical evening entertainment for about six to nine months when my dad finally decreed that Samson either went to obedience school or he went to the pound. Well there was no way that Samson was ever going to leave my side, it had taken me a year of bugging my parents to let me have him and he wasn't going anywhere not as long as I had a say in the matter.

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2009-01-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

I had been working at the restaurant for a few months successfully maintaining a healthy level of anonymity which was just fine with me. I don't know who told Jerry about our neighborly relationship. I knew I had never mentioned it to Jerry, or anyone else for that matter. If I had to make an educated guess on just who had spilled the beans my money would have been on my best friend Chuck. I am sure Chuck derived endless pleasure from the sight of Jerry and I having one awkward conversation after another while the dirty dishes piled up at my dish washing station. In all actuality the majority of the awkwardness fell upon Jerry's shoulders much more than it did on mine. Once Jerry found out that I had grown up in our neighborhood he felt compelled to ask questions about all of the other neighbors in hopes of getting to know them without ever having to talk to any of them. Somewhere about this time my parents came in to the restaurant to have dinner and were introduced to Jerry, probably by Chuck once again. This just complicated my situation with Jerry even more because now when Jerry passed through the kitchen every night he must have felt some kind of obligation to stop by the dish washing station and make small talk about the neighborhood. The only problem was there was little conversation to be made since Jerry was rarely around the neighborhood and didn't really know any of his neighbors. This did lead to moments of tremendously awkward silence, a circumstance that I would later find out was common place when trying to carry on a conversation with Jerry. The other kitchen workers were now all aware of the new found relationship between Jerry and I. They all loved this new dynamic in the kitchen and how uncomfortable it made Jerry feel. Up until this point Jerry had hardly ever acknowledged any of the kitchen workers, other than the kitchen manager, much less attempted to engage in conversation with them. To me it didn't matter either way if Jerry stopped and talked to me or passed right by. When you're washing two to three hundred dishes of half eaten food a night it wouldn't make a difference if Moses himself came down from Mt. Sinai just to stop in and say hello. Jerry was there night after night stumbling through what could only be described as an exercise in verbal futility, all the while out of the corner of my eye I could see all the prep cooks holding back their laughter as they chopped vegetables for the next days soup. I ended up with the last laugh though because Jerry would have to walk by those same prep cooks ever night and eventually he must have felt obligated to speak to them as well. The only difference was that they weren't Jerry's neighbors so they had even less to converse about, and most of them had worked there long enough to acquire a healthy dislike for him. So up until this point they were all happy to have no interaction with Jerry at all. It was then my turn to stand at the dish washing station and watch with bemusement as Jerry and his other employees tried in vain to become a little bit more human.

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2008-12-21T17:15:00.000-08:00

The stories of Jerry's dysfunction were legendary around the restaurant. Stories of him strolling onto the office at 2 o'clock on Saturday morning and "borrowing a couple of thousand dollars from the safe so he could take whatever hangers-on he had dredged up out of the bar to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. This story I know to be true because I was the manager who opened the safe for him on night. There was the story that goes a couple of years after he had opened IRS agents walking in the door on a Friday night about eight P.M. , chained up the front doors, seized all the cash registers from the bar and the restaurant, demanded that the office safe be opened and seized all the cash in there as well. They even made the waiters and cocktail waitress' turn over any cash they had collected for their shifts. Jerry was five minutes ahead of them stashing cash from the safe in one of the walk-in freezers. My favorite "dysfunctional Jerry" story has to do with the time he decided to take his latest dalliance to Reno for the weekend. He had rented a limousine to drive them there and to return them back to Sacramento on Sunday afternoon. They we going to dine, drink, gamble, and party all weekend at least that's what Jerry thought. Everything was going swimmingly right up until the discussion over a late dinner turned to the sleeping accommodations. Apparently Jerry's date was under the impression that there was going to be separate sleeping accommodations. Imagine that, Jerry had found a woman with some semblance of moral turpitude. I would have wagered that Jerry didn't see that one coming. The full story of what transpired between the two of the was never fully revealed, but the gist of it was the the young lady got the room and Jerry got the boot. Somewhere around nine-thirty the next morning about the time the restaurant go going for Saturday dinner a cab with Nevada plates pulled up to the rear entrance . Jerry climbed out of the back of the cab wearing the same clothes he left in the night before, a little rumpled and minus the tie. Jerry ran into the morning shift manager as he was staggering towards the back door barking at him to pay the cabdriver "Whatever he wants". While the manager was negotiating a monetary settlement with the cab driver he couldn't help but to inquire how he ended up in the parking lot of a restaurant in a different state at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning. The driver said that Jerry hailed him down and told him to take him to the nearest liquor store, which if you've ever been to Reno you know isn't too far in any direction. The driver drove Jerry to the nearest liquor store, Jerry told him to wait for him and to keep the meter running. A few minutes later Jerry emerged from the store bottle in bag in hand, climbed back into the cab and told the driver to take him to Sacramento. It was at this point that the driver said he took a long pause before asking what seemed to him to be a reasonable question ; " Do you happen to know where you are sir ?" With the use of several explicatives fired out in a drunken slur Jerry told the driver he knew exactly where he was and he knew exactly where he wanted to go. HE then proceeded to pull out a large fistful of what the driver said appeared to be $100.00 dollar bills and shook them at the cab driver. The driver said it looked as if Jerry had enough to make it worth his while so he thought he would take a drive. The driver said Jerry never said a word directly for the next ninety or so miles until the cab driver needed directions once they were close to Sacramento. "He just sat back there, stared out the window, and mumbled disparaging comments about women in between drinks from the bottle he had bought all the way from Reno to Sacramento". Jerry is the only person I've ever known who has taken a taxi from Reno, Nevada to Sacramento, California.

A Christmas Gift For You Continued.....

2008-12-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

I had a job as a dishwasher in a locally owned steakhouse after I got out of high school. It was definitely not the greatest job one could wish for, but a couple of my friends talked me into it and I figured it would give me an excuse to hang out with them after work. I had been working there for a couple of months when I realized that the owner of the place Jerry, was also the father of the family that had moved into the house across the street from my parents about six months earlier. It took me that long to be sure he was the same man who signed my paychecks. He kept some very unusual hours and in addition to that he wasn't what you might call the next door neighbor of the year. Most of our neighbors didn't even know his name much less what he did for a living. For a person who owned a business Jerry was not what could be described as a fixture in his own establishment. After working there and observing him for those first few months it became clear that he had many other interests besides being a successful local restaurateur. To say the man had many vices would have been an understatement at best. His favorite pastime when he was at the restaurant was sitting in the bar and drinking. He would sit and watch the bar staff while drinking Kamikaze after Kamikaze, the type of drink that one would be able to consume many of before their Mitsubishi Zero crashed into a aircraft carrier deck. Coming in a close second on Jerry's list of vices would have to have been his shameless pursuit of any woman other than his wife.He didn't seem to be too particular in this department. Basically any woman younger than his wife who would still be interested in him after trying to carry on a conversation with him filled his criteria. Even after my parents had met Jerry I didn't shared these facts with them until sometime later. I found it a bit dis concerning to be working for a man who was quite possibly less mature than me. Even without his multitudes of vices Jerry was a man was man who for the most part was bewildered and confused by the world around him. I always found it strange that a man like Jerry would choose the restaurant business as a profession. A business that by nature lends itself to human interaction. Anyone who spent time with Jerry could tell that human interaction was not his strong suit. I guess you would have to say Jerry was just not a people person. To be continued............

A Christmas Gift For You

2008-12-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

Most stories you are told of someones best Christmas memory is usually centered in their childhood and involves a toy, or a puppy, maybe a plastic purse. We all can relate to Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" with his Red Rider BB gun.Some people will relive stories of family members arriving unexpectedly on Christmas Eve. The stories all vary to a certain extent, but there is always a common thread that weaves their tales together. The magic of Christmas and the spirit of of the holiday season. Most people won't admit it, but they like to believe that there is some outside force, a spirit if you will, that is looking out for them attempting to help them through the hard times making the good times more memorable.These beliefs couldn't be more crystallized than in the image of St. Nicholas and the Christmas season. I believe the story that I'm about to tell you incorporates many of the elements that fall under the scope of the magic of Christmas. I like to think the story is fairly humorous, and best of all it's true !
When I was fifteen years old I received a red male Chow Chow for my birthday/ Christmas present. The reason for the combination of the two occasions was that for the first time in his life my father actually paid money for a dog. My dad never saw any reason to pay for anything that could be obtained for free. Over the years we had a menagerie of different dogs, most mutts or strays that followed me home. We did have a purebred Dachshund that my grandmother had bred. As is the case with some purebred dogs he went a little crazy as he got older and we had to find a new home for him. None the less I never gave up on having a dog of my own, and once I saw a Chow I knew I had to have one of those dogs. I did get a Chow puppy, purebred with no papers, at the discount price of $125.00. That was still an astronomical amount to pay for a dog in my dads mind, but it was substantially less than the average of $500.00 that AKC registered purebred Chows sold for at the time. I named him Samson, and just like the Biblical that he was named for we found over the next sixteen years that possessed some rather amazing traits. The best way to describe Samson would be to compare him to a force of nature. I watched him intimidate full grown men with a single growl. He really cared for no one other than our family members, and some of them weren't to sure about that. When Samson was a year old my father insisted that I take Samson to obedience classes. The idea of obedience class came from his deep sense of self-preservation more than the desire to have a dog that would walk and heel on a leash. Samson had developed a playful puppy habit of clamping down on your forearm and shaking it violently as if you were an old rag doll. To his great dismay Samson seemed to be particularly fond of the size and taste of my fathers forearms.When my father would arrive at work on Mondays after a weekend of hand to hand combat with Samson his arms scratched and scarred all of his co-workers would joke that my mom must be "a real animal" on the weekends. After two weeks in obedience class the instructor told us that in all the years he had been training dogs he had never encountered a dog that was so fearless and aggressive. These are outstanding traits for a Marine recruit however they are not desirable in your average house pet. That was Samson my first Chow. To be continued........

Life, Death, and Where The Hell Are My Tires Pt. 2

2008-12-13T11:10:00.000-08:00

As of Monday December 15Th my mother-in-law will be alive once again, at least that's what the Social Security Administration says. So life goes on for those of us who are still amongst the living. Just as life is cyclical so are the seasons we have four of them and depending on where you live some of them can last a bit longer than the others. In Oregon winter would be one of the"longer " of the four seasons. To be precise it encapsulates about two thirds of the four seasons, if that makes any sense to you. If that doesn't make sense to you come and live here for a couple of years you will know what I'm talking about. Rain makes up the bulk of our winters here, but every now and then mother nature kicks it up a notch and gives us a taste of what winter is like in other parts of the country. Heavy precipitation coming of the pacific coast runs into a cold bast coming out of the Gorge from the east, or and Arctic front will work it's way down from the Great White North and we get snow. Why I hate snow; snow is wonderful and magical if you are 1. a small child, 2. housebound by some physical malady, 3. retired with no place to go. Anyone who doesn't fall into one of these categories will tell you snow is a pain in the ass ! If you have to go somewhere in the snow via the automobile it necessitates traction, usually coming from snow tires which I happen to own, two sets of them as a matter of fact. So when the man on the TV says snow is coming you go to the tire store and put on your snow tires, simple.... right ? Nothing is simple in the world of the Meyers anyone who knows us will attest to that. We drop the car of for the snow tires, but wait not so quick there Tex. " Your snow tires are too old we can't mount them for you. You're going to need to buy new ones. And for 15 dollars we will recycle your old snow tires." OK I'm going to need them to get to work because I am not a member of the three category club, so we pay for four new snow tires. We'll be back later to pick up the car, and thanks for all the help! Off we drive , traction galore, bring on the snow baby I'm ready for it. Two days later we open the trunk to put the regular tires away and what do we find..... another set of snow tires. Not another set actually just my old ones that were supposed get recycled. Hmmmm if these are in the trunk, and the new ones are on the car, then where are my regular tires that came off the car ? That was the 64 dollar question which I posed to the manager of the tire store . Luckily he had the answer to my question, well half the answer at least. "Whoops we screwed up. We realized it that night and I have your tires right here you can come and pick them up anytime you like. Let me check and make sure they are here. Hold on I'll be right back." This is what I like to call the Meyers pause, everything is good until they put you on hold. " Well Mr. Meyers it appears I only have two of your tires, the other two must have gotten recycled last night." See I told you.Well I guess I did pay 15 dollars for some tires to be recycled. So where are my other two tires, who knows ? Maybe Monday I'll call the Social Security people and see if they can bring them back from the dead too. If it can work for my mother-in-law I'm sure it can work for my car tires.

Life, Death, and Where The Hell Are My Tires Pt. 1

2008-12-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

The saying goes life is hard and then you die. Well I can attest to the first part of that statement, the second part is still a mystery. After this last week though I can tell you that dying is a lot simpler than it used to be. Lets start with life. That life is cyclical is pretty much an accepted fact, we call it history. When times are good they are very good, but they never last as long as the bad times seem to. That is why we were blessed with intestinal fortitude, you tough it out until the cycle is completed and the times are once again good. On to death it waits for no man, or woman as we found out Tuesday afternoon when the letter from Kaiser Permanent arrived delivering condolences about the passing of my mother-in-law (and the notice of the cancellation of her health insurance). Business is business in the health care profession as well I guess. The only problem with the letter was that my mother-in-law is still alive. A little bit more confused than she used to be, but still breathing and walking the Earth. When times are bad I am sure many people would not mind being relinquished of all their worldly troubles by a keystroke error of the Social Security Administration. One wrong digit and your slate is swept clean, a virtual "do over" of your life. You could be anyone or do anything that you wanted to. The real trick of course is being anyone or doing anything with the life you have been given. To be continued..........

2008-11-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

Summer has left, Fall has come, and Winter will be blowing it's way up the Gorge any time after Thanksgiving. Visitors have come and gone just like the changing seasons. Halloween was spooky and strange more Fellini than Charlie Brown this year. Maybe it was because the kids are so much older. We carved pumpkins, but not quite the same as in the years before. Our house is quiet these days all except for the sound of chirping birds. The days of heavy paws on the hardwood floors has ended for now. No heavy sighs, snoring, or woofs to greet you when you open the front door. This will change of course sometime in the future, but not the near future. It's funny how you can feel as if you are floating through life observing everything from above at one moment, and the next moment the weight of the world rests upon your shoulders slowly burying your feet into the Earth until you reach the point of feeling more tree than bird. This to I hope will change with time as well. But for now it looks to be a long December as The Counting Crows sing

Hmmmm..... Purple You Say

2008-08-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

When immigrants came to America from Europe to Ellis Island the health officials in the United States would check these new Americans for several physical ailments including heart disease. The telltale sign for heart disease was purplish-blue lips designating poor blood circulation. In most cases the colors purple and blue are usually not conducive with mammals, with the exception of Elisabeth Tailors' blue eyes. So when a dog opens it's mouth to pant and a long purple tongue darts out it can be a little startling. Thats exactly what happened that summer evening when that big, red dog opened his mouth. At this point I thought this dog had walked right off the set of Star Trek. I couldn't wait to find out what was next. Maybe a roar instead of a bark, or wings would come out from under his fur and he would fly around the playground ! The purple tongue was the deal sealer for me at that point I knew I had to have one of these dogs. I didn't know if they were a mean breed, or if they were big pussycats, but I knew i had to have one. After later research I found out that the only other animal at that time that had a blue\ purple tongue is a bear. How could this dog not be the coolest breed ever created.

Some Things You Just Don't Forget

2008-08-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

Memory is a tricky thing. Some thoughts come and go in a nanno second, other events are held in your memory as vivid today as they were when they happened. When you think about it your memories may be the only, truly timeless happenings in out lives. I remember the first time I ever saw a Chow Chow, and yes it is still as vivid as yesterday. Standing in left field I looked over my shoulder an saw four silhouettes coming towards me in the late afternoons setting sun. I could make out two people and something that looked like a small horse. As the shadows grew closer I could see that it was not a horse, but a St. Bernard. The two other figures turned out to be a couple of kids from school. The fourth sihlouette was that of another dog, but it was like no dog that I had ever seen in my thirteen years of life. This beast stood about knee high at his back with a massive round skull that was as broad as a mans flattened hand across the top from ear to ear. A long coat of fur that was as dark red as Hungarian paprika. The tail was a large furry plume that curled right up over the back and rested just off the left side of where I thought the ribcage should have ended, it was had to get dimensions due to all the fur. The legs on this dog, even though relatively short were as big around as my wrist. Then he opened his mouth to pant...........

The Final Chapter In My Book Of The Chow

2008-07-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

The impetus for starting this blog was the passing of my last Chow Chow about a month ago. Everyone expresses their emotions in different ways, for me the best way to work through these feelings is to write about them. The dilemma is that nobody wants to have the first thing they write about be depressing, the world will kick you in the stomach every chance it gets. So I guess as it was once said the best place is to start at the beginning. I grew up outside Sacramento, California in a suburb called Carmichael. We moved their from Southern California when I was two, so for all intense and purposes that was my hometown. Carmichael was a great place to be a kid especially darning the summer. Long, hot days with nothing to do except get into trouble, and play baseball every day. Every day at the elementary school a few blocks from our house was where we met to play baseball in one form or another. Some days there would be a full game, other days there might only be enough people to have batting practice but there was always someone willing to play. One day just before it was time to go home for dinner I was shagging fly balls when I saw a something that would become an my obsession for the next year, and then in turn become part of my life for the next thirty years.