If you are here, you probably noticed the Real Guns web publication has been discontinued. After nearly 30 years appearing in one form, format or another, it was time to stop. Not a shift in politics, not a condemnation of the firearms’ industry, not a lack of related topics to write about. I just needed to do something else. Sai cosa intendo?
Pictured above is my dog, Skippy. He never lets me down. He helps with the chores. He eats very little and he does not require constant attention. He is even a great listener when I am having one of THOSE days. We hang out all of the time, as he has proven to be reliable and capable friend.
While I love the idea of a real dog… Of course you’re a real dog Skippy. I’m just telling a story to these nice people. Gees, he hears everything. I started my academic career at an early age, four. At the time, my family had moved to Montclair, NJ and my paternal grandfathers’s home, from our home in Richmond, VA.
Every morning, I would suit up in the uniform of the day, and walk the three blocks from the house on Christopher Street, crossing Columbus Ave and Chestnut Street until I reached the neighborhood Grove Street School.
At the intersection of Christopher Street and Columbus Ave., I would be greeted by a large, by short child’s standards, black dog. He’d yip and bark, snarl and growl, running and jumping along side of me until I broke into a dead run and he tired of the pursuit. The dog was never in the yard when I returned from school. Subsequently, the walk to school took five minutes, but the walk home took an hour and fifteen minutes. I was easily distracted as a child. Did I leave the stove on?
My Mom thought I was overreacting, suggesting the dog was trying to be my friend. She thought it might have been my screeching, arm failing and running away that caused the dog’s aggressive response. So, armed with an entirely new and positive perspective, I headed out the next day to make a new friend. It was very exciting!
After looking at least one way, I ran across Columbus Ave and, sure enough, the dog was waiting to greet me. Just like my Mom suggested, I stood my ground, held my arms out in a welcoming gesture and put a smile on my face. That dog came running at what seemed like 100 mile per hour. What did I know, could have been 50, I was four years old. He pounced from twenty feet out and hit me square on the chest, knocking me to the ground. Surely, he just wanted to lick my face and shower his new friend with doggie affection.
But, instead, he jumped up and down on my chest, went nose to nose with me, snarling and baring his teeth… really bad doggie breath, before jumping off and running down and biting into one of my shoes. The right one. I tugged to get free, he tugged to gain possession, and gain possession he did. Then he ran away and I was left to walk for the rest of the day with a missing shoe induced limp, providing entertainment to all of my classmates, who were already slightly less friendly than the dog.
That year proved to be a losing battle for me, but an accumulation of wealth for the dog. Three shoes were lost, none from the same pair, five winter gloves, the sleeve of a puffy winter coat, one blue goobalini, and most of my lunches packed in brown paper bags. Mayo, bologna on white, an acceptable casualty of war. The carnage did not end until I was enrolled in a different school the following year.
I learned two lessons from that experience that l applied throughout my life; avoid dogs and ignore my Mother’s advice.