This afternoon Roderick died in his sleep from old age. It is a very sad time.
Roderick came to our house in Danville as a Guide Dog puppy for us to raise (one of Daniel's ideas from a class field trip). Turned out we got the ideal guide dog puppy - smart, level headed, although a little stubborn at times, and big enough to push someone around if necessary. We all could see this as we took Roderick to the weekly meetings for those raising guide dog puppies - Roderick was clearly among the best at everything.
We were, of course, sad when we had to return Roderick to Guide Dogs after a year for his final Guide Dog training and testing to determine whether he would be selected as a guide dog. But we were proud when we learned that Roderick would "graduate" - meaning he had been selected to be a guide dog. Most are not and, therefore, have a "career change". Apparently Roderick had already been paired with a blind man from Minnesota, and as the family that raised the "graduate" we were invited to the graduation ceremony at the Guide Dog facility in San Rafael. This would be a big deal, and we were so proud of Roderick.
However, Roderick had a weakness. A guide dog needs to be able to get up in the morning, go outside and on command "do his business", meaning pee and poop, so he'll be all set to help his companion for the day, which would likely involve extended periods of time inside. Roderick's bowels never really functioned that way and he was never able to always "do his business" on command at the appropriate time. Shortly, before graduation Roderick pooped while in his harness training with his companion. This, of course, was unacceptable for a guide dog, and so Roderick had a "career change" - meaning we got him back as our dog since we had raised him as a puppy.
There is no question that but for this weakness Roderick would have been a very good guide dog, but Roderick may not have been all that happy as a guide dog. Roderick really liked people. He liked to engage with people, all people. That is not necessarily a good trait for a guide dog, since they are trained to avoid other people so as not to be distracted from their job of guiding their companion. That is one of the traits, however, that made Roderick an ideal family dog and later a therapy dog at Baylor hospital.
Weaknesses can have unexpected consequences. I'm sure they found another dog to help the blind man from Minnesota and that things worked out fine for him. But at that time the Hyer family needed a good family therapy dog and we got Roderick, perfectly suited for us. We, therefore, are forever thankful for his weakness and "career change." And I also think it turned out best for Roderick too.
In years past I wrote silly stories to memorialize from an odd point of view our family history. The following are four of such stories in which Roderick is a key figure. In particular, read "Wiggle Dancing" both parts I and II, as that is how I like to remember Roderick. Note, all the events recounted or referred to in these stories, while from a viewpoint that may be a little out of kilter, actually occurred and are all absolutely true, except that in Wiggle Dancing Part Two, unlike as recounted in the story, I don't think anyone at Guide Dogs for the Blind was ever mean, harsh or spoke unkindly to Roderick. To help understand the first story, a guide dog needs to learn to sleep near the bed of his companion so that the companion can find the dog in the morning. For that reason when raising a guide dog puppy the puppy is attached by a "tie down" to the bed of the puppy raiser so that the dog learns to sleep near the bed.
Wiggle Dancing
Eye contact, I got a lock on! Come on Daniel, I saw you see me, no cheating, you’re awake. As I squirm around, pulling on the tie-down, Daniel finally crawls out of bed, unclips the tie-down and opens the bedroom door and I escape out into the upstairs hallway.
A four-point stretch and belly slide down the first flight of stairs (oh, feels so good after a night on the tie-down), and then one long bounding leap down the next flight to the downstairs landing and a hard right into the kitchen. This is always the tricky part, because the landing is a slick, hardwood floor, which means a dog has no traction to make the turn against the momentum driving him straight. So I’ll probably crash into the front door, the wall or the delicate little table on the right. Oh well.
I’m in the kitchen, the nerve center of the family, scrambling for traction on the new Wilsonart floor (nice looking, durable, but no traction; for dogs, a really dump idea) as I spot Morris heading towards the kitchen table. I miss my best chance and Morris now is safely perched on top of one of the oak chairs, slid in under the oak table. This now requires a change in tactics. I know from sad experience that from this position Morris can (and will) whack me across the nose with his paws (and sometimes with the claws bared - ouch!!), so I slowly move in kind of sideways, trying to use my full body as protection until I can get a little closer. But then I hear that glorious sound, Daniel picking up the blue dish from under the sink. It‘s Science Diet time!!
This sends me into an uncontrollable spasm with my front half wiggling in the opposite direction to my hind end, with my tail wagging even harder in an altogether different rhythm, and sometimes I’m so excited I do all this while leaping and spinning in the air (the family calls this the “wiggle dance”).
Daniel carries the blue bowl into the garage, closing the door behind him. The wiggle dance stops, as I’m absolutely focused on that door. I hear him open the lid on big brown plastic garbage can in the garage filled with my dry Science Diet, and pick up the little measuring cup. I count the scoops. One, two, three and then a pause. Uh oh, this could be a problem. What if Daniel forgets that I’m big now and get four full scoops? Doesn’t he know I can’t survive on just three? I barely get through the day on my regulation four with all this paranoia about food obsessive labs. Of course, we’re food obsessive. I’m surrounded by great food (chicken and brownies), but all they feed me is dry Science Diet and not enough of that.
Mom and Daniel are pretty conscientious about following Guide Dogs’ guidelines (only four scoops, don’t overfeed, once a day and no table scraps or other tasty stuff like Kelley gets), but sometimes I think Dad’s four scoops are a little more generous (or more likely he gets confused counting). Ah, I hear it. There it is, scoop number four, Daniel came through again and he’s headed back.
Anticipation propels me back into the wiggle dance, as Daniel comes in and heads for the kitchen sink to put some water in the blue bowl (softens up the bone dry Science Diet) and in my brown water dish. But as Daniel adds water to the blue bowl, a special custom comes into play. Guide Dog puppies are supposed to be learning to be well mannered and disciplined. Of course, this means that the family wouldn’t feel good about feeding (that is, in their view, rewarding) a dog uncontrollably leaping around in the wiggle dance. So I cut out the dancing and sit in regulation form by the sink and wait for Daniel to place the bowl on the floor and say “OK.”
I feel like today will be another great day. Maybe Daniel’s friends will come over and I’ll run wild through the backyard chasing them around the pool. Maybe Romeo and Juliet (the ducks) will fly in and I’ll circle the pool checking them out. Maybe I’ll go on a walk (with Mom, pretty cool, because she’ll put me in the car and drive up to where the hills are; with Daniel, OK, but he’s awfully strict; and with Dad, boring, a walk along the green belt.) Maybe I’ll play with my rubber circle pull toy, I hope with David, as he’s the toughest. Or even more fun, maybe I’ll grab someone’s shoe and play keep away (I’m really pretty good at that). Maybe I’ll pick a fight with Kelley, sometimes she can get so mad (and then it’s really fun). Maybe I’ll have the chance to steal something good off the kitchen counter. I hope they leave the brownies or cookie dough out again, near the edge. Maybe I’ll make a run at the yogurt in the fridge. If I time it just right, I can grab the little plastic container off the bottom shelf on the fridge door as Mom opens it looking for something else, hightail it to the corner of the kitchen and get the lid off and most of yogurt licked out before she can catch me (I’d really like to try the new Dannon cherry vanilla this time).
Maybe I’ll get to put on my neat green jacket and go somewhere. Maybe to Daniel’s school (that’s always fun and the kids think I’m so cool). Maybe to Dad’s office (boooorrrring, but Meg and Marty, the secretaries, are fun and when Dad’s not looking I’ll sneak around and check out the garbage in their little kitchen).
Maybe there will be a club meeting tonight. That’ll be great. I can check out the other dogs and sniff butts. Maybe we’ll go some place, like a ride on BART into the City, a walk through Walnut Creek’s Broadway mall (but please don’t make me walk on the grates) or to check out a Southwest airplane. But maybe it will be a Sunday, which means I’ll spend the morning outside in my kennel, alone and bored. Maybe I’ll chew something up, like the new hose by my kennel. Maybe I’ll just take a nice long nap. I also heard Kelley and Morris whispering about some special “recall” party tonight. Maybe that’ll be fun too.
It’s morning, it’s summertime, it’s Danville, there’s my magic blue bowl full of wet Science Diet, and Daniel just said “OK.” It’s a gonna be a beautiful day.
Roderick
August 19, 2001
Wiggle Dancing, Part II
A Story of a Rise, a Fall and of a Redemption
Chapter 1, The Rise
As you may have picked up, August 19, 2001, didn’t turn out
exactly as I had envisioned it while sitting patiently waiting for my Science
Diet in the my blue bowl.
That day began with a promising ride back to the Guide Dogs
for the
Blind in San Rafael.
Of course, I recognized the place as soon as we (Mike, Evie and Daniel)
arrived. The smells brought back fond
feelings for my brothers and sisters and mom.
But on that day, a Sunday, we sort of hung out by the
“kitchen,” as the family seemed to be looking for someone to tell them what to
do. Eventually, one of the part time
weekend workers showed up, looked around for some paper work and then guided
our group down to what can only be described as a “cell block.” It was a
concrete building with a hallway down the middle and the individual runs on
each side. It did, as Daniel noted, look
a lot like Alcatraz. The noise was
deafening, with all the dogs barking as we entered.
For me, with all the smells and all the dog commotion and
new things to check out, it was exciting.
Although I was largely preoccupied by all the new smells and commotion,
the family (Mike, Evie and Daniel) seemed sad.
They hung around awhile, but when I looked around a little later after
things had quieted down, they were gone, and I began to feel lonely. It was a cold, hard concrete run, I didn’t
mind that much, but late that night I really missed not being in the little
bugger’s room, even listening his dumb tapes.
The next morning, it was different. First there were these never ending trips to
the vet clinic. They x-rayed every place
on my little body, from every conceivable angle. They poked every place they could and stuck
little instruments in every hole they could find, from my ears and throat to,
you know, my bum. It was disgusting and
humiliating.
They checked me some more and then I figured out that the
next series of tests were to select those lucky dogs who would get to be
breeders. I decided that that was what I
wanted to be, that was my chosen career.
Reality was, however, that they don’t really need very many male breeder
dogs and, let’s face it, I just didn’t make that cut. While disappointed, I got over it because I
figured out that they kept showing you to how to do certain things and if you
did them well you got lots of praise (and I like praise).
When it came to these games and drills, I had some things
going for me. First, I was smart and not
all that nervous or timid. I had the
guide dog personality they were looking for and I knew it. So over the next few weeks I started working
through the training phases; endless walks (they made walk for hours on tread
mill), and all the training that goes with learning the things a dog needs to
know. I did fine and I knew it. I was one of the best. I finally came to the last phase and was
assigned a companion and scheduled for graduation. My companion, as I picked up from a careful
crotch smell check, was an old guy, from Minnesota, probably from suburban
Minneapolis, office type, likely some sort of systems analyst.
Nice guy, but dumb as a fence post. When we first went on a walk, it took
everything I had to keep that guy from dragging me and him both right into traffic
on a busy San Rafael street – he nearly killed us both. And then he kept wandering off and getting
lost on walks, and I always ended up dragging back to the guide dog place. The guy was an idiot – he needed to wake up
and open his eyes before he killed someone.
(Hey, I’m not that dumb – I later figured out that the eye thing was his
problem and that that was where I came in.)
It was hard work, but I was up to it.
So there we were, working hard to get used to each
other. The graduation date had now been
set. I knew that they would have told
Daniel and the family about it. It would
be my big day. I would be one of the few
from the club that actually made it all the way to graduation. Daniel would be so proud. He could go to the club meetings and talk
about the great Roderick and tell all about the graduation, and probably show
some pictures of me as well. I hoped he
was working on the little speech he would give about what a great puppy I was
and how my the family liked me, etc. I
didn’t want him to blow it and get too mushy and stuff, or be too shy to say
anything. I was so excited about it all.
It would be my great day. I would
be the hero dog.
Chapter 2, The Fall
Sometimes, however, if you’re not careful, you can get
little uppity and start believing your own baloney. It can happen even to dogs. Then sometimes the subconscious mind takes
over to prevent you from taking yourself too seriously and doing something
really, really dumb. At least I think
that’s what happened.
Anyway, just a week before graduation, I was out practicing
with the other guide dogs and their companions.
All of the sudden, without any warning, in broad daylight, in the center
of the lawn, while working with my companion in my special harness, in front of
all the trainers and other guide dogs, I sort of made a statement – I just
squatted and took a dump. Now, to put
this in perspective, for a guide dog to take a dump in his harness when he’s
supposed to be working is more or less like a marine recruit in David’s
platoon, in dress uniform on the parade grounds, suddenly dropping his trousers
and mooning the drill instructor. It is
just not done. And if it is, the
consequences are swift and certain.
Well no sooner had I squatted than a trainer (one of the mean
ones) coolly took me from my companion, so as not to upset him, and walked me
out of the yard and back to the kennel area where no one could see us. Then, he really laid into me, calling me a
stupid fat lab, an ugly yellow mangy waste of dog flesh with the brains of an
inbred cocker spaniel. My tender
feelings were shattered. He pushed me
into a kennel way in the back, away from the other guide dogs and slammed shut
the gate. I knew what would happen
now. I was a reject, a loser. I would be shunned by all the other
dogs. All the trainers, who used to
always say nice, positive, reinforcing things to me, would just stare and then
turn away, whispering about me. The
other dogs would avoid me like a nest of fleas.
Nobody wants to be around a loser.
So there it was. In a
brief moment, I had turned my back on a long a fulfilling career as a guide
dog, hanging around a suburban office while my companion systems analysts
analyzed away. Now I was left alone,
abandoned and forgotten on the floor of a cold concrete kennel. I was so sad.
Chapter 3, The Redemption
It was a miserable four days. Then, on a Saturday, March 2, 2002, when the
regular staff was gone, one of the nice part-time staffers came by and put me
on my lease. I was excited. So I wasn’t entirely forgotten, at least
someone (even though only a part-timer) was going to take me on a short
walk. But once out of the kennel, I
thought I heard a faint, but familiar voice, call, “Roderick.” Not just anyone, but it sounded kind of like
the little bugger. I pricked my ears and
listened again. Yes, it was. It was the little bugger coming down the
sidewalk. I was so excited. I jumped and uncontrollably slipped into my
wiggle dance. I looked farther down the
walkway and there was Mom and Mike.
Being the smart and observant dog that I am, I checked Mike carefully
and sure enough he had car keys in his hand.
He had wheels – we could make an escape.
And so we did.
So here I am. It is July 10 at about 8 o’clock in the
morning and I’m lying here in Daniel’s room, waiting to make eye contact so he
will open the door and we can get on with the day, and thinking about what I’ll
do today (I know the little bugger is awake, he just won’t look up). I’ll probably chase Morris around some,
that’s always fun. Maybe I’ll steal
Kelley’s bone, or go on a walk with Mom and Kelley up on the hill and steal
Kelley’s stick – she gets so mad. Maybe
Romeo and Juliet (the ducks) will show up and I can chase them around the
pool. Maybe Daniel’s friends will come over
and I’ll pull them around on their skateboards and scooters. Maybe Andy or Dave (but David’s still in the
Marines) will take me on a walk up to Las Trampas. I really like to go with
them, since they don’t care much if I chase cows or roll in their fresh manure
– sooo sweet! But Mom really does get upset and I would get the dreaded hose
torture.
Whoa – I saw that Daniel. You moved. Come on, let’s get going. It’s summer time. It’s gonna be a great day
to be a Danville dog, the Hyer family dog. It is what I was
meant to be.
Roderick
July 10, 2002
Kelley
and Roderick’s Most Excellent Road Trip
It
was sometime in June when Kelley and Roderick first overheard Mike mumbling
something to Evie about a big management change at Hanson and “centralization”
in Dallas. After taking a couple of seconds to think it through, Kelley sat
back, put her nose in the air and howled with joy as Roderick did his signature
wiggle dance in the air – they were going on a road trip. This was not just a day trip up to the
Sierras or down to Half Moon Bay or a family vacation trip up to Sea
Ranch. No, this news meant a real road
trip, long naps through brand new and interesting country; separated by freeway
rest stops with lots of exotic smells from dogs all across America (and perhaps
even the World), cheap motels in tiny dusty little towns in the middle of
nowhere and, they hoped, left over burgers and fries and wrappers from fast
food joints along the way. It was going
to be so much fun.
On
road trips, Kelley liked to hold herself out as a great authority, as she had
actually made the trip from Flagstaff to Danville. Fact was that while Kelley had made that trip
and while she had gone on a couple of overnight camping trips with the family,
she really didn’t know much about road trips. She just embellished the stories
she had heard from Josh, the real family road trip warrior dog. Josh, who as a puppy went camping in the
Sawtooths in Idaho, made the great Canadian Rockies trip in the VW bus, trips
to Zions and Bryce National Parks in Utah, Yellowstone in Wyoming and Big Sky
Montana, also made the move from Idaho to Denver, the great Colorado vacation
trip, the move from Denver to Flagstaff, the drive with Mike from Flagstaff to
St. Louis, the famous family vacation trip from St. Louis to Centerville to
Idaho, the trip from St. Louis to Flagstaff, then to visit Grandma and Grandpa
in Nampa , back to Provo and back to Flagstaff.
Those were real road trips – Roderick dreamed of such great adventures.
With
respect to the current situation, Kelley and Roderick understood that Mike and
Evie would have to agonize for days over what do to, whether to move, the
effect on the family, etc. (but they had long ago figured out where that was
going to come out). They knew that the
family would have to sell the house, which meant they would have to fix up all
the things they had endured for the last eight years so that the house would be
a nice place for someone else to live in.
While Evie had made some really nice improvements inside, new windows,
new kitchen, upstairs bath and floors downstairs, other parts of the house,
namely the pool, fence, roof, sprinkler system and the yard outside, showed
evidence of inattention (and them, the dogs).
Mike
and Evie would have to go through the trauma of explaining all this to the
family, Alisa and Greg, who would be really disappointed because they would
lose their free and convenient Bay Area B&B), Andy, who wouldn’t care much,
except to tease the family about being Texans, and David, who while a
California guy, having grown up there, was at a cross roads in life anyway. But
Daniel, well, Roderick and Kelley were worried about the little bugger. But Kelley assured Roderick that the family
had done this before, from Flagstaff to Danville and, as she had heard from
Josh, from Boise to Denver, from Denver to Flagstaff, from Flagstaff to St.
Louis, from St. Louis to back to Flagstaff.
She said Daniel would be fine.
Rod wasn’t so sure, as Daniel really was the Danville, California kid.
But what would Rod, the quintessential California dog, know about that anyway.
The
family would be sad about leaving Danville, a beautiful area with all their
friends, to move to Dallas, a flat ugly place where people talked
strangely. This puzzled Roderick and
Kelley. To them places seemed pretty
much the same as along as you were with the pack – getting separated from the
pack was the worry.
Mike
would have to endure a very nice farewell luncheon at the office (where he
would also pick up a nice book by Bill Bryson) and good-byes there. Evie would have all her lunches with friends
and a nice open house at the Allreds.
There would be the talks in Church by Mike, Evie and Daniel, and the sad
good-byes to neighbors. Mike would have
his last rides up Mt. Diablo and Las Trampas. Daniel would have the last school
day at Charlotte Wood and a never-ending series of good-byes to friends. All
that and so much more would have to be done.
But, as Roderick and Kelley knew, it was important to keep focussed on
the main thing - the road trip.
First,
before heading off on such a road trip, they needed to be sure they had a
suitable place in Dallas lined up. Since
neither of them, or anyone else in the family for that matter, knew much about
Dallas, that was a problem. However, the
family of one of David’s former girlfriends had moved from Alamo to the oddly
named town of Flower Mound in the Dallas area.
That seemed to be a good enough recommendation for them, so they checked
out houses there and found one at 4605 Wildgrove Drive which they thought would
work out just fine for the family. With
only Mike and Evie needing to actually make the ritual house hunting trip to
find it, the location in Dallas was pretty much set.
Second,
they needed to unload the 201 Canfield Court house. The family listed the house
with Sister Youngman, spent a lot of time and effort throwing stuff away and
hauling it off to the dump, the San Ramon recycle lot, the Deseret Industries
trailer, and the Goodwill trailer and fixed up the place very nicely. This was, of course, before the real estate
agent came with her “stagers” who would then essentially redecorate the house
suitable for showing (essentially meaning about a third of the remaining
furniture would be stuffed in the garage in order to “open up” the ambiance in
the house, as well as adding some really inane decorative accessories (a
ceramic pig in the kitchen counter), but they were the pros.
Mike
and Evie set it up so the house would first be shown while they were on their
house-hunting trip to Dallas. With Daniel with cousins in Utah and David just
not around much, the house would be largely empty, prefect for open houses and
showings (no one around to mess it up).
That seemed fine with Roderick and Kelley, as they assumed they would be
looked after by Katlin or Mike Hulme (or his mother), just being put in the
little kennel by the garage during showings.
This would be an inconvenience, but they still would be able to check
out the prospective buyers. However, for
reasons they could not understand, Mike and Evie decided to put them in the one
of those kennels with lots of other dogs where the family pays money. That was a big mistake, as they now could not
properly vet the prospective buyers. And
as they feared, it turned into a minor debacle.
A couple came through, loved the house and made a full price offer, but
they were a little weird and, in addition to being weird, made some insulting
comments about a certain cat living in the house. Well, of course, Morris was
greatly offended by their attitude, as he can be a little sensitive about such
things, and vowed to scratch out their eyeballs. Roderick and Kelley knew that that family was
not right for this house and arranged, through some lame excuse about their kid
being deathly allergic to cats, to kill that deal and found another family,
also a little weird, from Seattle, to live in the house. With the sale of the
Danville house and the purchase of the house in Flower Mound all settled, they
needed to focus on details of the road trip.
The
first matter was who actually would go on the road trip and who would have to
go by air. The family did not have a car big enough to hold them all and
Roderick and Kelley were against any kind of multi car-convoy type trip; this
was to be a single car road trip. The
single car limitation meant a total number of four (two people plus Roderick
and Kelley). That was largely dictated
by the fact that the family decided to move Grandpa Wendel’s carriage in the
car, since it was fragile. But with all
the packing it was a big box, leaving little space for anything else in the
back seat (a really dumb idea as they could have put it inside one of the cars
loaded in the moving van, where it would have been safer and left more room in
the road trip vehicle, but they were the family dogs – not the move planners –
there was only so much they could do).
It
was decided first that Morris would have to go by air. They knew cats (and
Morris in particular) well enough to know that they were not going to ride in a
car for two or three days straight with one. The preferred choice of road trip
companions was David and Daniel. They
hoped that with David they might make a general tour of the West, as David
dropped by to visit his friends – they may even go the Texas via Seattle, Provo
and San Diego. But, Kelley mentioned,
that for a long road trip you really need two drivers and Daniel didn’t
drive. They knew Evie would have to fly,
as even Roderick and Kelley were afraid of what might happen if Mike were left
in charge of taking Morris to Texas on an airplane. So by process of elimination, the group was
set: Roderick, Kelley, David and Mike (not ideal, but would have to do.)
The
second detail, was the vehicle. It was
really a choice between the 4Runner and the truck, as they knew in the end Evie
would never really let Mike and David take them in her Subaru on a long road
trip without her there to be sure they didn’t really mess it up. While the thought of a trip to Texas in the
back of pickup seemed adventuresome, in the end they opted for the inside
comfort of the 4Runner.
Finally,
it seemed that everything was set for the big trip, but not without a last
minute scare. The movers emptied the
house, including the Subaru and Dave’s truck, into a huge van and left. Mom had got a place at the Sierra Suites (a
new place across from In and Out), where they expected that they and Morris
spend the night with the family before the big trip. But Evie took Morris somewhere and suddenly
the found themselves alone the house, like some forgotten furniture. Remember their worry about being lost from
the pack? Well, that was a pretty
anxious night for Roderick and Kelley. But then in the morning Mike showed up
in the 4Runner, loaded them in the back and onto a nice, soft old comforter.
They stopped by the hotel to pick up Dave and the long awaited road trip was
finally underway.
The
trip was everything they had planned.
They took nice long naps in the back on the comforter with occasional
stops to check out new places (and get gas).
They stopped in Barstow Nevada (so hot, burns your paws on the cement)
and again in Needles. Since it was about
6 p.m., in Needles they got to eat outside a Wendy’s fast food place. Roderick got his special regular dog food and
Kelley her special old dog food (with some canned food on top), all of which
Evie had organized for their trip. They it made it all the way to Flagstaff
that night. It took forever for Dave and
Mike to find a place. West Flagstaff had
changed. Lots of new nice hotels that were all full. Hard to figure why so many
people were spending a night in a town like Flagstaff. Finally, they found a room at a cheap Ramada
Inn motel over on the eastside of town.
After a drink and a little walk around the place (to “air” them), Kelley
and Roderick settled in for the night in the smelly little room.
The
next morning turned out to be a big day.
Dave slept in. Mike got up early to take them on a walk, but they ended
up going to the old house (the one Kelley had talked so much about). Things had changed. The trail from the end of the cul de sac by
Evan’s house was now blocked by a new house and a fence. Mike drove around to the cul de sac behind
and found this little pathway through a front yard up to the old sledding hill
and down to what Kelley knew as Mom’s trail.
Kelley was so excited, it was just has she had remembered it. She picked up a stick (there were so many to
choose from and she was certain it was one of her old ones) trotted past the
old bike jumps on the side and up through the gate (with its offset posts to
keep our vehicles) into the national forest.
To Roderick, while there were a lot more houses around, the trail and
the forest were just like Kelley had told him. They were even passed by a
mountain biker heading up to the trails Kelley had always talked about. And
there were so many smells along the trail to check out – lots of dogs had come
that way. After a way too short of walk,
Mike gathered them up and went back to pick up Dave at the hotel. With David, they cruised by the old
neighborhoods, talked to Rich and Debbie Day and Curtis Crane, who happened to
be outside their houses, got breakfast/lunch at the Village Inn by Mike’s old
Peabody office, stopped by the new Barnes and Noble store to get some Garrison
Keillor tapes and headed out east on I-40.
They
stopped in Gallop for gas at this touristy Indian trading post place – lame,
but it was so different from Danville to see all the Navajos around, with
Navajos tacos and hearing “yacht te hays”.
Then it was on to Albuquerque, which seemed like a nice place, through
the mountains on the east and finally they stopped at a little town east of
Albuquerque. Since it was about 6 p.m.,
Dave thought they should feed them (which they thought was a great idea as
Roderick and Kelley’s tummies were growling).
They drove a little ways from the freeway to a quiet parking lot with
some lawns and trees (turned out to be a church meeting house – looked like
early 90’s style). The dog food was
great, a little run around the parking lot and landscaping and back on the road
to Amarillo, Texas. Texas is a big
state. When you finally cross the border from New Mexico to Texas, you’re still
not really close to anything and a still a long way from Dallas. In Amarillo, Mike checked into a nice
Marriott Residence Inn, which was a welcome change from the seedy place in
Flagstaff. But it was all kind of
wasted, as arrived late and left fairly early.
Sunday morning and they were on their way to Flower Mound. Another thing
about road trips in Texas, you need to watch your speed (or hope to be lucky
and have Dave with you and get pulled over by a former Marine).
The
plan was for Evie and Daniel, with Morris, to arrive by American Airlines at
DFW on Saturday as an advance party, rent a rental car and stack out a
temporary Texas foothold in a Residence Inn in Lewisville, with Mike, David and
Roderick and Kelley arriving Sunday afternoon to complete the family. Early
Sunday afternoon, Mike and David, with Roderick and Kelley, pulled up in front
of this nice house brick house. Morris was already there, holed up in the
utility room and looking more than a little dazed. When Roderick and Kelley
decided that Morris could not come on the road trip and would have to go on the
airplane they assumed Morris would sit on Evie’s lap the whole time. Morris was
so emotionally distraught, it was days later before he was able to tell us
about his terrifying ordeal, they felt a little bad for him, but not much. Roderick and Kelley checked out the backyard,
rolled around their backs, checked out the nice, the little subdivision path
and finally the Grapevine Lake. The
place was going to work out fine.
Ten Twenty-Two
A Ghost Story
It was one of the moments that everyone remembers exactly
where they were and what they were doing when they first got the news. For the guys, this was easy, since with Andy
at BYU, Alisa with Greg in Delaware, Dave off in the Marines and Daniel largely
preoccupied with being 13, the guys didn’t have much going on and spent their
days asleep on a shelve. At 4:05 p.m. on
October 22, 2002 (a day to be remembered in infamy as 10/22), it happened.
One of the Mickeys was the first see it and the sight was
one of unspeakable horror. It was Bear, lying on his back, belly-up, in the
living room just a few feet from the piano, gutted. That’s right, the seam down his belly torn
open and stuffing savagely ripped out and strewn across the room. A few feet
away lay Roderick, his muzzle and paws covered with stuffing and with a
decidedly cruel gleam in his eyes. Bear was alive, but just barely, he had lost
a lot of stuffing. It was a terrible sight.
Soon all the guys had seen what had happened to Bear. The horrible image of Bear lying gutted on
the rug, with Roderick’s face covered with stuffing, together with the fact
that it could easily at anytime happen to any of them, put all the guys in paranoia
and despair. The little beanie babies,
with their more fragile emotions, took it pretty hard, but they arranged
counseling for them and gave them lots of hugs.
The guys knew they needed to do something and fast. They called for an immediate meeting of the
Safety Club (which basically included all of them). They had been asleep for so long they had
forgotten who was in charge. Dog (Dave’s
large stuffed German Shepherd from FOA Schwartz) filled the vacuum and pretty
much took charge, which was OK with all guys since he was the biggest and had
sort of came from a breed with a tradition on security matters.
Dog first asked for a report from Admiral Nimitz, chief of
intelligence, who reported that reliable sources (whom he could not name
without jeopardizing their safety) (meaning it was Morris) had confirmed that
Roderick was indeed the perpetrator, but that it may not have been a random
incident but part of a complex secret organization dedicated to chewing up
stuffed animals just for the fun of it. Roderick was probably part of a “sleeper
cell” activated by directions from a command center. The guys were stunned at first, but then all
joined in saying how they had really never trusted Roderick from the beginning
(“something peculiar about that wiggle dance of his” whined one of the Mickeys)
and how they never really believed that story about the Guide Dog school (which
they now all suspected as being a front for training dog terrorists).
Nimitz also said that “reliable sources” had indicated that
the cells communicated by hiding secret messages in their urine, which they
deposited at special marking locations, probably along the green belt trail
just across Harlin from Greenbrook Elementary. Dog warned that Roderick was still on the loose and they
needed to come up with a plan to prevent this in the future; their little
stuffed innards were all at risk.
Nimitz proposed that they begin monitoring the urine drop
zones on 24/7 basis, as this would provide some advance warning. They all thought that was a great idea and
enthusiastically supported the concept, although none of them were willing to
actually volunteer for duty (really, who wants to sit outside by a tree
smelling dog urine all day and night).
Bill Buffalo, however, shouted from the back of the room that they were
acting like a bunch of idiots. “What
good would it do to monitor these marking places? We can’t make any sense of
such coded urine messages? We can’t
smell! We’re just a bunch of stuffed animals.”
But the guys all turned and gave him that mean glare of
shame. Of course, he was right, but with
Bear lying there gutted, they needed to do something and they all needed to be
supportive. Besides, they are idiots; they’re stuffed animals with straw for
brains.
Then, Sylvester (the worn out cat with the bad eye) stood
and noted that the Safety Council, which was in charge of the defense effort,
consisted of Dog (a german shepherd), Admiral Nimitz (a doberman) and Chuck (a
terrier), were all dogs from breeds with violent tendencies and asked why they
should trust them to protect them from Roderick, another dog?
One of the Mickeys agreed that he didn’t like the idea of
putting vicious dogs in charge of his safety from attacks by another vicious
dog, but went on to say that he had seen what Morris had done to rats (calling
up in the minds of all the guys the ugly scenes from the front porch of a
mutilated rat, his tender life cut short by a savage Morris) and that he didn’t
much like the idea of cats being involved either.
To which Sylvester sarcastically retorted “So what are we
supposed to do, leave it to some smelly old fish to fight off Roderick?” Which was something he shouldn’t have said,
as Shamu the Killer Whale, while technically a mammal, nevertheless feeling
insulted, whacked him across the back of the head with his pretty powerful tail
fin, and at that the whole meeting degenerated into a pretty ugly exchange of
interspecies insults. Eventually Dog was finally able to get some order back
and send them all back to bed.
Now, in the end, the matter was resolved, and in the way the
guys really knew that it would be all along (they may have straw for brains,
but they really aren’t that dumb).
Mom, upon entering the living room and seeing the “scene,”
immediately gave Roderick one of her armor piercing laser stares and yelled at
him for a really long time, even sometimes slipping into her old Centerville
accent, and stamped her foot (and she only does that when she’s really mad.)
At this point it is important to remember that Roderick is a
dog and that there are a gazillion dogs, while their ancestors, wolves, are
almost an endangered species. The reason
is that dogs are much better at making the kind of decision that Roderick was
going to have to make. While tearing the
guts out of a stuffed teddy bear was pretty fun, Roderick knew that Mom was, in
the end, the only reliable source of regular walks and food and that, as a
general rule, pets that got on her bad side did not thrive and prosper in the
family. With the speed Pentium chip
designers can only dream about, Roderick did the cost/benefit analysis.
Roderick cowered shamefully and crept back into a corner and
weakly wagged his tail at Mom, pleading for forgiveness. And with that, the
reign of terror was pretty much taken care of, at least for the cell at 201 Canfield
Court.
Now the boots. At that time the industry had gone almost entirely to boots made from synthetic materials (largely plastic) for backcountry skiing as well as every other kind of skiing and has never looked back. Those boots are stiffer and provide better control than the old leather boots. That's what I got when we rented the backcountry skis that time in California. Although I don't mind the big, plastic, stiff boots for downhill skiing (and they really work well), I hated them on this cross country ski trip. They made my feet ache and were awkward to walk in. I wanted something a bit more comfortable (even at the sacrifice of skiing performance) and something you could walk around in like a normal person when you didn't have the skis on (say, for example, when you went snow camping with the scouts). I wanted the old fashioned leather boots.
