We were never quite sure where he came from, but some weeks ago a big black dog ambled sideways up our drive, his huge pink tongue hanging askew in search of a good drink of water. He promptly sacked out on the steps near my front door, and there he stayed, sleeping near our potted plants.
My wife and I both grew up with dogs, she with a hyperactive Irish setter, me with a yippy collie and an all-American mutt that could have been a mixture of any handful of breeds. But we aren’t dog people anymore; dogs need a little more attention than our cats, who are more independent and private, and in need of human companionship only on occasions of their choosing. So we weren’t interested in keeping this big, goofy orphan. As a matter of fact, we wanted to send him home as soon as possible, if he had one. We took to calling him “Dog” because we knew that as soon as we gave him a name he would be more of a permanent fixture around our place, that we would soon be going through an adoption process, and making an appointment at the vet for his shots, and buying him a rawhide chew toy. So we avoided looking straight into his big brown eyes, knowing too that if we did, we’d be hooked, and we’d be keeping him.
Despite his more endearing qualities, he had some irritating ones as well. As far as our barn cats were concerned, he was a terrorist. Not used to expelling much more energy than it takes to chase a lethargic chipmunk or swat at a butterfly, our trio of outdoor felines suddenly found themselves challenged by this furry goon every time they stepped a paw out of our barn door. They literally disappeared for a few weeks, living in our hay loft, venturing down a ladder for meals and water, paranoid, I’m sure, that we were actually going to keep the psycho who was holding them hostage.
The dog, so enthusiastic in his appreciation for a dish of food or a pat on the head, liked to reward us by jumping on us, treating us like awkward dance partners, leaving big muddy paw prints on our shirts and blouses, and bloody scrapes and scratches on our arms. His always active tongue slurped and lapped at our faces, our legs, and our hands, and his tail, more of a British bobby’s truncheon, actually, beat our shins black and blue.
In our pre-Dog days, I sat on my garage step to put on my work boots or walking shoes, often sitting there in the sun to listen to birds and to the breeze as it blew through our big white pine. After he arrived, my moments of solitude were now rewarded with generous whiffs of dog breath, doses of dog saliva, and whacks on the side of the skull with that blackjack of a tail. I gave up sitting on our deck to work a crossword; my new pal thought that our small green deck chairs were made for two.
Despite his size, Dog couldn’t have been more than seven or eight months old — an overgrown kid really, and we quickly understood that he also needed to chew… At first, it was our broom handles; then he started on the wood pile near my office door, reducing several nice-sized lengths of tulip poplar to sawdust. He carried off three pairs of sandals, consumed at least two flower pots, and opened up a couple of bags of top soil I stacked near our barn before I planned to use them.
Almost immediately we began to advertise him in local newspapers as “found.” We put up his picture on the bulletin board at our town bank, and we asked just about everyone in a 10-mile radius if they were missing a four-legged version of Gomer Pyle. Despite the fact that Dog was well-fed when he arrived at our home, that he even wore a collar, we soon became convinced that his behavioral issues had led his previous owner to dump him in the country, a solution that some people take at the expense of others.
Time passed; so did our patience. Dog began to make my lawn his own executive bathroom; I was convinced after cleaning up a couple of his messes that an elephant was running loose in our neighborhood. He was a ferocious mole hunter, and on the hillside near our wood line where the ugly little miners run rampant, Dog soon turned the area into a Mesabi Range of open pits and gouged earth. He howled like a lonely wolf at the sound of my leaf blower, ran alongside my riding mower like a sled dog. He hosed down shrubs, flopped in flower beds, walked around our driveway with our garden hoses in his mouth…
Finally, relief came in the form of the Parke-Vermillion County Humane Shelter and Pat Tryon. Pat told us that Dog, despite his penchant for mischief, was welcome there and that from the physical description we gave her she could tell that he would be sent to Wisconsin on a special truck that took displaced animals to a state where strict spay and neuter laws make such refugees relatively rare. Once there, he’d be adopted.
So, one afternoon, we loaded him into the bed of my truck — we were convinced he’d shred my seats — and headed to the shelter north of Hillsdale and his new future. The trip wasn’t a pleasant one. Despite the fact that he was pretty well-behaved as we made our way through the country, Dog wasn’t too happy about being around large trucks and motorcycles when we got onto the highway. My time with him soon became the equivalent of a WWF cage match.
To complicate things, it rained on us — hard, and an accident on Indiana 63 forced us into a detour that eventually made our odyssey one of nearly 60 miles. But we arrived, both soaked and smelling about the same. His required fees were paid, he was registered — more like booked — and then Dog made his presence known by greeting a large cat in the office rather rudely. He was named “Clark” by receptionist Kelly Blacketer and was to undergo a personality test that afternoon; Pat said she expected him to pass with flying colors.
Now, before you think we ran out on Clark without a thought, you should know that both of us had feelings of guilt. He looked a little lost when he was placed in a pen near a baying hound on one side and a manic chow on the other. That ever-present tongue lapped at Joanie and me through the wires, and both of us, at the same time, did notice those big brown eyes of his, too.
But Clark will soon be a cheesehead, placed with an owner who will give him the attention he needs and deserves. I hope that he’ll be happy and that his new owner treats him with the respect that his previous one didn’t, that he’ll have a long life of chewing up other people’s shoes …
Tonight, well, I’m going to sit on the step and listen to the birds.
Mike Lunsford can be contacted at hickory913@aol.com, or by regular mail, c/o the Tribune-Star, at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Visit www.mikelunsford.com for information about Mike’s book, and please, donate to your local humane shelter. The Parke-Vermillion Humane Society is located at 1884 S. State Road 63, Hillsdale, IN 47854.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: The happy ‘tail’ of a dog named ‘Clark’
- Mike Lunsford
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We’ve created a honey of a problem
The Dutch clover is making its appearance in my yard this week. A cooler-than-usual spring has slowed its arrival by a few days, but it is here for now, bringing the honeybees and bumblebees with it.
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
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Unusual Heat Wave Bakes Alaska
Raw: Massive Protests Fill Brazilian Streets
Fans Cheer Dramatic Heat Comeback
Raw: Car Jumps Curb in NYC, Injures 8
Raw: Volcano Erupts Near Mexico City
Tiger on Sergio: 'It's Time to Move On'
Raw: Arizona Wildfire Scorches 8 Square Miles
Hunt for Ex-Teamster Boss Hoffa's Remains Ends
Hoffa Mystery Still Fascinates After 4 Decades
Raw: NASCAR Driver Jason Leffler Dies in Wreck
Raw: German President Welcomes President Obama
Raw: Huge Fire Near Yosemite National Park
Car Crash in NYC's East Village Injures 8
3 Charged in Ohio With Enslaving Mom, Daughter
Raw: 1 Dead in Shooting at Mo. Apartment Complex
Ex-NFL Star Chad Johnson Out of Jail
Obama Renews Call for Nuclear Reductions
Failed Cuba-to-Florida Swimmer Won't Try Again
Ohio Woman Accuses 3 of Holding Her Captive
Today in History June 19
Rihanna Hits Fan With Microphone
Exclusive: Locklear & Seymour Lock Lips
Miami Heat Wins in Overtime
Fists, chairs fly in restaurant brawl
Journalist Michael Hastings Dies in Fiery Hollywood Crash
Hairy Leg Stockings Aim to Deflect Male Attention
Inside Kim Kardashian's Premature Labor
Three Charged for Enslaving Mother and Daughter
Spurs' Popovich has no problem with Spurs' intensity
RAW: NSA Director Says 50 Plots Foiled
Paige Butcher Scorches on Hawaii Beach
Video: worst way to load cargo onto a plane
Never-before-seen footage of '08 Times Square bomber
Obama: NSA Secret Data Gathering 'Transparent'
WATCH IT: Lil Wayne tramples American flag
Mariah Carey Looks Beautiful in a Tiny Cut-Out Swimsuit
Out of Control Boat Throws Passengers Overboard
