Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Jimmy Smith's gift
Sara, you have your dad's gift for storytelling. If you have more about Mexico or Baja please post them for us.
Here's an old dog tale your dad liked.
Amanecer
This morning, "punto a la amanecer", just at dawn, Sam woke me again with his barking. He chased two or three trucks headed for the beach. Sam, my
Campo Spaniel dog, glistening black, short, powerful and vocal, began to chase certain cars and trucks when still a puppy. The method is simple and
deadly -- a headlong rush at the offending vehicle's front tires, barking and biting, bristling with sheer rage, uninterrupted until the
car/truck/tractor has outrun the attack, stopped or become, most suddenly, a non-aggressor.
Although I have paid particular attention, I have been unable to determine just what color, sound, shape or odor the vehicles have that initiate the
chase. VW's seem to have the edge on manufacturer while one-ton box trucks with no noticeable mufflers draw more attacks, as a rule, than quiet
sedans---but not always.
We have a block wall around my house which keeps our other, less exuberant dog, Jake, safely at home. He seems happy inside this gray fortress and
only occasionally whimpers at the prospect of freedom. Sam leaps the wall at will and has the run of the village.
His unfastened vigor holds me, shames me. Reminds me that I did not dare enough -- when I took from life's cup it was nearly always in cautious
sips, not in head-back, eyes-up giant gulps. His leaps into my willing arms flood my senses with his wet, shaggy body, smelling of dead leaves and
original dirt. For as long as I have marveled at the inexpressible joy and rapture of his unbounded freedom to run on the beach, alongside my
fisherman neighbors, is as long as I have known this freedom would, one fateful day, be his undoing.
I cannot bridle this free spirit to save his life. The rope, tied to his new collar that would save him from the crushing death of grinding metal
and rubber, would just as surely hang him by the same small neck, reducing life to the unthinkable prison of sameness, boredom and disuse of spirit --
hobble all the quarter horses at Ruidoso Downs the day before the race because "they might get hurt" sings the same tune.
So if I can't stop him from chasing the cars that will some day kill him, what am I to do? Worry. Well, I have not been very good at the worrying
game... it’s not what I do best. No, it’s better that I prepare myself for the shock of his (always untimely) death. That's what I do...when I don't
see him for an hour or two, I begin to imagine that he has been mangled beneath the wheels of a car or truck and is hurt or dead, maybe just a block
or two away. I prepare myself for this grisly visage and hope for the best.
This is not an easy, happy-go-lucky, exercise. My deepest feelings for Sam rush to the surface, begging, that if, around the next corner, he
suddenly appears, unharmed, I can take him inside me, hold him there forever and cherish just the sight of him, tongue lolling, rushing to meet me.
The pain of this regime deepens because I feel, each day he lives, I use up a little of his remaining companionship, as though it could be measured,
weighed and apportioned. Is this some kind of lesson? Should I be cherishing, ever so much more, all the people and things around me because they
are so fragile and temporary? Nope. This is not a lesson. There are no lessons to be learned here. Not here. Each thing will be loved, adored and
protected or it will not.
As for Sam, I take, day by day, in equal measure, credit for the continued freedom that is his wondrous life and full blame for his death, some
future, less forgiving sunrise will expose.
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captkw
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3850
Registered: 10-19-2010
Location: el charro b.c.s.
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Mood: new dog/missing the old 1
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osprey
you have a way with words!!! K&T
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Ken Bondy
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3326
Registered: 12-13-2002
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Mood: Mellow
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Another gem Jorge!!
carpe diem!
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Pescador
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3587
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
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Real Men do not change women or dogs and just accept them the way they are.
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Cypress
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7641
Registered: 3-12-2006
Location: on the bayou
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Mood: undecided
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Osprey, Thanks. Fine story!!!
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Eli
Super Nomad
Posts: 1471
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: L.B. Baja Sur
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Mood: Some times Observing, sometimes Oblivious.
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Good story Osprey, I can for sure relate to why my Dad liked it. The Ol Man talked of you often, He always was very fond of your ability with words.
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