Archive for the ‘Dogs’ tag
Still Holding the Leash
Maybe dogs are destined to break my heart. I was terrified of them as a kid, for no good reason other than that we didn’t have one of our own. One day when I was eight or nine, I was riding past a neighbor’s house on my bike when their Irish setter Max was running loose outside his pen. I panicked, tore off on my Huffy screaming, and he chased me down and bit me on the thigh. The wound was nothing serious, but later Max was gone. My parents told me the neighbors sent him away to some relatives out in the country, which was entirely plausible given where we lived in a small town, but I also never knew if that was the old trick adults play on kids when a dog really goes off to the big farm in the sky.
Well I Guess This is Growing Up
Growing up, TV shows like The Wonder Years or movies like The Natural led me to believe that every epiphany or climactic realization in my life would come at equally cinematic moments, drenched in sepia tones with oboes and clarinets playing in the background, or maybe with fireworks and light standards exploding overhead. “And that was when I realized I should shave my head,” I’d tell Carter someday, describing the touching moment when I realized I was losing the fight with male pattern baldness. Me holding a mirror looking at the back of my head, a tear rolls down my cheek. I reach for the clippers. Cue the Coldplay song.
Where Everybody Knows My Name
Moving to a new house means getting to know new neighbors. Debbie has shouldered this chore with aplomb at our new place, flagging down everyone we see and introducing the whole family, even stopping the car on our way in the garage and shaking hands through the window. I’m not as forward; I figure I’m doing my best if I nod and say hi, figuring I’ll learn a name if necessary, say when I borrow a garden hose or have to apologize when the security alarm goes off for 30 minutes straight because I forgot the code.