Lessons From The Good Books

This is an excerpt from my recent book, Lessons From The Good Books, What a Reading Addiction Taught Me About America, Music & Sports ©2016. The “Lessons” are set off in bold type.

“Now I must tell you the worst, Tubby was shot and killed on August 31st, he behaved like a true Marine at all times. We buried him in the Marine cemetery along with other real heroes. He has a cross and his name and rank, he was a corporal.”
Tubby was part of the War Dog Program and was killed in action in 1942.

All dogs go to heaven. I have one, her name is Angie. Her coat is black and her nationality is Labrador. She’s a decorated, 2-time graduate of doggie boot camp. She can recite the Gettysburg Address and can name all the U.S. presidents in order (because I memorized both, out loud, during our walks). “I cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust,” Henry David Thoreau. She likes to go on walks, mostly the drive-to-the-park part, me thinks. She’s come to grips with the geese and the great-tailed grackles, but she wants to eat the squirrels and bunnies. She has lots of pet peeves (see what I did there?). She wants to know why she has to heel, sit and use her doggie manners at all times when the little dogs just get to do whatever they want? Why do those dogs that look like rats get to yap at me (she says), but I get busted if I try to bite their faces off? How come the boxer gets to dig while his surgically enhanced owner talks at the top of her lungs into her Bluetooth headset? Why am I all about the six-foot leash when that dog gets to use some handheld zip line that allows it to steer off course for 90 feet in any direction? I tell her that she’s a Labrador and is held to a higher standard. She gets agitated, sez it’s unfair. She calms when I ask, “Well, would you rather be a pug?” The song “Angie” is said to be about Keith Richards’ daughter, whom he wanted to name Dandelion. Alas, the Catholic nurses at the hospital where she was born required a “Christian” name be tacked on and added Angela, Angela Dandelion. The Rolling Stones song went to number 1 in 1973.

People seem to like ugly dogs. It’s because their owners want attention, like the way you can attention for being either really good or really bad? It’s like that. That’s fine, we just really want to walk in peace. The canine corps of the German Army had 200,000 dogs in it by 1939. The U.S. War Dog Program didn’t get started until later, and at the outset, relied on people donating their pets. Within the first few months, 19,000 dogs were donated. Did you ever walk your dog and another dog owner comes up to you and asks, “Can my dog say hi?” I always say no. My dog doesn’t need dog friends. Dogs were domesticated to be companions with humans, if they were supposed to have a Rolodex of doggie friends we could have just left them in packs. Or how about this one: “Can your dog have a treat?” From you? You mean that filthy thing you just pulled out of your pocket? No! We don’t know where that treat’s been. We may be down on our luck but we don’t need charity treats. Or, finally, has anyone approached you and your dog, both palms out, and ask: “Does he bite?”…Ya, he does, mostly in the crotch, mostly strangers. So stupid. Sixteen million animals were deployed during World War I. Every country in the war had a canine corps except the U.S. No one knows what a dog will do when faced with a strange dog, strange circumstances, or a freaky human bearing treats. I believe dogs talk to each other, often insult or challenge each other, using doggie telepathy. It doesn’t matter if they’re wagging their tails, because since we don’t know what they’re saying to each other, what four-letter provocation they may be muttering under their breath, a dog pile could ensue at any minute. So no saying hi.

Angie sees witches, in the park. Truly. Dogs have instincts about this stuff. She stares and sometimes stops dead in her tracks, the way a Labrador would only do when seeing a witch. America’s first “true crime” story unfolded in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Fourteen women, five men and two dogs were hanged for witchcraft. Between 144 and 185 were accused of being a witch/wizard, the youngest was five, the oldest 80, and 55 confessed. “Salem is in part the story of what happens when a set of unanswerable questions meets a set of unquestioned answers.” She backs up and pushes her body close to mine, letting out a guttural, under-her-breath, Cujo-in-training growl. Is she thinking about those two hung dogs? Does she view those who talk loudly into wireless devices as suburban witches? Does she think they move about with poison treats? Does she think they’ll kill the ugly dogs first?  Lucky for us we’ve also been memorizing some incantations. Good girl, Angie!