Author: J. Thorp

Good Dog

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Our 15-year-old Airedale, Boomer, died on Thursday afternoon, June 25, 2009. At his age, it was not unexpected, but still a surprise, if that makes sense. We were slated to leave for South Dakota in a couple of hours, and found him lying in the back yard, in the the shade. He is missed, and so many people commented on my Facebook notice that I thought I should share a little more about him.

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My folks started raising Airedales about the time I entered sixth grade. As a teenager, I rode to Tennessee with my folks to pick up a couple of female pups, big-boned hunting-type Airedales called Oorangs, and rode back to Michigan with the two of them chewing on my stocking feet. Seems like maybe I put some money toward them; regardless, my name was on the papers, and I got to name them. The chewing-est one I called Thorp’s Oorang Patchmaker, or Patches, and the curlier of the two, Thorp’s Oorang Ragtop, or Rags.

Boomer came along a few years later. I’ll have to dig out his papers and check, but I’m pretty sure Rags was his mother. His father was a big, matted mess of dog when we got him from some farm in Michigan. Master MacDuff, as he was called, was the biggest Airedale I’d ever seen, and his hair was so long and matted from lack of grooming that he looked like he had dreadlocks. The folks who had him turned him loose, and he tore around the yard like a mad man until Dad told me to step away from the grown men and crouch down. No sooner had I done it, then Duff slowed to a trot and came straight to me. He was a big, gentle, personable dog — a suitable precursor to his son.

Boomer was the biggest pup of the litter, with massive paws he used to swat and stomp his siblings: BOOM! His mother and aunt were tempermental gals, so when we decided to keep him as a stud dog and find new homes for them, we named him Thorp’s BoomOorang, or Boomer.

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To my knowledge, the only thing Boomer was ever afraid of was explosive noises — gunshots, fireworks, and thunderstorms would send him to the deepest recesses of his dog house. He was housebroken as a pup, but never took to indoor living, and would get extremely nervous indoors. When Jodi and I first married and took him to South Dakota with us, we spent our first blizzard worried that the 65-degrees-below wind chills would be the death of him. We had rented a pet-friendly duplex — the upstairs of a drafty old two-story. You entered through an enclosed stairway up the back of the house, and a little old lady and her chihuahua lived downstairs.

The first day of the blizzard, we put Boomer in the stairwell to get him out of the weather. When we came home from work, our downstairs neighbor told us he had barked nonstop most of the day. When we went upstairs, we found he had made several messes and shredded a 50-pound bag of dog food.

I called Dad for advice, since it was clear we couldn’t leave him inside again. Dad said Boomer had stayed outside in Michigan on nights as cold as 35 below, and that as long as he had a windproof house and plenty of bedding, he’s be fine outside.

I had my doubts, but put a door flap on his house and filled it half full of cedar shavings. The next morning, I said a prayer and went to work.

When I got home, I found Boomer lying on the yard, the snow drifting over his back, head high, ears up, watching the chickadees flit amongst the leafless hedges. He refused to go into his house until I removed the flap so he could see out. Then he used his great paws to scoop nearly all of the cedar shavings out into the snow. Satisfied, he laid down on the hard floor — and until about three years ago, shunned almost all creature comforts in his kennel or dog house.

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As I said, aside from loud and sudden noises, Boomer was fearless and proud, moving around his domain in a loose jog and often parading along the borders of the yard with a bone in his jaws to make the neighbor dogs jealous.

In Michigan, our neighbor dogs were part wolf — the female was about half wolf; the male was 80+ percent wolf, weighed close to 100 pounds and was kept on a heavy chain within a high fenced kennel. And one Thanksgiving Day, he got loose.

I was bent over in Boomer’s kennel, busting ice from his water dish while he made the rounds of the back yard. I heard a low growl behind me and turned to see Boomer, moving in his loose jog, toward a dark wolfish creature nearly twice his size who was staring in my direction. Boomer never broke stride, even when the wolf-dog turned its yellow eyes to him. The wolf hesitated, then turned and loped off.

Blogger’s Addendum: Busia (my mom; Polish for “grandma”) graciously clipped, copied and bound all my columns from my newspaper days in the mid- and late-90s, and Grandma Venjohn wisely kept them where she could find them. As a result, I’ve posted a more accurate account of this episode here. For one thing, it wasn’t Thanksgiving at all …

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I’ve written about the Old Man many times over the years, and posted some of those writings. You can find them here:

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A bit of shared humor from Boomer’s death date: when Jodi called the veterinarian to find out exactly what to do with a deceased pet when you live in town,* the receptionist kindly informed her, “You can bring him here — a mass burial is $36, or you can have him cremated for $74, or have him cremated and get his remains for $164.”

In the few seconds it took Jodi to process what was said, she thought, Why is a burial mass the cheapest option? And how do they know we’re Catholic? In her defense, when she relayed the options to me, I thought the same thing …

Goodbye, Old Man. Good dog, Boomer. Good dog.

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*When you live in the country, pet “funerals” are simpler affairs conducted on your own place.

Top-Heavy

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

They say a child’s head grows to approximately 80 percent of it’s full size during the first year of life. If this is true, I must’ve cast a shadow like a Tootsie Pop as a child. There was a period as a baby during which I couldn’t hold up my head — try as they might, my folks couldn’t keep it off my shoulder. they would prop it up, and slowly, slowly, it would drop back down.

Developmental problem? Yeah. Too much head for my neck.

When I tried out for the high-school freshman football team in 1988, I weighed 125 pounds soaking wet, and only one helmet was left in the equipment room that would fit my head: an ancient, battered monstrosity with a lineman’s face mask that extended downward to protect a player’s throat, as well. It sat so far back on my head that I looked through the crossbars. The next fall we all got Air Helmets, with inflatable rubber bladders that allowed you to custom-fit them to your head. I received an extra-large helmet — and no air for the bladders.

I have a seriously large head. Not the biggest in the world. But probably the biggest you’ve seen …

It wasn’t until I took a summer job at Wall Drug after my second year of college that I understand the magnitude of the problem above my shoulders. I worked in the boot department, and occasionally would drift into the hat and western wear area to flirt with this gal, Jodi, who worked there. Her colleague, Cindy, tried to fit me for a hat one afternoon, and discovered there was only one hat in the place that fit me: a silver belly derby, size 8 long oval.

Let’s break that down:

  • Silver belly is kind of a pale ghost gray or off-white. My friend Jinglebob says real cowboy hats can be any color, as long as they’re black or silver belly.
  • A derby is, well, something like this. About what you’d expect a greenhorn Yalie to wear out West …
  • Size 8 is big. Darn big. According to The Hat Site, the average adult male human head is about a 7 1/4, which is a circumference of about 22 3/4 inches or 58 cm. My head is a little more that 25 inches, or 64 cm, around. This makes it, in The Hat Site’s estimation, “Probably the largest head size you will ever find …”
  • “Long oval” means I put the “egg” in “egghead.” Look at me from the front (now that I have, um, filled out in my thirties) and my head looks like a relatively normal grown man’s head. Look at me from the side, and it looks like a shaggy watermelon.

Size 8 long oval. This explains, with data, why they called me Warrior Dome during football season (claiming that we could suspend my helmet over the field in inclement weather and play beneath it) and simply Hed in the off season (which actually became my cartoonist alias for awhile in our underground student newspaper, Smoke Signals).

It also explains why, years later, when Bren, Gabe, and I decided to go to a Yankees game, I had to special-order a Yankees cap — and why it fits comfortably on my head, but has since stretched itself shapeless, front to back. It explains why the top item on my Christmas list last year was essentially a $30 stocking cap — the first I’ve found that would fit my head without stretching so thin that the wind whistled through it to chill my ears.

And it explains why, at a St. Paul Saints game a couple weeks back, I bought a cap for a team I had yet to see play ball. See, the Saints carry size 8 ball caps on site, and by some miracle of design, they shape themselves perfectly to my head, unlike the premium-priced New Era caps produced for Major League Baseball teams. For the first time since grade school, I have a cap that holds its shape (and doesn’t look like a yarmulke) on my head. The color’s nice; the logo’s classy; the tickets are cheap; and the games, kid friendly. I’m a Saints fan now. Sometimes a cap earns team loyalty, and not vice versa.

Trevvy On The Verge

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Our youngest turned five on Sunday. Hard to believe he’s headed to kindergarten in the fall. In lieu of photos, here are a few written snapshots from the weekend.

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Dozens of boisterous children are shouting, giggling, scrambling over the intricate jungle gym playground at the campground where our church group was staying. Above the din, a lone low growl rises to a roar. The small knot of grownups I’m standing in turns to stare as Trevor mounts the tallest tower. He throws his head back, pounds his chest, and roars at the trees and the sky and no one in particular.

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It’s bed time, and Trevor and I go into a single bathroom to brush and get ready for bed. Trevor has to pee, and there is no divider between the sink and the stool.

“Dad,” he says, his voice dramatic, “DON’T … LOOK … to the SIDE!”

I smile and shake my head. “Alright, little man,” I say. “But we’re both guys here, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

He thinks a second, then says, “OK, Dad — LOOK … to the SIDE!”

I glance to the left. Trevvy is grinning up at me, peeing with remarkable accuracy as he does so.

“See?” he says. “That’s why you’re not supposed to look to the side!”

* * * * *

On the way home from the camp on Sunday afternoon, we’re asking Trevor what he would like for his birthday dinner. The menu: stringy spaghetti noodles (you know, the ones that look like lines), grapes and spinach (for the people who don’t want grapes), and garlic bread.* For dessert: brownies with white frosting and red and blue sprinkles.

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We went to Mass after spaghetti and garlic bread and before brownies and presents. It’s been a busy weekend, and Trevvy falls asleep in minutes. He’s our preschooler on the verge, stretched full length on the hard wooden pew, peacefully sucking his thumb …

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* Trevor genuinely likes fresh spinach, and eats it as finger food, leaf by leaf.

Gabe’s Twisted Sense of Humor

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We’re at Bren’s baseball game, with our backs to the high-school girls’ softball team. Behind us: PING!, then “Heads up!” A fluorescent yellow softball rockets over the backstop behind us, over our heads, and slams into the fence around the ball field in front of us.

“Wow!” I say.

“They shouldn’t say, ‘Heads up,'” says Gabe, “because if you stick your head up …” — and he extends his neck as high as it will go — “… you have a better chance of getting hit by the ball.”

I smile and nod. “Maybe they should say, ‘Duck and cover!'” I suggest.

“Yeah,” says Gabe, “and then it’s like you grab a little kid to duck under!” … and he laughs and laughs.

Wish Flowers

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We were walking the sidewalk along Selby Avenue toward Dark Raven Studios, where the older kids practice tai chi. Here and there, a tree grew along the walk, skirted in weeds and dust. In the center of the street a crow pecked crumbs from discarded cellophane, hopping first to one side, then to the other, as the occasional car passed.

I snuffed a breath through my stuffy nose and grumbled inarticulately. Only the crow seemed to hear, and flapped to a nearby lamppost.

Then Trevor said, “I know why there are so many wish flowers today.”

Wish flowers? I thought. I looked at our youngest. He was gazing at a clump of ragged dandelions, which had shed their jaunty yellow caps to bare their graying heads to the breeze

“There are lots of wish flower because last week there were lots of dandelions!” he said, pointing to the balding stems.

Today a weed; tomorrow a wish. So much I’ve forgotten about wonder. So much to learn.