memories

Farewell to Puck

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment
Our new pup, circa 2002

We lost Puck today. At 13 years old, he was certainly not a young for a dog, but definitely not old for a Schnauzer. He had begun, in recent years, to sleep longer and run less, and earlier this fall, he had some teeth removed. At that time, the vet said his blood work was clean and extolled how healthy he seemed for his age, but warned that at this stage in a dog’s life, anything can happen.

And it did. Over a matter of weeks, Puck went from old to frail. He never complained, but slept more, ate less, and stayed closer to the house and us. He was slower on the stairs and slower to respond to our calls and whistles. Then a few days ago, he lost his balance and struggled to stand. Our other dog, Boomer, had done this several times in his old age — he would usually sleep for the better part of a couple of days, then be up and around again. Only Puck didn’t recover.

He was 13, and our kids are age 16 to 2, so he’s been a part of the family for as long as they can remember. We miss him.

Puck, all Christmased out.

We got Puck from a Schnauzer breeder on an old farmstead in rural Michigan. I wanted another dog — a smaller, indoor pet, since Boomer was big, woolly, and hated being inside. Jodi is not a dog person, but gave in to my persistence and the boys’ pestering. (Or was it vice versa?) He was an adorable pup (my Dziadzi — Polish for grandpa — was not overfond of our Airdales, but looked at our Schnauzer and said, “Now that’s a dog!”), and full of curiosity and mischief. I was struggling to come up with a name that reflected both his Germanic roots and his personality, and my choices were getting more and more outlandish. At one point, the name Wolfgang came to mind. I had Mozart on the brain, but was freely associating, and thought of the chef, Wolfgang Puck, then of the Shakespeare character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I looked at our impish pup, and the name fit. (Of course, only later did I discover how a grown man shouting, “Puck!” out the back door sounded to the neighbors, or how many Minnesotans would instantly assume I was a hockey fan.)

Steamy summer roadtrip…

He’s always been an easy keeper and a good traveler. In fact, the only trouble he’s ever been came from a tendency in his younger days to know exactly when we were preoccupied by something else and high-tail it around the neighborhood. During the day, he would turn up in someone’s garage, or walk in through their front door with their kids, and they’d look at his collar and call. At night, he’d run yard to yard, and I’d drive with my head out the window, listening for jingling dog-tags or a neighbor dog in an uproar, trying to catch up to him.

After Boomer passed, Puck no longer wanted us to travel anyplace without him. If he sensed even a hint that we were preparing for something longer than a day trip, he would look for an opening, jump into the van, climb as far back in as he could, and refuse to come out unless I removed him. He would lay in whatever open space he could find in our overstuffed minivan, never bothered the kids when they were eating, and was content to sleep in the vehicle, in garages, in tents, wherever, as long as he could come with us. On cold winter nights, he would curl up under my old Carhartt jacket, head and all, and be there in the morning, ready to greet the frosty dawn.

He loved dog biscuits and pop corn and being scratched above the collar bone, beneath the collar. He used to love chasing tennis balls, but only in the house. He never liked to be picked up or manhandled — I could do what I wanted (he would even roughhouse a bit with me), but he only tolerated Jodi or Brendan lifting him, and nobody else. In recent years, he tended to get out of traffic when little kids were around. He tolerated other known dogs, but strays drove him berserk. Cats made him quiver with nervous energy; he was never quite sure whether he was supposed to chase them or not, and they seemed to relish his uncertainty and rub it in his face.

The old man, a couple weeks ago.

When we told the kids last night that it might be his last, we recalled three other special memories. Jodi remembered how our little ones, especially Lily, bonded with Puck by dropping food from their highchairs, and when they realized he was eating it, making a game of it. I remember him shifting from front foot to front foot and softly ruffing at us when he thought we were paying too much attention to baby Lily and not enough to him.

I also remember how perceptive he could be. He had a habit of sidling up to whomever he thought was most likely to pet or snuggle him — he would sit on your toes, even, or thrust his soft gray head up under your hand. But when we lost little Jude, I remember him insisting that I pet him as I lay on the couch or the bed, quiet and sorrowful. He nudged, prodded, cajoled, as if to say, C’mon…better days are ahead!

And he was right.

Goodbye, old man. Good dog.

Rosa Represents

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Rosa, ready to go.

I took Rosa out for an afternoon on the town this past Sunday.  We appeared together in the Albertville Friendly City Days Parade, representing Knights of Columbus Council 4174, with fellow KCs and Catholic youth (including Bren, Gabe, Rose, and Trev) passing out Tootsie Rolls to the crowds.

Parade rest.

She drew a lot of looks and compliments, particularly among gentlemen of a certain age, who might have known someone like her in their younger days. The younger men took notice of both her beauty and her age and were respectful, save one young hoodlum, still red-faced and drowsy from the previous evening’s festivities, who bellowed, “C’mon, light ’em up! Let’s see what kind of power the old Ford’s got.”

Rosa ignored him entirely in favor of a little boy waving enthusiastically from the other side of the street. I leaned out the window, smiling, and said, “She’s got a 240 straight-six. This is about it.”

Show some respect, young man. She’s forgotten more miles than you’ve travelled.

Another young man, clean-cut with Buddy Holly glasses, looked her up and down and said, “’66?”

“Yup,” I said, and he nodded appreciatively.

Were she a woman, guessing her age would be considered uncouth, but for a pickup, it’s a compliment. What might be an adulterous attention to her curves and lines were she human is for Rosa a sign of her authentic, ageless beauty – she is noticed, not because she’s hot, but because she’s classic.

To that end, when we were preparing for the parade, I flew the flags and hung the KC emblems on the side, then grabbed the box of streamers, spangles, and bows left over from last year’s float. I looked from the box to pickup and back, then returned the box to the garage. She’s impressive enough in her own right. Who doesn’t love a modest girl who’s comfortable in her own skin?

Looks just as good going…

Rosa Comes Home

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments
Look who’s back!

When Jodi and I first moved to Minnesota, I wanted a pickup to help with the move. We had a couple thousand dollars to spend, which won’t get you much unless, it turns out, you go “classic” — then it will get you a project truck. I’m not particularly gifted as a mechanic, but with Dad’s help, I figured we could get into something basic and make it roadworthy.

We found a ’66 Ford F-100 with a 240 straight six and three-on-the-tree — a ranch truck, “farm fresh” from Texas. The back bumper is heavy steel stamped with the dealer name: Kozelski Mtrs. West, Texas. The chrome brush guard on the front reads Smash Hit, Waco, Texas (with a lightning bolt between the Hs), and in the back window is a sunbleached sticker for 99.5 KBMA “La Fabulosa” Bryan-College Station. It had originally come to Michigan as a project truck for a father and son who had never quite gotten to it. The body and engine were solid, the electrical system and gauges were marginal, and the shift lever was inserted through a wallowed-out hole in the steering column and “secured” by a filed-down mini screwdriver that served as a pin. As you drove, the makeshift pin would sometime vibrate out, which led to a momentary thrill when the lever came off in your hand mid-shift.

We fixed it up well enough to drive it to Minnesota with a chest freezer full of beef in the back. We hauled whatever needed hauling around here for a year or so, and parked it during the winter so as to avoid getting road salt on a 40-plus-year-old body that had only two tiny rust perforations. It was a three-season vehicle only I would drive; we couldn’t fit it in the garage, and couldn’t afford to store it — so finally, we put it on Craigslist. Dad urged me not to do it. “You’ll never find another one like, and you’ll wish you had it back some day — I know from experience.”

I was only trying to get my money back out of it, but there were no takers. I thought about dropping the price. Then one afternoon, Dad called to make me a deal. He wanted to buy the pickup. He would pay us in beef over the next few years. He would take the pickup back to Michigan, drive it only during the summers, and “someday when I’m gone,” he said, “you can have it back.”

I signed the title over to him, and we were well supplied with meat.

About a year ago, I saw the old pickup again and told Dad I was glad he hadn’t let me sell it. He mentioned that if I wanted it back, I could have it — but he’d only sign back over if I promised not to sell it. This winter we shook on that deal, and today, the old girl came back home to Minnesota.

The journey back was a father-son road trip for Gabe and me — we took two days, traveling north from my folks’ place, over the Mackinac Bridge, then west across the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin on US 2 and US 8. No more than we got on the highway, fellow motorists started rubbernecking as they passed. The old timers gave us thumbs-up or nods of approval. We stopped at a few antique shops and got a few compliments and one not-so-subtle hint that we should consider selling. We speculated that the big shiny pickups roaring past us on the highways would not still be running in 50 years. Our pickup ran like a champ the entire trip, with only three minor challenges and one momentary thrill:

  • The gauges don’t work. The gas gauge never registers more than half full, and may or may not register empty — that, coupled with an odometer that registers 7/10 to 8/10 of a mile for every actual mile traveled makes judging when to fill up a challenge. Solution? Fill up frequently. The speedometer doesn’t work — but wouldn’t you know, there’s an app for that, using your smartphone’s GPS to tell you exactly how fast your moving and in what direction.
  • The doors don’t lock — which meant I carried a backpack with me wherever we went rather than leave anything of value unattended.
  • The wipers seemed to have a mind of their own. During an Upper Peninsula downpour, they worked great — but a few hours later, when we were thinking of stopping for the night, they quit just as the rain started. Coincidentally, we had just spotted a likely looking motel, so we pulled in. This morning, they worked fine — maybe the old truck was ready to turn in, too?
  • Old-school drum brakes needed polishing? If you have driven an old vehicle, with drum brakes that aren’t somehow power-assisted, they take some getting used to, and you’re wise to give yourself a little more distance to come to a stop. When a line of cars in front of me came to a quick stop behind a vehicle turning left, I had to get on the brakes hard — and the truck pulled sharply toward the shoulder, causing the tires to howl angrily and me, Gabe, and driver in front of me a moment’s panic. Later I tried the same hard stop in a more controlled and traffic-free environment — it pulled hard to the left once, then began stopping more effectively. Little rusty, perhaps?

Dad sent us home with a wooden duck decoy he’s hoping one of the kids will repaint. The duck sat on the dash, and whenever one of us predicted something unfortunate about the truck or the trip, Gabe would knock on the only wood available — earning the decoy the moniker “Lucky Duck.” As for the old truck: she’s never had a name, but given her border town roots and faded red paint, I dubbed her Rosa. Gabe thought immediately of his sister (whom I sometimes call Rosa) and then of her patron saint, Rose of Lima — he began to call the truck “Santa Rosa de Lima” (or more accurately in Gabe-speak, “Santarosadelima!” But for me, she’ll always be La Fabulosa. Bienvenidos, chica.

Rosa La Fabulosa: Thanks for keeping her for me, Dad!

Summer Vacation, Day 19: Kicked!

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Hubba over at Hubba’s House (where else?) posted a funny little story about an electric cattle prod. (Bonus points if that title was a conscious Diamond Head/Metallica reference, Hubba.) So I thought I’d share an early experience of mine.

As kids, my sister Jill and I would spend a week over in the Thumb (that’s Michigander for the area of “the Mitten” east of Saginaw Bay) with Busia and Dziadzi* at the farm where my mom grew up. It was great fun, of course, and one of my favorite parts was watching the cows up close when they came up to the barn for grain. I wasn’t around cows much, so these big-eyed, smelly creatures were fascinating.

Another favorite part was spying the painted turtles Dziadzi invariably had in the cattle’s water tank each summer. If I crept out to the wire that kept the cows off the steel siding of the barn and stayed really still, they would come to the surface and poked their striped heads out of the water, breathing through their tiny nostrils and gazing with their golden eyes.

One afternoon I slipped out to see the turtles, and the cattle were by the tank. They’d already drank, and I was curious about a turtle’s perspective on drinking bovids as he looked up from the cool bottom of the tank. I leaned forward, alternately eying the cows and peering through the water to see where the turtles were. The cows watched me curiously. They were close, and I was nervous about getting closer, so I planted my feet, bent at the waist, and stre-e-e-etched toward the water tank …

POW! I felt an explosion against my forehead, my vision went black and I was knocked backward against the barn. The cows bellowed and scattered. Clutching my forehead with both hands, I ran sobbing toward the house. Dziadzi met me halfway across the lawn. He had heard me coming.

“What happened?” he asked.

“My head … the cows …” I sobbed. “I was looking for the turtles, and one of them kicked me!”

Dziadzi moved my hands away from head. There wasn’t a mark on me. I looked at my hands. No blood. No dirt.

“You sure it kicked you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I bent over like this …” (I demonstrated) “… to look in the water tank, and one kicked me in the head!”

Dziadzi smiled at me. “Come here and let Dziadzi show you something.”

We walked back to the barn and out the side door where the tank was. The cows saw Dziadzi and bounded back toward the barn, eager for more grain. I stayed just behind Dziadzi.

“You were standing here?” he asked. “And you bent over to look in the water tank?”

“Yes,” I said, accusingly, “and they kicked me!”

Dziadzi laughed: “You got kicked alright. See this wire here? It’s electric. When you bent over to look at the turtles, you touched your forehead to it!”

And I could see that’s exactly what I’d done.

I’ve been shocked a time or two since by fencers. It doesn’t knock me over anymore, but oh, do I hate it!

* * * * *

* A note on translation: Busia (BOO-sha) and Dziadzi (JAH-jee) are children’s Polish versions of gramma and grampa.