A Good Dog

John Penney          Post Office Box 214           Vienna, Georgia  31092                    [e-mail]

Cell – 229-942-0857          office – 229-268-5345



Title:          A Good Dog

1296 words

         We had a bulldog one time that would chase a cat so hard, and run up the tree after`em till he`d just fall over backwards. Every time it happened he`d turn his big old head around and look at me and Al on the way down, like we was the stupid ones. Back then, we had two huge  money maker  pecan trees in the front yard and they was so close to the house that  most of them  wild-ass house cats could usually make it across that spongy soft Saint Augustine grass and fire off up one of them tree trunks before that bulldog could get his butt in gear. He was quicker than he looked though and once in a while his instincts would take over and the idiot would almost catch one. 

         But it was a long stretch way up to that first limb and when that dog run out of momentum up the side of one of them trees I bet he must have been up about as high as the edge of our porch roof when he lost traction, he could run like the wind, but he just never did learn to grip real tight.  People coming by our house in their cars would drive real slow cause this wacko dog would run out and bite the rubber part of the tire so hard that he`d roll over and over and not ever let go if he could help it, sometimes they`d just stop and the dummy would just hang on till we`d twist his ear in a knot.

         This is the truth, I swear, ask Al. His name was Bo, he really belonged to Allen Waldrip but he followed me home on my paper route one day and started hanging around like it was dog heaven or something.  Allen would come get him every once in a while, but he just came back in a day or two. Chasing cats was his life, if he did catch one, they was dead. My  MaMa  would wear out one of her stick brooms on him when she caught him  bothering  her cats, he`d just  hunker down  and kind of grin , take his whuppin`  and then crawl over to lick her hand when she got thru .  Dumb?  One of the best dogs we ever had that didn`t belong to us.

         Bo followed me on my paper route nearly every day, he knew it pretty good too, cause sometimes when he was late I`d just meet him in the middle, go figure. He looked kind of like the Mascot for the University of Georgia, except he was a little bit bigger. He was white with a couple of brown splotches, one on the side of his butt and one up by that massive head that ran down across his chest almost to the top of  his left foot..

         He always ran down the road at an angle, with that big old slobbering tongue flapping in the breeze, his big old chest stuck out and that little bitty butt trying to swing out and pass, always looked like he was going to run off into the ditch all the time. The only time he would run straight like, was when he was looking for a fight or trying to kill a cat. But boy, let me tell you, he was fast as Rin Tin Tin if trouble was nearby.

         Seems like every other day or so I ran into trouble with the dogs on my paper route, there always seemed to be somebody`s mean old bully dog that would keep trying to catch me off guard and maybe get me by the foot or drag me off my bike or be content to just scare the crap outta me. 

         Serious though, I knew all the tricks of the paperboy trade, after all I was partly trained by one, if not the best, paperboy in the world, Loyce Harpe. He used to deliver his papers from the back of a Cushman Super Eagle motorcycle!  When I was somewhere about nine maybe ten years old he became my Hero.  You got to understand, in those days, little kids like me did not get a bunch of chances to hang with older guys; I hung with my older brother Al because he needed a “Worlds Greatest” catcher and maybe third basemen, but Loyce Harpe hung the moon in my book. Every once in a while he would let a wild-eyed little rag- tag boy ride with him. That`s another story though.  Not too long ago, my old buddy Loyce  passed  on.  I bet now he can see that ole fastball again, maybe throw one or three, who knows? 

                   My whole world revolved around baseball and that paper route for a couple of years, so it was a challenge sometimes to get the papers in the right place every day, keep the pace quick enough so you didn`t miss any games and still had enough time in the day to go swimming, if it was hot enough and Mister Comer had the pool open and ready. Mondays was  new water day at Comers Pool , it came from the ice plant about a block away and it was colder that a witches you know what,  If you knew better, you never swam on Mondays if you could help it, never.

         Now that bulldog really was the most gentle, loving dog in the world and he must have cared as much about me as a dog can care, cause everywhere I went he went, or at least he tried to. When he helped me on my paper route, it was his job to patrol out in front and make absolutely sure that the coast was clear, no enemy dogs in sight, or if there was he would immediately find a solution for any canine problems. It usually took a very short amount of time for him to change the opinion of most of Cordele`s pooches.  On the days that Bo was off duty or not available I would have to resort to the basic steps for safe passage, the blazing speed of my souped-up Red Ryder bike in some cases, or, at times I would use certain acrobatic maneuvers like the old, whole body on one pedal trick or the standing on the seat thing. If you happened to be headed down hill then you could use the feet on the handlebars routine. These were standard basic paperboy operating procedures and some paperboys could put on quite a show when needed. Not to brag, but yours truly often was talked about in reverent whispers.

          Needless to say, none of the other paperboys from the era of E.W. “ Sassafras “ Matthews could boast of a “Bulldog Bodyguard “. Matthews was the owner of the one and only Cordele Dispatch Newspaper and everybody in town called him “Mister “, even his son Jack.

         I guess maybe I could write a great and wonderful, tear jerk story about what a courageous, man`s best friend type of dog Old Bo turned out to be and how he went to his magnificent death trying to save me from some terrible calamity but alas, it was not to be.

         Allen Waldrip showed up one day with a collar and chain and took him home, put him out in the backyard in one of them new concrete floor, chain-link dog pens. Not long after that the heartworms took him to the real dog heaven.

         I had a lot of dogs after old Bo died. None could ever touch me like the one that wasn`t mine.