Old Dog, I'm a Lot Like You

(With apologies to Crosby, Still, Nash and Young)

I think it was maybe within a year of M and I getting married that the New York Times had a spread on how dogs and their owners grew together. I seem to remember the iconic Winston Churchill looking guy walking his bulldog and a long woman with half-mile long hair and body walking her Afghan Hound. Ah, those were the days. Afghanistan was -- to young me, anyway -- a mysterious place with Suqs especially there to buy spices. There was a war waging, but mostly it was in Viet Nam, Africa or the just-Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. I think of them as simpler times.

Ah, enough reminiscing and back to the fantasies upon waking that represent the core and source for these scribbles of a Last Quarter Player who -- truth be told -- reminisces a great deal about being a young Puppy but who, like GuntherDog, is gettin' on. My identification with dogs is longstanding and my willingness not to roll down the car window and howl with any new possible long-eared friend is only there to protect my (grand)children from embarrassment. In the movie about a woman and her progeny, Antonia's Lines, there is a character named la Luna who opens her window each night to howl at the Moon. I identify with her, as well (just as I recommend the c 1995 movie).

Old Dog, look at my life, I'm a lot like you.

Yesterday, M had a disconcerting report from her Doc and her most faithful lover GuntherDog seemed to know. He sat with her on a love seat, as he usually does, sitting up with his left paw on the arm of the divan. Missing was only his smoking jacket ... or, perhaps, a suede vest.

Old Dog take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Yesterday, after office hours, I invited my youngest and her daughters to join M and I in removing the winter cover from a pool we built maybe 30+ years ago. I took 3 or 4 hours to get it ready for removing. A Winter's worth of rotting leaves had to be taken off along with the vast majority of the collected waters. By the time we were done, my arthritic hands and wrists were just like GuntherDog's periodic limp. Like me, he does more than maybe he should and does circuits in the yard that an 11 yo dog shouldn't do. His girlfriend (M) gets all worried and a few hours later he's fine. She does the same with my cardiac arrhythmias and sundry signs of aging.

Indeed, GuntherDog and I (and M, too) are aging together and similar in so many other ways, as I am to my Cohort of Fourth Quarter denizens ... the Boomless Baby Boomers ... the Late Boomers ... those who go Boom in the Night ... those on whom the Boom has been Dropped!

This morning, I slept late (545) and Gunther really had to pee ... "I know, Gunther, I know the feeling."

Almost every morning, he stops at the top stair-landing and refuses to proceed until I pet him ... "I know what it feels like, Gunther. I'm willing to use outdoor plumbing, too, but only if you love-me-up a little."

Whenever I approach the room where the lovers (M and G) are on the loveseat, he jumps into my seat and looks, as if to say: "I got the woman and the chair, Sucker." .... "I know, Gunther, you do; now get off the seat or I take the woman."

Gunther doesn't want much. He likes his Kibble when he likes it ... really likes M's cooking better ... and won't stop his barking. Emile Zola said something about his having come to live loudly. "I know, GuntherDog; he was referring to us."

Well? What to say?  I'm not ready to stop my scribbles and other writing and when my grandspawn are not in the car I feel quite OK push-buttoning the Modern Window Lifts and "Just-sayin' Hey" to my good buddies on the street. LOL ... (not quite ... but close to) Howlin' Mad Howard.