ANOTHER FRAMED PRINT I LOST WHEN I LEFT CHICAGO...

                                 

Photo Copyright George Barris

SPLENDOR IN THE SNOW

I'd like to take a moment and say something about a dog. Because I did actually meet and know a really good one. So please don't think that I dislike ALL dogs. Because I don't. I just think cats are more of a challenge. And I really do like a good challenge. Anyway, we used to have this wonderful little mutt (her name was Tina) when I was growing up in Chicago. Tina was a genius. I'm being serious here. That dog was ten times more intelligent than the rest of the people I lived with in our house. I used to look at her sometimes, and I swear she could tell exactly what I was thinking. If I was about to say: Wanna go for a walk? Her long floppy ears would prick up a bit, and she would tilt her fuzzy little head all of a sudden. And then when I finally said the words she already knew I was going to say - she would dash to the front hall, grab her leash off the table, and in a flash - she was motioning for me to slip it on her collar so we could get the hell out of there, and go on one of our great adventures together outside.

She loved to spend hours in the snow, and so did I. We both liked winter better than summer. And when we went to the park on a late winter afternoon: it seemed like we were the only living souls there, and all that white wide open space belonged to us alone. Later, after we finally decided to go back home - if I was feeling especially sad or depressed about something and hiding all day in bed under the covers - Tina would suddenly appear out of nowhere, and start making these really pitiful little whining noises at me. I'm pretty sure she was letting me know that she was on my side, and I didn't have to suffer alone anymore. And then after I patted the bed a couple of times, she would let out a little yip of joy, and hop in with me. Then she'd lick my face twice (never more than that), and we'd settle down to take a little nap together. And a lot of the sadness really did seem to go away for awhile.

Another amazing thing about Tina: She was wild about Shakespeare (mostly the tragedies). I'm not making this up. She loved it when I read long passages of Hamlet or Romeo And Juliet to her out loud. She would just look at me with those big brown intelligent eyes of hers, and give me her absolute attention as Shakespeare's poetry rolled off of my tongue. So you see why I say she was a genius now? And there will never be another dog like her. At least I haven't met one yet. Because one day in late December, after she somehow escaped from our fenced in front yard and failed to come right back home - I spent close to six hours out in the freezing Chicago snow, desperately calling out her name as I searched for her in our favorite park. But she was gone forever. Just like that.

And after my hands and feet were so numb that I couldn't feel them anymore, I made my uncertain way back home, and somehow just knew that I'd never see her intelligent big brown eyes again. And her leash on the table in the hall made me so very sad, that I threw it in the trash the very next day. But her memory was not as easy to let go of. Because no other dog I have ever met has managed to replace her in my heart. And no dog ever could. So maybe that's why I decided to just be happy with cats? Because I got tired of always looking for another Tina, when there is not another dog like her in all the wide world. So it was time to let go. No more long walks in the snow.

Essay © 2016 by Dylan Mitchell

MY PAPA'S WALTZ

for Karen

MY PAPA'S WALTZ

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

- Theodore Roethke