It's funny, the things we remember. There are the big things, of course--weddings, funerals, graduations, disappointments, loves, rejections, triumphs. But there are little things, too, small details that live on in our consciousness like echoes reverberating through the decades. Sometimes it's hard to figure out why we remember the things we do. At some level, some things--even what, on the surface, appear to be minor things--affect us in such a way that our minds hold onto them, tightly, as if grasping a precious jewel.
And these memories are not buried, hidden beneath the surface, like trinkets in a dusty attic chest. They whisper into our ears, make subtle suggestions when we least expect it, and, for those who create stories, they sometimes weave their way into our narratives--not always exactly as they happened, but close enough to inspire a scene or a chapter.
One such memory for me involves our dog when I was eight years old and a loaf of French bread. I don't believe it's ever worked its way into one of my stories--but it likely will. And it is the focus of this post.
First, allow me to back up. For years, going back to before I was born, my mother always named the family dog "Poopsie." Don't ask me why--I don't know. And I never asked. But "Poopsie" was a given in our family. If we got a dog, male or female--didn't matter--we didn't have to wonder what the dog's name would be. The first two Poopsies were before my time. But when I was eight years old, we adopted a beagle and named her Poopsie III.
Now, Poopsie III was athletic! And naughty! She spent much of her time in our backyard, which was fenced. We figured this would keep her safe and prevent her from running away and exploring the neighborhood. We were wrong. Almost every day, it seemed, Poopsie would hop the fence, spend a couple of hours doing we could only guess what--and then come racing back down the street, usually cresting the big hill in the distance and sprinting down its slope, eventually reaching our driveway and hopping the fence again to head to the rear corner of the yard, where her doghouse was situated. She sometimes dug under the fence, too, and crawled underneath--just to mix things up. A lot of times, we'd keep her on a leash so she couldn't get out of the yard. But Poopsie was a dog built for running. So my mother was adamant that she shouldn't always be constricted to a ten-foot-by-ten-foot circle of yard. That didn't stop my mother from scolding Poopsie, though, every time she came back home from one of her adventures through the neighborhood.
One such adventure stands out above all the rest. It was a pleasant summer afternoon back in the 1980s, and, looking out the back window, I stated, "Poopsie's gone." Indeed. Her doghouse was abandoned, and she was nowhere to be seen. Evidently, she had hopped the fence and was out in the neighborhood, somewhere, doing something.
About an hour later, we learned what she'd been up to. My parents, my siblings, and I were all out front--I'm not sure what we were doing. Maybe peering down the street, wondering when Poopsie would be back.
And then, sure enough, there she was, cresting the hilltop up the road. She then raced down the hill, heading straight for us. But . . . was there something in her mouth? There was! Though she was still too far away to discern exactly what it was.
Seconds later, as she raced closer, closer, we all saw it. A large, long, full loaf of French bread. She carried it dead-center, the loaf sticking out half a foot on each side of her mouth. And as she neared us, running the whole way, she was undoubtedly smiling.
"What did you do?" my mother yelled at her. And then, as she often did when Poopsie came back from a neighborhood run, she pointed to the backyard and commanded that she "get in [her] house." Poopsie didn't hesitate. She raced to the backyard fence, and like Superdog, bolted over it in a single bound.
We were all shocked. How had she gotten hold of an entire loaf of French bread? There were no grocery stores in the direction from which she'd come--not close enough, anyway. But there was a small, family-owned bakery up that way. Had she entered the bakery and pilfered a loaf of their bread? Or had she taken the bread out of the hand of a pedestrian walking home from the bakery? We never found out. Certainly no one was chasing Poopsie, attempting to reclaim the bread. It was a mystery.
We all had a good laugh about it, right there in the front yard. My mother, even while yelling at Poopsie, was laughing. We decided to go inside and see what the dog was up to. Looking out the back window, we saw Poopsie trying to enter her doghouse, but she couldn't. She still carried her loaf of bread in her mouth, and as she tried to enter through the small opening in front, the bread would ram up against the front of her doghouse, pinning her in place.
Eventually, she dropped the treasured bread directly in front of her doghouse and then went inside. But she'd left the bread close enough to the open doorway where she could lean out and take large, gluttonous bites of it. In just a couple of minutes, she ate the entire loaf. She had a good nap after that.
And still to this day, all these years later, I can recall the smile on her face as she ran down the street, bread in mouth. It will stay with me as long as I live, the memory like an old friend ready and waiting to cheer me up whenever needed.
"Thanks for the memories, Poopsie. You will not be forgotten."
Thanks so much for reading!
--Mike
