He climbed over the railroad

Tracks from the parochial

School to home, from 108^th St.

Christian School and all the

Fights in the school yard

To 10633 S. Normal Ave.

And then to the public

School yard on the west

Side of Halsted St. and

One young, Black boy,

An elementary school

Classmate, who years

Later would become the

Human face that would

Influence the thinking of

That white boy who didn’t

Do very well in that public

System but who, in various

Other systems under very

Different circumstances,

Came into his own

Academically and ded-

Icated himself to racial

Equality.  He wondered

Whatever happened to

His grade school buddy

And if that buddy even

Gave him a thought, ever.

When Doris Day sang through

the night club smoke as it wafted

over her passing through her

flowing golden locks and chiffon

gown, but apparently not affecting

her voice, “The magic is my love for

you,” and it was the summer of

1953 and I’m eight years old and

standing in my underpants as the

wind blows through the open wind-

ows of the second floor of our

south side of Chicago home and my

mother, over the sound of the radio,

shouts up the stairwell, “Robert Edwin,

you better not be bouncing on your bed.”

Jeannie Hedstrom and I broke that up-

stairs make-do trampoline the week

before. I shout back, “I’m just standin’

here, mom,”  as I slip into the bathroom

and Doris Day gives way to Kate

Smith’s “God Bless America.”

When he awoke, he

Wondered

Why

He had dreamed

What he had dreamed

At the beginning of March –

No birthdays, no anniversaries,

And then he thought

About the death of his dog

Three weeks before.

Would it? Could it?

The death of a pet

Triggering a

Dream

About his wife of twenty-six

Years

Who died almost twenty years

Before?

This time

He told his wife,

Who, for the first time, instead

Of turning from him,

Wanted him to stay with

Her at her art exhibit,

That he had to go.

She had always left

Him

In his sweat as he

Had emerged

So very, very

Sad from sleep.

He wondered aloud,

“Had the dog

Meant that

Much?”

The following poem was written by a camping friend and dog lover, Sharon Blawat.

Boomer
February 5, 2013

When stranger would come meet him
He’d show his intelligent side
No one could deny
That he was a sweet loving guy
So many writings have given him
Immortality
Saying goodbye to this fellow
Is difficult as can be
In our lives the pets we have had
Are never ever forgotten
Boomer will remain in the hearts
Of anyone that has met him

He impatiently awaited his leash.

He hurriedly tugged at his collar.

He loudly barked disturbing the peace.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard the holler,

That came resoundingly from his master’s mouth,

That fell on the ears of all who were near,

And he felt the yank and tug that left no doubt

That he needed to stand still in a little fear

Of displeasing the one who had come to mean so much,

The one who loved him through and through

And the superlative other who made such a fuss and such

Over a love of the dog who proved so true,

Over the very dog who proved so true,

The now late chocolate lab who proved so very, very true

The one who has left the man and the his wife

The dog’s alpha and omega,

The truly sad two,

Alone and knowing that he was

The alpha and omega of dogs

For those two, now so alone as they look at the couch

And the chair where he slept and the box of his

Toys, yes, those, so lonely in the box, too .

A spokesperson for the Arizona Division of the U.S.

Bureau of Alcohol. Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

stated, “It is the West and the West was won by the gun,”

in what seemed like an attempt to give reason to the

mayhem from the grocery store parking lot in Tucson

to the office building parking lot in North Phoenix

on the very day “Gabby” Giffords testified in Washington

for gun control as representatives of the people of

America politely refrained, if they even knew or cared,

from asking her about the semi-automatic Glock she

admittedly and ironically owned, like the one Jared Lee

Loughner used to blow a hole in her head. But after all,

she had been the Tombstone Territory’s representative

and like the man said, “It is the West and the West was

won by the gun.”  Gary Cooper stood tall and handsome

as he drew his gun at High Noon and the Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stood, pulled out their

Glocks and went down in a blaze of glory not seen

since the Shootout at the OK Corral. Years before on

Stony Island Avenue on the South side of the city of

Chicago a father who had just sat through a double

feature of High Noon and OK Corral stood, pointed

his Colt 45 fingers at his son and blew him to smithereens

as the ten-year-old laughed and  threw himself against their

car in the parking lot where years later little

boys really would blow each other to bits.

The proverb admonishes, “Don’t

         get between a she-bear and her

cubs.”  They sat and watched

         the survival of the fittest being

played out at what otherwise

         would have been the terrifying

distance of twelve feet, but

         even the adventurous camera-

man wisely used his high

         powered zoom lens as mother

bison tried to protect their

         young from mother wolves

who desperately needed to

         feed their pups back in the

winter’s den.  A bison calf

         lay mauled but not killed

by a mother wolf who sat

         staring from a safe distance

of perhaps twelve feet.

         The calf’s mother licked the

wounds and snorted and shook

         her head defiantly at the wolf.

Both mothers left at night fall

         to return at daybreak where

they found the calf who had

         survived the cold, lonely,

painful night, futilely strugg-

         ling to stand at its mother’s

urging to flee for the safety

         of the woods.  She licked and

nudged in patient desperation

         while the mother wolf sat near-

by. The mother bison watched

         her calf struggle and fall. She

then turned and left her still

         breathing calf to catch the herd.

The mother wolf moved in

         for the kill. Her pups would

survive and grow, play and

         frolic in the verdant spring

fields until the day a big, male

         black bear visited.  For how long

did the mother bison miss, ache

         and long for the calf she had to

abandon?  For the moment, the

         two viewers felt the conflict of

joy and sorrow from the safe

         distance of twelve feet.

As when a single drop

of  white vinegar

first touches

baking soda,

his tears erupted

spontaneously

when the first

word about his now

dead dog

emerged from his

lips and touched

the dry, desert air.

And then one day

as another word

emerged, he thought

about the tear

as it, too, emerged

but just a moment

later,

and knew, it was time

to let the air dry

the tear and cry

no more

when he spoke

of his

now dead dog.

His eyes caught the line,

“Fire consumes wood…

as time consumes us,” and

he lingered awhile.  He set

the novel aside, glanced at the

candles burning in the fireplace

and looked at his legs crossed

on the ottoman like two dogs

from the same litter resting

heads crossed at the

crook of their necks.  The

dogs lifted their heads and

rubbed each other’s noses

and then lay still.  He saw the

spider veins crawling around

the sides of his ankles, the

scar on the shin from when

a board dropped and cleanly

sliced the skin to the bone

forty some years ago as he

helped clean up a house after

a tornado ripped through his

Old Kentucky Hometown.  He

rubbed the faint scar on his knee

which once was a gaping wound

and recalled the fall from the

tree in his eighth grade girl

friend’s backyard as he was

trying to show off and how

the bark just like number

ten sandpaper instantaneously

left the sheath over the knee cap

exposed for all the world, not

to mention his then former

girlfriend, to see. He winced

recalling the alcohol being

poured copiously into the wound

by his mother and how she furiously

scrubbed out the dirt and

meticulously tweezed the slivers

from the flesh as if she were

plucking her eyebrows on a

Sunday morning before church.

He picked gently at a scab on his

other knee from a scrape on the

rough wall of the pool just days

before. He tightened his thigh

muscles and recalled significant

definition from years of cycling

and jogging where now wrinkles

looked up and smiled deviously.

He rubbed his legs, slapped his

thighs and said, “Time to get up,

boys. I need another cup of coffee.”

On Tuesday, they had to euthanize their

twelve-year-old Chocolate Lab.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

at ten p.m. and perhaps for every evening

in the foreseeable future for

however long it would take, the man picked

up his mesquite hiking stick and his 225

lumen, compact flashlight

and headed down the stars of the condo

to walk his dog.  He made his way

through the back parking

lot with a lighted hill on his left leading to the

upper swimming pool and condos on his right.

He watched the blue, flickering light

in some and wondered if any of the darkened

condos were in foreclosure. He listened

to the sounds of the fountain

as he passed.  The cascading water reminded

him, in a small way, of home and the waves

of Lake Michigan where his dog

had loved to romp. Periodically, he would

depress the button of the flashlight

half-way to spot flash along

the hill.  Once he spooked a coyote at rest.

At the end of the parking lot, the trail

began which led to an underpass

and access to the mountain preserve where his dog

had loved to hike. He pushed the on button

all the way down so the flash

stayed on. As he walked to the bench that sat along

the trail, the light created shadows on the shrubs.

It never failed to stop him in his tracks.

He scanned on down the trail, the wash in front

of him and the darkened hill in the moonless

night behind him. He looked for

signs of javelina boars with tusks, sows and their

piglets and packs of coyotes. “Oh, Boomer, where

are you, buddy?  You’re supposed to be

here so we could protect each other.”  The man turned

and slowly walked back to the condo.