Happy!
Happy was ours, but he was Walt's, but he was ours. In a few years he started making his way up to Cove School to meet Walt and take Walt safely home after school.
When the dogcatcher showed up to drive 'round the school grounds looking for loose dogs, my third- and fifth-grade teacher, Miss Ruth Martin, sent me outside to get Happy, bring him inside and hide him in the cloakroom. The principal did not appreciate that, but for all Miss Martin's scariness as a teacher, she was not afraid of any principal.
Happy won blue ribbon for LARGEST at three Cove School summer school dog shows running. The last year, the judge thought it would only be fair for the next largest dog to get LARGEST and award Happy the red ribbon for second largest, and I learned what it meant to stand up for Happy. With Gina and Walt beside me, I lit into the judge, a grown man, and Happy ended his dog show career with another Blue ribbon.
Happy loved to swim in Massalina Bayou, always emerged wet, shaking off, muddy, filthy and stinking, and we had to chase him down to get him to the hose and rinse him off.
Happy was always an outside dog. Our mother was not one for animals in the house. He only was brought in for the absolute worst weather.
Not yet on city water, our pump and watertank were by the concrete back porch slab. There was a faucet right there, Happy's water bowl right under it, for us to keep filled with cool freshly pumped water for him.
A couple times a year, we got out the bottle of dog flea shampoo, summoned Happy, wet him, and soaped him up with thick, foamy white suds. He never appreciated that, but always submitted, and always wreaked his vengeance on us by soaking us back as he did one, two, three and more of those earth-trembling dog shakes that starts at the nose and works its way down the back and all the way out the tail.
Once we came home from school and there was a strange dog in our yard, who ran to greet us as though he knew us. Totally unrecognizable, it was Happy, who had been totally shaved by Dr Nowlin the vet as the first step in curing a skin condition he had developed. Naked as a shaven sheep, the only thing familiar about him was his head and the huge tuft of hair at the very end of his tail. Happy didn't mind our laughter.
Happy and a neighbor dog Vic hated each other and fought viciously every time they came in sight of each other. I don't know why some dogs get along playfully and others are bound to hate and fight, but it happens. Happy invariably got the best of Vic, but it was always ugly and loud, the growling, snapping, whirling, biting, yelping. One day the neighbor who owned Vic, a large middle-aged man with a beer and a belly, ran inside his house then came out with a pistol and aimed it at Happy. Shouting "don't you shoot my dog", I ran to Happy, grabbed him by the hair of his neck and, stooping bent over and running between Happy and the angry neighbor as he pointed his gun, brought Happy home. I knew: an angry neighbor may shoot a dog, but he won't shoot the dog's boy.
Happy loved to ride in the back seat of our car, the 1942 Chevrolet, stick his head out and let saliva drool and streak out away from his tongue. And he loved to ride up front in the bow of our boat, a 16' skiff that knew every inch of Massalina Bayou. As the years went on, it was mainly Walt's boat.
At some time into the early 1950s it must have been, the City passed an ordinance that dogs could no longer run loose, they had to be kept behind a fence. So our back yard was fenced in for the first time. We didn't appreciate it and neither did Happy, but he was legal.
I'm not going to spoil my Friday or Walt's happy birthday by recalling that evening at supper when we knew our father had taken Happy to the vet for something serious, and Happy wasn't home, and our father was very quiet, and we were afraid to ask.
Life's best memories always include my brother. Happy birthday, Walt!
love,
Bubba