imthefoolonthehill
03-22-2009, 11:52 PM
Beer+No Sleep =
This Foolish Rambling
Every time I come home from college, I forget that my dog is dead.
I remember warm summer breezes and fields of alfalfa, how I used to chase butterflies with my giant net and my faithful dog, Jessie.
We got Jessie from the pound as a pup, before my voice started cracking, back when the imaginary zombies and ninjas and stormtroopers all needed to be fought off by the hero with the cap guns and his attack-wolf, Jessie.
Sometimes, between battlefields, we'd walk together alongside some irrigation ditch, miles from the nearest bit of pavement, and I'd sing to Jessie, that I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When I got to the “My Girl” chorus, I'd grab her roughly by the collar and plant a big kiss on her forehead. I did this often enough that if I neglected to kiss her on the chorus, she'd bark and jump at me, trying to lick my face.
She was friendlier than could be expected from most canines. My father told me I as going to make it rich with that dog - tie a hatchet to her tail and take up clear-cutting.
She left dents in cars we have since sold and bruises on calves that I wish never healed.
The way she'd wait for me at the end of the drive way, and chase our car that last hundred yards has since become a fixture of what home is to me.
And whenever I go over the mountain pass that has the sign that tells me home is only a hundred miles away, I begin thinking of how great it will be to sing her a song again the way I used to.
Back at school, I'll be driving with my twenty-year old peers and "My Girl" will come on the radio, and they'll pretend not to notice that I turn the channel a little too quickly or that I get misty-eyed. I am certain they imagine some blonde high school heart breaker with red lipstick, a real *****.
My friends pretend not to notice, and they don't mention it to me because they are liberals and view me as something of a farm boy, although there is little merit to that. But they are sensitive enough not to hurt my feelings. Instead, we'll talk about politics - about foreign policy or guns - things they know we'll disagree about.
And when they ask me why I carry a gun in my car, I'll tell them the story about shooting a coyote who had been eating the neighbors chickens or about the time I flashed a pistol at the meth-crazed maniac who was hell-bent on stealing my car, but what I won't tell them is that on Christmas eve, as I was backing out of my driveway, I yelled at Jessie for barking too much, and she went off running, tail between her legs. What I won't tell my friends is how when I came back, I found her on the side of the road, back broken by a reckless driver, her big eyes looking up at me as I slowed to a stop, the same big eyes that had greeted me every day for thirteen years. They pleaded, "Fix me!"
Her intestines were,
She wasn't going to,
I got my gun, and,
Once wasn't enough.
I buried her before Christmas morning came, in the frozen ground behind my house. I told my parents, who loved her just as much as I do, that she died instantly.
And every time I come home from college, I cry like a baby.
This Foolish Rambling
Every time I come home from college, I forget that my dog is dead.
I remember warm summer breezes and fields of alfalfa, how I used to chase butterflies with my giant net and my faithful dog, Jessie.
We got Jessie from the pound as a pup, before my voice started cracking, back when the imaginary zombies and ninjas and stormtroopers all needed to be fought off by the hero with the cap guns and his attack-wolf, Jessie.
Sometimes, between battlefields, we'd walk together alongside some irrigation ditch, miles from the nearest bit of pavement, and I'd sing to Jessie, that I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When I got to the “My Girl” chorus, I'd grab her roughly by the collar and plant a big kiss on her forehead. I did this often enough that if I neglected to kiss her on the chorus, she'd bark and jump at me, trying to lick my face.
She was friendlier than could be expected from most canines. My father told me I as going to make it rich with that dog - tie a hatchet to her tail and take up clear-cutting.
She left dents in cars we have since sold and bruises on calves that I wish never healed.
The way she'd wait for me at the end of the drive way, and chase our car that last hundred yards has since become a fixture of what home is to me.
And whenever I go over the mountain pass that has the sign that tells me home is only a hundred miles away, I begin thinking of how great it will be to sing her a song again the way I used to.
Back at school, I'll be driving with my twenty-year old peers and "My Girl" will come on the radio, and they'll pretend not to notice that I turn the channel a little too quickly or that I get misty-eyed. I am certain they imagine some blonde high school heart breaker with red lipstick, a real *****.
My friends pretend not to notice, and they don't mention it to me because they are liberals and view me as something of a farm boy, although there is little merit to that. But they are sensitive enough not to hurt my feelings. Instead, we'll talk about politics - about foreign policy or guns - things they know we'll disagree about.
And when they ask me why I carry a gun in my car, I'll tell them the story about shooting a coyote who had been eating the neighbors chickens or about the time I flashed a pistol at the meth-crazed maniac who was hell-bent on stealing my car, but what I won't tell them is that on Christmas eve, as I was backing out of my driveway, I yelled at Jessie for barking too much, and she went off running, tail between her legs. What I won't tell my friends is how when I came back, I found her on the side of the road, back broken by a reckless driver, her big eyes looking up at me as I slowed to a stop, the same big eyes that had greeted me every day for thirteen years. They pleaded, "Fix me!"
Her intestines were,
She wasn't going to,
I got my gun, and,
Once wasn't enough.
I buried her before Christmas morning came, in the frozen ground behind my house. I told my parents, who loved her just as much as I do, that she died instantly.
And every time I come home from college, I cry like a baby.