I never had a pet til I was almost 30, but since then I have lived with Loretta, Hillary, Tipper, and Mitzi, four wonderful cats.
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Menemsha Sunset

Like most of us I’m sure,  the one thing I can’t leave home without is my cell phone.   If I forget mine,  I rush back to get it, and can’t imagine how we lived without them, or their precursors our car phones.   So here’s a car phone story,   but first let me tell you a joke.

A police car was cruising down the highway when the cop saw the passenger door of the car ahead of him suddenly fly open and a woman come tumbling out.  The cop stopped to help the woman,  who miraculously was unhurt,  and they sped ahead to catch up with her husband.

When the cop pulled him over the husband hadn’t even realized what had happened.  “What a relief”,  he said,  “I thought I was going deaf.”

We heard that rather sexist joke years ago in Martha’s Vineyard where as a young family we spent many idyllic summer vacations.   If you know the Vineyard you know that Menemsha is the best place on the island to watch the sun go down,  and one night we headed there for dinner at the Homeport,  a large,  noisy,  fun seafood restaurant on the water.

We had dinner,  took in the glorious sunset,  and then walked across the road where there is a bakery and a fish market.  I bought a few things and was carrying my purchases as we headed back to the car.

My son called  “Shotgun!”  and jumped into the passenger seat.  I opened the trunk to stow my packages,  and that done,  I was about to get in the back seat when my husband stepped on the gas and pulled away.   I watched the car disappear down the dark country road and laughed at my family’s bizarre sense of humor.

Then as minutes passed and they didn’t come circling back for me I grew perplexed to say the least.  But thankfully we had a new car phone,  so I walked back to the restaurant to call.  This is what had happened.

Not realizing I’d opened the trunk,  my husband heard it slam and thought it was me in the back seat slamming my car door.  He started for home but after a few miles spotted a historic marker on the side of the road and pulled over to get out and read it.  It was when he and my son were getting back in the car that the kid suddenly asked,  “Where’s mom?”

As he and my husband peered into the empty back seat,   the car phone rang.

”Did you realize you left me in Menemsha?” ,  I asked,  “or did you think you were both going deaf?”

– Dana Susan Lehrman

A litter of kittens frolicking in the California sun, named by my teenaged aunt Susan:  Peanuts, Schroeder, Linus and Charley Brown.

Left behind when his family moved, we inherited the tawny pai dog.  Feral and battle-scarred, a forever stray who one day vanished.  Bishkar.

Gray and white cat, clawing, meowing, rubbing, always knowing how to be just in the right/wrong place.  “Stop that, Zelda!”

A marriage breakup left her stranded on the back patio in Pinole, a “pet-quality” Wheaten terrier, but she was perfect.  She bounded to greet me with little cloud paws around my neck; she was born on my birthday.  She learned about Oakland street noise and barked at hawkers of religious tracts.  She had been Buffy; we called her Buddy.

The neighbors got a cocker spaniel, named Betty.  Betty Cocker??? Buddy and Betty side by side.

The dog trainer touted him as a charismatic standard schnauzer puppy whose person had died.  After being farmed out to ignorant relatives who kept him in a warehouse, he became “nutso”, but we didn’t know enough to see it.  Escape artist, wanderer, skittish PTSD dog, it took years to earn the trust in his searching deep brown eyes, as he laid his head on your knee.  From this miscreant with a long rap sheet, we learned how one can forgive an abuser, repeatedly.  He came as Eddie–but “Buddy, Betty and Eddie” was too much.  And so, Jack.  Jack the nipper.

Born on an Idaho farm, betrothed to a pipeline contractor’s dog, she was a red heeler, tail bobbed, a cattle herder by nature.  Serious, resourceful, smart, and an excellent mother, she whelped 9 puppies in one litter, all girls.  Xena, Gabrielle, Comet, Fran, Dot, Wink, Spot, L’il Cub, and Narf. A true gem, Ruby.

The rebellious sixth puppy was curious, quirky, a brilliant frisbee catcher, fiercely loyal and a badass with other dogs, including his mother, satisfied only when he became the sole dog in the house.  A marking over one eye and a pirate patch, Wink.

He was a stray, most likely cattle dog and pit bull, from rural Delano in California’s San Jaoquin Valley.  For two months, he was spared death in the animal facility, until a rescue group volunteer transported him in a light plane up to the Bay Area.  Wary, fearful of water fountains, keeping his own counsel, but mellow with other dogs, the street people called him “awesome”.

We drove him to Canada where he met snow, stairs, stuffed animal toys to carry gently everywhere, and his beloved cattle dog girlfriend. Drive near her street and he stands alert.   On seeing her, bursting with joy, he leaps from the car, and they romp together, share toys, sleep in a heap, and start again.  Say her name and his ears prick up.  He is Joaquin. She is (what are the odds of this?) River.

 

My younger son was in nursery school at the time and his best buddy, Dugan, thought her name was “Fleabee”, to the amusement of us all.
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