Our Dog Pebbles

What's a neighborhood without a dog?  In our case - same with many neighbors - our houses are built on hills - and there are no yards, just slopes covered with ivy or more drought resistant plants.

So - a lot of dog walking in our streets.  Imagine the miles per year when you walk a dog three times a day.  

Pebbles is our second dog.  She was probably 4 when we adopted her from Pets for Friends in Sun Valley.

Pebbles has shared our lives for nearly 10 years.  And it's taking me a long time to put together the story of her past life which, I slowly realized, included years with a circus clown named Beppo.

 

One Reason I Love the Beatles

In early January, 1964, someone tapped on Mr. Zinter's math classroom door to deliver a message from the school office.  My mother had called the school to ask if I could be excused early.  My eighty-three-years-old grandfather was in the hospital.  

Mom and I packed the car and we picked up Daddy at the gate of Reserve Mining when he got off work at three that afternoon.  We drove down to Minneapolis, stopping only for gas. During most of the trip I was squeezed in the front seat of our 1962 Chevy Bel Air between my parents, but I couldn’t seem to get warm.

Between my grandparents’ house and Deaconess Hospital Mom pulled into the parking lot of a Minneapolis Red Owl Supermarket.  There was a payphone on the pavement just outside the store.  I stayed in the car while Mom and Daddy tried to contact one of Mom’s sisters, my grandma or the hospital.
It was a cold winter night. The key was left in the ignition so the heater would stay on.
I turned on the radio and fiddled with the knob for a clear signal.  The station I found was playing a song that I had never heard before.  I stared at the radio.  What was this music? The deejay answered my question as the soon as the final chord ended.  He said it was I Want to Hold Your Hand.  He said it was by a British band, the Beatles.

Grandpa died in his room at Deaconess Hospital the afternoon after we arrived.  His funeral was several days later.

I never saw my Grandma, a stoic Dane, cry at the hospital, at her home, or at the mortuary.  At Deaconess Hospital A nurse whispered to my Aunt Florence that Grandma’s poise and self-control made her “just like Jackie Kennedy.” President Kennedy's assassination had occurred less than two months earlier.  

At Grandma’s house, when I was by myself, I would switch on my celery-green Sears Silvertone transistor radio, aching until I heard the Beatles sing that song again.