Growing up, all the dogs ran loose in the neighborhood. The mailman and the trash man were on foot. The trashman emptied your trash onto a big piece of burlap and would go to the next house. The mailman would walk up the street delivering the mail. All the dogs would follow along behind them in a pack. When they got to the top of the block, the dogs would go home.

One day, a substitute mailman came, the dogs followed. The mailman got nervous and sprayed the dogs. My mother lit him up!

KEK. My dog, a rescue of uncertain parentage, once levitated himself across the fairly large center island in the kitchen and grabbed a freshly opened can of Clam Sauce right out of my hand. That guy really loved some seafood. The levitation was a one time stunt, but hilarious.

Does your Aunt live next door to the Bumpess'?

Oh mine. How funny.

I am sure you still have all kinds of food on the table for Thanksgiving.

When I was in high school, I had a Shepherd mix named Big Dog. He had been abused and broke his chain and ran away, and one day followed me home and that was that. He never left my side. I had him trained to where all I had to do was point my finger at something and he would be on it.

So, one day when I came home from school he was laying at the front door. He wagged his tail when he looked up at me but struggled to stand, and I knew then what I had feared all along, that hip dysplasia had caught up to him. He was old and had been graying for a while, and I looked right at him and he told me through his eyes that it was time to move on. I was a chunky, geeky high school boy with few friends, and now Big Dog was leaving. I don't think I have ever felt as down as I did that day, like a horse had kicked me in the chest. Anyway, it was too late to get to the vet, so it would have to be the next day. That night, Big Dog laid across my bed, a graceful warrior reduced to infirmity, but stalwart nonetheless. I had to say goodbye, so I read a story to him - The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. The little swallow in that story had originally planned to travel to Egypt to be with his friends, but after stripping the statue prince of all his gold leaves, the jewel in his sword, and the gems in his eyes [for the statued prince, who towered over his town, had seen all the poverty and depravity and had commanded to bird to take his jeweled ornamentation and give it piece by piece to the townsfolk], he could not leave the prince ["You would be quite blind, then, so I shall be your eyes"], and so he stayed through the winter and ended up succumbing to the cold. When the shabby statue was melted down [it no longer looked majestic because all of its splendor was gone], the only thing that did not melt was the prince's heart, so it was thrown on the scrap heap along with the little swallow's body. God, who had been watching the entire thing, commanded his angels to scoop up the bird and the heart of the prince, and they brought them back to Heaven where the prince and bird were resurrected, and he could listen to the little swallow singing sweetly for eternity.

I hope to see Big Dog again. We can take walks down by the river, and he will forever be by my side.