If I was a Smurf...

I’d like to take some time to step away from the cynical and sarcastic ways of me and think about current events and pop culture and what that means to us as a collective group of individuals.

I can’t think of any greater trend right now than that of Hollywood doing most of the TV shows of our youth since they have completely run out of any good idea.

Smurfs.  For realz yo!

I have often wondered over the years, or at least for the past few minutes anyway, what Smurf I would have been should I have been born in that lovable city of mushrooms.  I love Hefty smurf.  He was the strong one.  He got stuff done and for sure was the one who was going to end up with Smurfette.  I mean come on – he had a tattoo and everything.

But no, I have come to realize in the Smurf Kingdom (village? Farm?  Crop?  Whatever…) I would not be Hefty.

I would be Snarky.

Yes, Snarky Smurf.

I would setup my tasks to be various to make sure I was effective and to live up to the name that I had been given.

First, I would punch out Brainy Smurf.  Ya see, Brainy, tries to be snarky.  But he just comes off as annoying.  He isn’t that brainy either, he is just a tattle tale and an envious little blue punk.  So, I would rename Brainy to Sally Smurf.  I would send out a letter in an email to the other Smurfs that this is what Brainy wanted to be called after his “operation” is complete.

(This mirrors a conversation I had with a friend this week; I thought I would use it here.)

Next, I would remind Smurfette that even though she is the only girl in the mushroom village, she isn’t worth dating.  I would constantly remind her that she started out as an evil creation of Gargamel the Sorcerer and is most likely either a demon or a witch at the very least.  If she would get angry with me I would shout “The power of Smurf compels you!!!”  We wouldn’t be friends for very long, but I would remind her that that was her choice and not mine, since she was the evil one.

As for Gargamel, who is always trying to eat the Smurfs, I would catch his cat Azrael and cut off its tail.  I would then let Azrael go approximately 50 miles away from my village where I also let raccoons out.  I would inform this cat, which appears to understand language, never ever to return home, especially if it wanted to keep its eyes.

I would send the tail back to Gargamel, with a used smurf fork and knife and a note that said “Next time, send a Persian, they are less fatty.”

Papa Smurf would have to go.  Either that or conform to the rest of the smurf dress code standards of white pants/white hat.  Honestly, what kind of cult is this if we all aren’t wearing the same clothes?

Methodist Smurf, Catholic Smurf and Flamboyant Smurf cannot hang out with me.  I don’t believe how they do.

I would tend to hang out with Disney’s The Gummi Bears.  They appear to know how to refine their juice into a powerful weapon when needed.

Finally, I would campaign on capitalism vs. the apparent social order setup by the rest of these blue commies.  Either that, or Lazy Smurf has to get a job.

I understand this didn’t have much to do with my Christian life, for that I apologize.  But if I didn’t write these things out, they would actually come out of my mouth.

And that would just be Snarky.

Irritable Scowl Syndrome

Some Blogs I post are for my children’s benefit as well as my own.  This one is a warning for them.

“False happiness is like false money; it passes for a long time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss.” – Alexander Pope

     False Happiness is usually symptoms of a greater issue.  A person who exudes this type of character trait has a great knack of also being a false friend.  Underneath what they try and portray as a super mega friendly attitude is the same heart that beats in the rest of us mere mortals. 

     I recently have run into what would consider an obstacle of disappointing proportions.  Someone who I once considered a friend has gone small lengths to be a backbiting selfish mouthy comment making individual.  The problem is, and I am sure most of you have some experience in this, is the public persona of this person is so accepted as a happy supportive person.  In fact, everyone tells them how great they are with being so happy.  Like a set of groupies who enjoy telling them how happy they are all the time.

     This personality type must find an outlet to show its true colors.  Most of the time it is overly dismissive of individuals they think are so opposite of them.  When in reality they never had an opportunity to examine themselves.  To discover that the personality traits of people they say they despise are actually their own.

     Sometimes, it’s good to have your self image shattered once in a while.

     When I was a kid, a scene from The Never Ending Story stuck with me.  I mean, aside from the super cool flying Dragon Falkor.  The hero Atreju of the story had to pass trials and gates to carry on with his quest.  A discussion was had about a second gate that Atreju would cross:

Scientist - The worst one is coming up. Next is the magic mirror gate. Atreju has to face his true self.
Falkor - So what, that won't be too hard for him.
Scientist - Ohhh!!! That's what everyone thinks. Kind people find that they are cruel, brave men discover that they are really cowards. Confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming!

     Sometimes these individuals never figure out that their comments or facial expressions give them away.  The façade falls when they tire of keeping up appearances.

You might think “Hey, what do you have against happy people?!”

Nothing, I applaud people who can enjoy happy events.  I myself have had many happy events.  From my children being born, to phone calls from old friends and children giving hugs.  Good stuff like that.

The problem is happy events are not sustainable.  Joy is, we will address that later, but happy isn’t.

Recently my wife and I had the chance to work with 2^nd and 3^rd graders for almost a week and three days into it, a small girl who has had an already rough life looked up to my wife and said “What if you were my mommy?”  My wife turned to her and said “Well, then you would be coming home with me.” 

The little girl smiled.

I recalled this event on the way to work the next day and cried for half an hour.

Now that isn’t cynical or sarcastic.  That’s reality.  And for the fake happy person they can carry on with the existence they set for themselves and never give that child another thought.

She is in my prayers every night now.  I am 2 days away from getting her address and I will be burned alive if I am going to let that little girl think we have forgotten her.

How can you tell if you are one of these people?  That’s easy.  If your reality of happiness is the 2 feet around you then you may want to look in the mirror.

I have met people who have been given a position of influence over others, a “look Up to” position, and when another opportunity presented itself they abandoned scores of individuals.  If you brought this up to them you are labeled critical.

Moving forward to what should be the focus is actually joy in life.  To a Christian joy is a shared, confidant and ever increasing trait.  It’s given to us at the conception of our belief and grows the more we grow in our understanding of Christ and what he has done for us.

But, since we deal in reality, Christians are people too.  We always don’t get things right.  The ability to slip back into out old ways or to confuse a fake happiness for joy can occur at any moment.  The caution is to make sure we are being truthful with ourselves whether we are sharing a true joy with others, or if the façade is just hiding the scowl of what really remains underneath.

Just Dirt

When I travel out of town I often make sure if there is a period of time that I am going to be away I make sure that I attend a church in that area so I can stay…well…. You know…spiritual or something.

It was one of these journeys where I found myself in Dubuque Iowa.  I am pretty sure Dubuque was a city that was founded by the French.  I have nothing to back that up other than the spelling of the name of the city, that and the fact that it rests on the Mississippi River. 

A totally French River.

It was a Wednesday night and for us Baptists that means it’s a bible study night.  How different is that from a church service you ask?  Well – not much, except you include a 20-30 minute prayer time which is the best time to find out about people because they ask you to pray for them and their broken washing machines or in this case of the Iowa church – tractors and farm animals.

In Iowa, it appears they still give nicknames assigned to you per your occupation.  So in this church, almost everyone had the nickname “farmer”.  They only had to learn my 1 name when they greeted me, and I had about a 95% chance that I would get their name right.  Unless there was a Tiller…or a CatBeater.

 After the bible study was underway the Pastor began to relay about a man he knew that worked at a crematorium.  I know what you’re thinking “Craig if I hear you tell one more crematorium story I am going to punch you in the mouth!”  I know, but hear me out – this one doesn’t end with dead Chinese.

The story goes like this: The Pastor knew this man who owned this business and in the back of the crematorium was the most beautiful garden.  The man also kept the garden and people from all over would travel to see the beautiful flourishing plants and flowers.  Finally – the Pastor asked “How do you keep this garden so beautiful and healthy?”  The man answered that when you incinerate the human body and give it over to the people asking for the cremation, they don’t get all of the …well…stuff.  They get what they can – but there is left over …um stuff.  The man said it’s basically dirt.  The best dirt you can ever find.

Now I get this.  Basically we are carbon after you remove all the moisture. 

And the Pastor said something on that evening that stuck with me.  He said “You know what I don’t understand?  After hearing the man tell me about his garden.  Why as human beings we think of ourselves as better pieces of dirt than another piece of dirt.”

Wow.  No one is any different than the next, especially when incinerated. 

It was a humbling view of what as human beings we really are physically. 

But that isn’t all we are.  C.S. Lewis gives the complimentary viewpoint that adds to what the very base of our existence is of just Dirt.

"It is a serious thing," says Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

So yes, as I understand myself to be dirt, and no better dirt that you as we both would make plants grow well; we are eternal to our very core.

I could give scripture to back that up, but most everyone knows that to be true already.  Those who deny that part of their existence have been marred in a way I feel pity for.

I left that night with an altered perspective for the people I would continue to come in contact with in life.  At our very base, we are a good fertilizer. 

But charged with what Lewis wrote “our charity must be a real and costly love”.

While you know what you are, and what others are, just humbly love.  It was one of the last commands Christians were given...

Away with me Passenger! More Good Deeds await!

My Wife and I are super heroes.  Well, OK – maybe not SUPER heroes but definitely sidekick material. 

My wife and I planned a trip to Moline, IL.  If you have never been to Moline imagine a town, with trees and roads and people, but with no fun.  Honestly, the laughter of children dies at the city border.  In Moline there is the South Park Mall, and an IHOP. 

We arrived at the hotel on a Friday only to find the pool closed.  Why in the world would a pool be closed?  Cleaning?  VD?  I had to ask the night manager why the pool would be unavailable during my wife’s and mine trip to the outer quad cities.  Well citizens, it turns out that some genius of a Bride decided to hang her wedding dress up in her room which was 1 floor above the pool.  Did she hang it up in the closet?  No.  It appears since she had a very long wedding dress she hung it up above the floor on a water spout for the fire alarm system.  She hadn’t noticed she broke the seal and in doing so several minutes later after leaving the room, the entire fire suppression system sprayed water into their hotel room all over her unused wedding dress and collapsed part of the floor into the pool causing close to $50k in damage.

No Pool.

That left my wife and me the IHOP.  But we didn’t head there.  In an effort to enjoy the true nightlife of Moline my wife and I found out through the same night manager that explained the horrid pool episode that a Buffalo Wild Wings was close.  HUZZAH!

We hopped into the Cobra and took off to, well, South Park Mall.  The BW’s was right outside of it.

Now I need to explain our car.  Years ago my wife and I decided to buy a date car.  It would be our car.  We would offer rides in it for sure, and the kids could go in it once and a while, but it would not be our standard car.  It was reserved for us.  Through a coworker we came across a 97 Mustang Cobra triple black convertible.  The car looks like Batman, if Batman were a car.  In fact we got license plates that say IM BTMN.  Most people when they see the license plate say sarcastically (and believe me I know sarcasm) “Oh?  You’re Batman huh?”

 I have to inform them, no not me, it’s the car.

I digress.  So we head out to the car and to BW’s.  We were seated after what we were told was going to be a long wait in Moline of 15 minutes.  It WAS Friday night after all. 

Friday and we so excited. 

While we ordered, for some reason I believed at one point in my existence I had the Mango Habanero sauce.  I don’t know why I was so sure or what made me even think this was a good idea.  Mango Habanero on the BW’s Hot Chart, is just 2 steps down from the  Hottest Blazin sauce which I am sure is 2 steps down from actual Lava.

I had 3 of my wings, and the rest went into the trash.  But the problem was my mouth was still on fire.  It didn’t seem to care that the other wings were no longer an option for digestion.  Yankee Biz one time yelled at me that milk is needed to stop the burn, but I had none.  All I had was Ice Tea and Splenda, and that was not assisting.

We settled our tab and jumped back into IM BTMN in just enough time to watch Moline SHUTDOWN. 

Honestly.  The entire town just shutdown. 

My wife and I walked around the inside of the closed South Park Mall.  Inside the mall was ALL Cell World store and Hat World Store.

At night, I wondered if the two worlds fought for supremacy.

With none of the stores open we realized how lame this was so we went back to the Hotel which had no working pool.

Then it happened.  Like the Bat Signal – but in heartburn form – I turned to my trusty wife and said “Dude, seriously, we need to find like a Walgreens or something, I need Tums.”

And like a flash of Mango Habanero we were off and back in the cool car.  Using my wife’s GPS we found a Walgreens just 4 miles away.  The only problem was when we got there, the 24 hour Walgreens was not open 24 hours.

I decided to turn around in the parking lot of the NOT OPEN 24 hours Walgreens and that’s when we saw it.  A car – turn wide left and miss the road coming to a stop over the concrete curb and onto the grass.  Clearly he misjudged because he was drunk.

I finished my U-turn in the parking lot and the car, was gone.  I asked my wife.  “Did he pull away?  Or did he roll down the hill?”

My wife responded with ‘I Don’t Know”

  We sprang into action as I brought our car to where the Drunken Mobile had been and sure enough, about 6 feet below where the car had been we saw an overturned undercarriage. 
 We quickly raced around to the other side as I asked my wife to call 911.

She was on the phone and I was out of our car to see if there was anything that could be done to help this poor slob.

I came up on the car and I noticed at this point my overly analytical brain proved to be a hindrance.  The conversation went something like this in my head in less than 5 seconds.

 “I am going to run up and see if this guy needs help” “Your not a Doctor, your cousin is, but your not!  What the crap man” “What if he is hurt?” “What if he hurt his neck?  He can sue you if you drag him out of there and his neck is hurt”

So I tried the car door at least and it was locked, for a moment I thought about kicking in the glass, but I couldn’t see where the driver was at.  So – I shouted ‘Hey buddy, you OK?”

No Answer.  So I did what any other person would have done in my situation.

I took out my phone and snapped a couple pictures.

Yup – that was it.  Classic Heroism right there boys and girls.

Within 10 more seconds, because MOLINE has NOTHING going on, 8 police cars were on the scene.  The first officer gets out and shouts “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” – At me.

I respond back that the poor fellow is still in his car and that I am quite fine, as most heroes would be.

But now the police are here, and I can watch the professionals in action.  The officer ran up to the door, tried it and said…”Hmm, it’s Locked” to another officer.  To which the other officer replied “Gonna kick in the glass?”  Which drew the response ‘No, Might hit him.”

So – He shouted ‘Hey buddy, you OK?”

Yup.  My work here was done.

The police were able to get the man inside to unlock his car doors and helped him out and to his feet to the nearest squad.

So – like all heroic exits I stealthily ran back to my car and was stopped by one of Moline’s finest.  They wanted my information because my wife and I had been a witness to the accident.

Then, realizing the original mission, I asked the Officer where a 24 hour, well, anything was.  He proceeded to direct me to Wal-Mart.  Tums Obtained!  Habanero Defeated!

At the end of the night, a good deed was done.  I had dubbed my wife her super hero name of “Passenger”.

I still kept my original name of “Lion-O Ninja Star”

It was a good night.

Until Next time Citizens!

Yoiks and AWAY!

Lonely, but never alone...

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

- Thomas Wolfe

Firefly was a good TV show.  I am not sure why Fox ever cancelled it, but it appeared to have everything in a show I like, and many things I don’t.  What I especially liked about the show was the pilot of the ship named “Wash”.  I could identify with this guy.  He married an awesome woman, like I did, he had a great sense of humor that was sarcastic but not sardonic - just like me, and when it came time for them to make a movie of the show called “Serenity”, he ends up dying by taking a spear to the chest after saving everyone on board.

Exactly how I want to go.

But I digress; I remember one episode called “Out of Gas”.  In it the Ship runs out of…well, whatever it’s powered on and something breaks and yadda yadda yadda plus some scary stuff and they decide to send 2 groups of people out in 2 separate small shuttles to get help and the captain – named Mal – decides to stay behind in case someone answers the distress beacon they setup there.

It’s in this event a line is uttered that will forever be burned in my psyche as truly remarkable and troubling at the same time.  One of the passengers who cares for the captain comes up to him and they have a small exchange of words that goes as follows:

Inara: Mal, you don't have to die alone. 
Mal: Everybody dies alone.

It didn’t dawn on me that whether you were lost at sea with hundreds of people, taken out by a bomb from a plane or in a car full of clowns in an accident, the death you have is singular to you.  You don’t leave this world holding hands with anyone.  The sum of whatever existence you have at the time of your passing ends with the last breathe that leaves and another one refuses to come back in.  No more are you given the opportunity to love your spouse or teach your children or pet your dog.

How cruel.  The reasons for it are explainable, but not in this post.

In 100 years those who would have known of your death or of you will all be gone as well.  I don’t remember my Great, Great Grand Parents.  Their existence had an affect on my life because without them, there would have been no me, but they are strangers to me.

How cruel is death that it is allowed not only a severance of all things we care about but it carries us into an oblivion and eternity that isn’t well documented or easily understood.  And you must go alone.  Christians tell they are unafraid of death.  Death shouldn’t have a fear attached to it.  Everyone, at some point, dies.

But you must do so alone.  My Grandfather was placed in Hospice.  He died alone.  We couldn’t take the journey with him.

Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible.  I don’t know why, most likely because it is a book that I can identify with the reality of. Job lost it all.  And his reaction to his friends is he wanted to be left alone.

I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,

Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

I get it Job.  Everyone dies alone.  How can any comfort come from such despair and that reality?  I find none in his statement.

Lately, I have been studying Paul.  Paul was able to see something that few others can claim they had.  If we believe Paul’s account and I have no reason to doubt it – since SOMETHING must have changed a murdering zealot into a convert of the men, women and children he was killing – then we have the example of being completely alone.

Before the end of his life he writes “Only Luke is with me.” And “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me”.

No matter what people say right now, it is not as unpopular now to be a Christian as it was back then.  People fled Paul in some instances for their safety.  Anyone who identified that they were a Christian and visited Paul was arrested and murdered by Emperor Nero.  He was not a nice fellow.

Something drove Paul that made him reject the same despair that enveloped Job.   He explains in the same chapter when expressing his state of being as a single resister in an army of one.  “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me”.

Seriously?  Maybe Paul was delusional over the years of imprisonment.  Maybe he finally succumbed to some madness that didn’t affect his writings or his brain for prose, but brought upon some type of psychosomatic belief that he was not by himself when he was writing.

Forgive that logic but that does not add up to me.

Composers Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Chopin had great bouts of depression as most incredible artists do.  It seems bi-polar is a contributing factor to a mark of a genius.

Pearl Buck said “The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.”

But Paul, he writes “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”  Content with being alone?  Honestly? 

I know what you are thinking.  I like “me” time.  It’s nice and quiet and allows for thoughts to dwell on peaceful things or solutions to problems or meditate on some great truth or love of this life.  I agree, as long as I can come back to some type of community.

No, Paul must have had a deeper experience and connection to someone that exceeded his physical prison, his poor health, and his upcoming execution.  Digging into his statement I found “And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.”

There it was.  Paul was recounting this one moment in time when this most important relationship, the only one that would have kept him sane, would ground him to the reality that was his ultimate destiny.  And with that he would never be alone.  Even in facing death Paul says “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

 As human beings we change the same sentence by filling in the most crucial part of the sentence with something else. “For to me to live is ______, and to die is gain.”  Is that a career, or a family, or a product or service that we fill in the blank with?  There is only one right answer.  All other answers do not make death a gaining experience.

With Christ.  Sometimes lonely, but never Alone.

Friendship - and other boats that sink when there are many people involved

I often have long talks with my kids.  Someone said to me one time, “You need to be the parent to your kids, not their friend”. 

That’s idiotic. 

Of course I want to be my kids’ friend.  I often think, about the good friends I have had, haven’t they always told me when I have done something stupid – or ignorant, or thanked me when I helped out. Haven’t they taught me boundaries in our relationships?  Being a parent gives me the opportunity to showcase to my child exactly what the best type of friendship should look like, and to teach them how to do the same with their children.

Now there is more involved because I am an authority figure in their lives, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be their friend.  My boy Brandon looked at me the other day and said “Dad, you are my best buddy” I looked back at him and said “Brandon I appreciate that, but I want you to know I am your parent first and can’t be your friend at all because I have to raise you and be stern and teach you to respect me which discounts any type of friendship that you may want to have with me.  Now, go make me some waffles.”

No I didn’t.  That would be stupid.  Well, not the waffles, cuz that would be awesome.

My kids and I spend time together.  I make sure each of them gets special alone time with Dad.  They can talk about whatever they want to talk about, and do things that they want to do.  Katie normally picks the library.  Brandon normally picks Game Stop and Collin picks the McDonald’s play land.  At the McDonald's play land he is allowed to run and scream through giant plastic tubes.  Best. Time. Ever.

I find the friendship I have with my kids very, how should I say this, unfettered of need.  Kids while they are young just want to spend time with you.  As you get older, we tend to develop friendships with those around us who either need things from us, or we have need of them.  Before the initial conception of the friendship occurs we use people for a purpose.  For no other reason that they fill a gap or a certain set of requirements when if we are honest enough we could see ourselves never conversing with certain people ever.  I understand networking systems and computers.  Many people who are friendly with me do so because they have a need for that skill.  We aren’t friends, but we may BECOME friends due to the fact that they initially have a need that needs to be filled.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  What is wrong, though, is when the relationship that people think they have with you is friendship when in reality they use you for the skills that you have.

I’ve been guilty of this.  I have a buddy of mine who is a gifted accountant.  But I see him once a year.  I’m sure you can guess why.  He is a great guy with a great family, but I only make time for our friendship during tax time.  That makes me a jerk.  How can I ever expect a friendship to grow if the only time I put into it is when I need something?  Truth is I can’t.

Most people bind together over an ideal, or a certain topic.  If you think about it, it happens a lot in religion (or lack thereof), politics, or sadly if you are Canadian.  The topic drives the similarities in two individuals forming a common ground and that allows the foundation for a friendship to be planted.  Circumstances also forge friendships over time.

But whatever the reason you become friends with someone, be it because you met at an event where you both had interests, you are both from Canada, or you needed the viruses from that porn site cleaned off your computer for the 4^th time, we should make sure we spend some time maintaining that relationship without the pressure of some requirements that need to be fulfilled.

Reading through the Bible, Jesus surrounded himself with many people.  All of them he served.  Twelve of them he kept close.  But I am pretty sure one of the 12 was a Canadian.

3Jn 1:14 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Why I never wanted a dog again, and why I now have a dog

I didn’t want a dog, ever again.  You see when I was little, I had a dog that was from a litter of puppies and it was the runt.  All the other dogs were given away but I was able to keep this one and I named him Critter. 

Critter was my super best friend; Critter would sleep with me and was MY puppy.  We lived on an acre of land and our dogs roamed free.  About 29 years ago there were no leash laws and our 2 dogs roamed everywhere.  Critter explored and did other type dog things.

One day, Critter went exploring and never came back.  I remember I stood at the top of the hill where we lived on Parker road, which was gravel at the time, with a little sign I made in crayon and stopped cars driving by at 30 miles an hour to show them my sign of my “missing dog”.  It was a great crayon likeness of my dog, but alas no one had seen Critter.  Hours turned to days, and then weeks, then months and my puppy never came home.

Fast forward to about 8 years ago when my then 3 year old daughter Katie was talking about puppies and kitties and fish.  Being all cutesy as a 3 year old can say those words.  I was speaking with my mom about owning a dog again, and regardless of the horrible dog smell that comes with them, didn't want to go through the possibility of losing an animal the way I did when I was just a wee lad.  Relaying the story again from memory to my mom during one of these “why not get an animal conversation” about my crayola endeavored hunt for my lost Best Friend she mentioned “Oh Critter, Yes, He was killed when he got hit by a car.  We found him on the side of the road but didn’t want to tell you.”

Let me take a break from this story real quick to stress the importance of closure and the annoyance of ambiguity.  Parents, please teach your kids that things DIE.  My parents would often buy me a kitten only to have the dog from next door to run off with it in its mouth.  They would then buy me another kitty, replacing it.  Obviously I was not perceptive enough to deduce that the cat was a different cat.  Shame on me, but still.  Looking back I laugh with such bitter, bitter tears.

WHAT?!  Killed?  Seriously?  Needless to say I was dead set against getting a dog.  And just a little more dead on the inside.  We had made it to 3 kids and still the level of pet we reached was 3 fish won at a Carnival event.

I didn’t want to be one of those families that got a dog and then got rid of it because it was to hard of a responsibility to take care of.  I also knew that a dog’s lifespan is 12-15 years tops.  Any dog purchased I knew, would grow to be such a part of the family that when either 1 or 2 of the kids were going to be going to college, we would lose this family member.

Pessimistic?  Sure.  Do things die?  Yup.  Have I seen people ditch dogs because they got tired of dealing with an animal they decided to take on?  Sure.  I wanted to avoid all those things.

Fast forward a few years to my son Brandon.  Brandon for all intensive purposes is the most content child I have ever met.  You can ask this kid what he wants for his birthday or for Christmas and he will list 1, maybe 2 things.  That’s it.  If people have dozens of presents to open around him but he has the 1 or 2 things he had asked for he is extremely happy.  Well, one year he asked for a puppy.  A puppy he could take care of all to himself and train and run and play fetch with and chase with sticks and setup obstacle courses and yadda yadda yadda.

Problem was Brandon was afraid of barking dogs.  He would wince and jump whenever a dog would do a “dog type thing”.  It didn’t even have to be a big dog; small dogs would spook him as well.

            I tried to sand bag the topic, told Brandon he was to young, the fence needs fixing, that dog poop smells, that dogs DIE, and finally that he should start researching dog breeds to find one he really wanted.  That last one I hoped would have bought me a few years; at least until he would outgrow the want for a dog I prayed.

Then one year it happened.  Brandon didn’t want 1 or 2 things anymore.  He just wanted a puppy.  A puppy is not a thing, a puppy is a living it.  And whatever it was going to be I could tell Brandon wanted it real bad.  So I finally made him a deal and said we would get him a puppy for his 8 year old Birthday.  We started looking at Golden labs and Border Collies and all sorts of good family Dogs.

I had one ace in the hole left.  Our fence in the back yard was in need of repairs.  I told Brandon that even before we thought of getting a puppy – the fence would have to be fixed.  I mean you wouldn’t want to lose your puppy the first day you have it Brandon do you?  It will run away and get hit by a car and then YOU will be standing with a crayon drawing of your puppy and thus the circle will be complete.

I’m not bitter.

Brandon understood this and I thought I had finally closed the deal on this.  Until one day Katie told me that a friend of hers said that the local animal shelter had closed down.   This animal shelter had been around in Homer Glen for 30 or more years.  I told Katie there was no way this shelter would ever have closed down without it being announced in the local paper.  But she said she was sure her source was right.  So I said to her we will stop by after we had some lunch during our Daddy and daughter time.

Looking back – I think this was a setup.  I am not sure how or why but I am almost positive.

Walking into the shelter there were some new puppies shipped in and none of them looked extra special, so we went in a looked at the older dogs in another LOUDER section.  I hate barking dogs, I hate the sound of it.  Nothing screams desperation like a barking dog, or a Mime.  I hate them; I don’t get what they are supposed to be? Are they a clown?  I don’t get it.

The older puppy section had large barking dogs, except in one cage was a Siberian husky named Logan.  Logan was a female dog – who gives a female dog a boys name?  Logan had a rule on her card.  Must be only dog in house.

My daughter and I stared at Logan.  She stared back.  She wasn’t barking, but she would sniff our hands and try and be petted.  We must have stood there for 3 minutes watching her.  We walked a few steps away and she did something I could never forget.  She howled.  I have heard coyotes howl and other dogs howl, but this was a different.  She sounded lonely.  I walked back to her and remember looking at her and thought instantly, you must miss your family.

I asked the shelter about Logan and sure enough she was there for only a few days and had come from a home with other dogs and a 3 year old boy who was her best friend.  She was dropped off with a note from her previous owner and you could tell the woman who wrote it was heartbroken for having to give Logan away.  It turns out Logan is very much the Alpha female and during feeding time struggles became the norm.  There was so much contention that separate feeding times didn’t resolve the issue and in order for peace to be maintained Logan had to go.

Must be only dog in house.

I came back to Logan again after talking to the Shelter owners and I looked her over again and knew right then, this is our Dog.  My wife knew it as well when she first saw her.

Logan’s been a part of our family for about a month now.  Every night she greets me when I get home, just like the kids do.  We play in the house and go for nice walks at night together.  She is already 5 years old, so I know in my heart, if all things go perfect, I have her for another 7 to 10 years.  But if they don’t go perfect, just like every other member of our family, we are all made better for having her in our lives.

The fear of losing something or someone shouldn’t keep us from loving them.

Was it some mystical bond formed back at the shelter?  Was it man and beast coming to understand each other?  No. 

It was a boy who wanted a dog and a dog who needed a family.

The odd thing was the boy who wanted a dog wasn’t Brandon. 

It was me.