into small pieces and a bedpan to relieve himself, and Rivers and the boys brought him wildflowers. Then, bright and early one morning, I felt him licking my nose as he always did to wake me up. When I opened my eyes he was sitting there next to me wagging his tail. The impish expression in his eyes had returned, and he bit my toes to roust me out faster. “Let's go chase some
squirrels
, Skip!” I said, and he leapt off the bed and waited for me to take him outside—from the valley of the shadow of death he had returned to me once more.
••••••• 7 •••••••
Old Skip and Baseball
H E WAS A DOG for all sports seasons. Ralph, the photographer in our group, once captured this quintessence in him, having him pose under the oak in my front yard with a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap on his head, the lace of our football grasped between his teeth, his paw in a baseball glove, and in front of him on the grass a basketball, a baseball bat, four baseballs, my baseball spikes, a tennis racket, a volleyball, a football helmet, half a dozen or so sports magazines and game programs, and numerous baseball bub-blegum cards.
I had even created a mythical dog football team of my own devising, consisting of various dogs I was familiar with in the town, and often when walking somewhere alone or riding on my bicycle I would entertain myself by reciting play-by-play accounts of games involving this team, which I called Kennel U. Using my mother's old Kodak camera, Iwent around taking snapshots of the dogs on the team, pasting them into the crude replica of an official game program, with thumbnail sketches of each dog, such as Sheriff Raines's Buck and the Hendrixes’ Super-Doop. We operated out of the single-wing offense made famous by the Tennessee Volunteers. Skip was the tailback and, naturally, also the captain.
His dramatic touchdowns in our real football games in my front yard were fabled in the town, of course, but he also enjoyed watching the boys and me shooting baskets around the wooden basketball goal in back, and whenever someone made an errant shot that missed the entire backboard and bounced over the hedges toward the front, he would enthusiastically retrieve it and push it back to us with his nose. His swiftness and agility were likewise legend, and when of the spirit he could move so fast that I desired some specific authentication of his actual speed.
I borrowed Henjie's father's stopwatch one Saturday morning and persuaded some of the fellows to accompany us to the high school football field, where I intended to time Skip formally in the hundred-yard dash. The difficulty was that I knew I must improvise some method that would get him to race from one goal line to the other, exactly one hundred yards, at top velocity and in as straight a path as possible. How to do this? At first I had Henjie, Big Boy, and Peewee station themselves at the far goal line with the stopwatch while I positioned Skip at
our
goal line, in as close an approximation of the classic sprinter's stance before the starting gun as I could persuade him to assume. Then, on asignal from me, our three companions began shouting,
“Skip, come here!”
at which I would give him a vigorous shove to get him on the way. This did not prove efficacious, producing a series of false starts in which he might sprint fifteen yards in the right direction, or twenty, or twenty-five, then circle around and return to me. After a reflective conference the others and I arrived at the proper solution. Pee-wee would hold Skip at the starting line, with Big Boy and Henjie at the opposite line with the stopwatch. I would station myself at midfield and shout for Skip to follow me, then start running toward Big Boy and Henjie, and at that precise moment Peewee would release Skip, who would likely run after me in a straight line and at full acceleration for the entire distance.
This indeed worked perfectly the very first time we tried it. I yelled at him
squirrels
, Skip!” I said, and he leapt off the bed and waited for me to take him outside—from the valley of the shadow of death he had returned to me once more.
••••••• 7 •••••••
Old Skip and Baseball
H E WAS A DOG for all sports seasons. Ralph, the photographer in our group, once captured this quintessence in him, having him pose under the oak in my front yard with a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap on his head, the lace of our football grasped between his teeth, his paw in a baseball glove, and in front of him on the grass a basketball, a baseball bat, four baseballs, my baseball spikes, a tennis racket, a volleyball, a football helmet, half a dozen or so sports magazines and game programs, and numerous baseball bub-blegum cards.
I had even created a mythical dog football team of my own devising, consisting of various dogs I was familiar with in the town, and often when walking somewhere alone or riding on my bicycle I would entertain myself by reciting play-by-play accounts of games involving this team, which I called Kennel U. Using my mother's old Kodak camera, Iwent around taking snapshots of the dogs on the team, pasting them into the crude replica of an official game program, with thumbnail sketches of each dog, such as Sheriff Raines's Buck and the Hendrixes’ Super-Doop. We operated out of the single-wing offense made famous by the Tennessee Volunteers. Skip was the tailback and, naturally, also the captain.
His dramatic touchdowns in our real football games in my front yard were fabled in the town, of course, but he also enjoyed watching the boys and me shooting baskets around the wooden basketball goal in back, and whenever someone made an errant shot that missed the entire backboard and bounced over the hedges toward the front, he would enthusiastically retrieve it and push it back to us with his nose. His swiftness and agility were likewise legend, and when of the spirit he could move so fast that I desired some specific authentication of his actual speed.
I borrowed Henjie's father's stopwatch one Saturday morning and persuaded some of the fellows to accompany us to the high school football field, where I intended to time Skip formally in the hundred-yard dash. The difficulty was that I knew I must improvise some method that would get him to race from one goal line to the other, exactly one hundred yards, at top velocity and in as straight a path as possible. How to do this? At first I had Henjie, Big Boy, and Peewee station themselves at the far goal line with the stopwatch while I positioned Skip at
our
goal line, in as close an approximation of the classic sprinter's stance before the starting gun as I could persuade him to assume. Then, on asignal from me, our three companions began shouting,
“Skip, come here!”
at which I would give him a vigorous shove to get him on the way. This did not prove efficacious, producing a series of false starts in which he might sprint fifteen yards in the right direction, or twenty, or twenty-five, then circle around and return to me. After a reflective conference the others and I arrived at the proper solution. Pee-wee would hold Skip at the starting line, with Big Boy and Henjie at the opposite line with the stopwatch. I would station myself at midfield and shout for Skip to follow me, then start running toward Big Boy and Henjie, and at that precise moment Peewee would release Skip, who would likely run after me in a straight line and at full acceleration for the entire distance.
This indeed worked perfectly the very first time we tried it. I yelled at him
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