One Year Later

 It's been a year since Custer left us.

That night is one I'll sadly never forget.  Custer was standing there and then, like a cow tipping over, fell on his side without being pushed.  We rushed him to the veterinarian to find out he had a mass on his heart.  It made little sense to prolong his life only to watch him suffer more, so we made the heartbreaking but correct decision to have him put to sleep.

Little did we know it would be the first of three such decision we'd be called on to make in the space of eight months.

When they brought us in to say goodbye to Custer, he was back to his usual goofy self.  I got down on the floor, barely able to control myself, knowing that I had a few precious moments with the dog who had stolen my heart.  He was bouncy and running back and forth between me and Karen.  Knowing Cus, he was enjoying the attention, unaware of what was about to happen.

Before the vet administered the medicine that would take Cus from us, Cus began licking my face.  Even then I took that as him telling me it was all right, that he understood and wanted me to be OK.  I know that's probably very far from the truth, and perhaps I'm deluding myself, but it's what I felt then and what I feel today.

I miss everything about Cus.  I miss his loud, mature bark that he'd he'd let out when I asked him if he needed to go out to do his business, followed by his whirling like a dervish right by the laundry room door; how he never knocked himself out by whacking his head on the door I'll never know.  I miss his feverish chasing of the beam of light from a flashlight on the floor, or the shine of a metal object reflecting the sun's rays.  I miss his running to the kitchen the minute anyone would open the freezer door, waiting for his tribute of pieces of ice to eat.  I miss his him rolling over on his back for belly rubs.  His hilarious habit of photo-bombing other people's photos always delighted me even if it didn't delight them.  When people would get down on the floor to pet him he took it as an invitation to sit in their lap...which he did, always.  I can't recall a time when I didn't have some of his fur somewhere on my clothes, no matter how hard I tried to keep myself clear of it.  It never bothered me; I always liked taking a part of him with me.

He and his brother-from-another-mother Sherman, who preceded him in death by four years, were the greatest and easiest traveling companions.  It was like traveling with the Beatles.  People would stop and fawn all over them.  Sherman was aloof, which only gave Custer more of the attention he craved.

When we got Cus from, of all places, a Doberman Rescue, he was vastly overweight and covered with mange.  He would destroy cardboard boxes, eat raw potatoes and once, infamously, tore up a feather bolster that I had to clean up with a snow shovel.  If Cus knew he'd done wrong he didn't show it.  He sat behind the pile of feathers as if proud to show us his handiwork.  It was hard to get made at him.

Perhaps one the best memory I have of Custer was when he was still able to follow me to the basement.  When I was done doing whatever I needed to do, I'd ask him if he was ready to go upstairs, and he'd go into dervish mode, twirling and barking until he ran up the stairs.  At the top of the stairs, on the landing, he'd wait for me and then, as I'd reach out to give his face a rub, he'd gently gnaw the pad of my palm.  He never broke the skin.  He just gnawed on my palm until he was done, then we'd go into the house and do whatever we both would do.

Recording all these memories is making me break down.  I'm not ashamed.  I loved that dog.  I still do.

He was my first dog.  Sherman was Karen's dog, and although he and I got along fine, he really was Karen's dog.  But Cus was mine.  Cus-Cus was the goofiest, funniest, most loyal dog I'd ever known.  He was far from perfect, which made him perfect for me.

My lasting regret is that I was too sad to think to ask the vets, before they put him to sleep, for a piece of ice.  Cus would have enjoyed that.  So would I.

Someday, I hope, I'll see Cus again.  I'm thankful I had him in my life and I miss him horribly.

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Joe Biden's America

 We're six months in on this dumpster fire known as the Biden Administration, and it's going horribly, not that you'd know that if you listened to the MSM.  As always, the Left's cheerleaders can't or won't comment on the emperor's clothes, preferring instead to continue to bash Donald Trump and blame all the bad things coming out of Washington in him and his administration.  Cognitive Dissonance has reached new lows.

Biden wasn't expected to be much punkin', as Karen would say.  He'd been in politics for nearly a half century, was doddering during the campaign and spent most of the time leading up to the election in his basement, conveniently blaming Covid when anyone with a pair of eyeballs knew it was his handlers' attempts to keep him away from cameras where his next faux pas could be captured for posterity.

Aligning himself with that harridan of Blair House, Kamala Harris -- or as one wag has anointed her Cackling Pantsuit -- didn't help him much.  After being feted by the fawning MSM in the first couple of months of being Vice President, she's been derided for a series of missteps including rambling incessantly about the root causes of immigration, not giving a press conference for over two months after being put in charge of the border, not going to the border until former President Trump announced his upcoming visit and then going to the most secure part of the border that just happens to have more border all built than any other part of the southern border.

Texas has announced it will begin building its wall.  The LA Times has come out and said that the Vice President's record so far is disappointing.  The Man of Dementia, as seen here: 

attended the G-7 meeting followed by a summit, of sorts, with Vladimir Putin wherein he gave the former KGB agent a list of sixteen sites that were off limit to hacking...thereby suggesting, by omission, that anything not on the list wouldn't disturb us and shouldn't cause the Russian government to crack down on private Russian hackers.  China is emboldened by the weakness of the Man of Dementia, refusing to allow anyone to learn the truth of what happened in Wuhan.  Hunter Biden, the dissolute son of the POTUS, continues to sully the family name, selling his artwork to sycophants for upwards of $500,000 while paying $25,000 for a Russian prostitute.  Biden's younger sister has now been given a book deal, while patronage runs rampant in the White House.

Nothing to see here, folks.  

Meanwhile, Joe Sixpack is faced with onset inflation, gas prices that are now over $4 and even $5 in some places, while at the same time being paid to stay home by pork barrel legislation that insists that people get tax money not to work.  The much-needed infrastructure bill has now become one of the largest excesses in congressional spending, with Orwellian rhetoric stretching the meaning of infrastructure from roads, bridges and buildings to include so-called human infrastructure, or day care, teacher raises and other nonsense that's already been provided for in the earlier stimulus packages.  All the while, the Man of Dementia insists that taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 will not be increased.  Just how in the hell does he expect to pay for this?

So now, the countdown clock on the ascension of Cackling Pantsuit to the presidency begins in earnest.  Some squares sold for six months, but that was never going to happen.  Two years was the more popular choice, but now it looks as if the lesser of two evils must be debated:  Will it be the Man of Dementia for the full four years, or does Cackling Pantsuit get a two-year trial run?

Either way, the country is screwed.

Republicans are licking their chops at both the midterms and the 2024 general election.  From all indications they'll win in both elections.

They'd better not screw it up.  From all indications, they'll have a lot of work to do.

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Enervating Phrases

Ever since I was a wee lad in parochial school, when the nuns would speak to each other in either Polish or some other foreign tongue to keep us students in the dark, language has fascinated me.  I have actually read books by William Safire, Edwin Newman and William Buckley on the use of the English language.  Despot though he was, I admire Churchill's facile yet complex use of the English language.  Perhaps that's why I learned to speak Spanish and want to learn to speak Irish and Arabic, although the latter two are unlikely to ever come out of my mount intelligibly.

Be all that as it may, it also explains why some things irk me irrationally.  I'm not talking just about those verbal miscues as axing questions, going to Warshington or seeing something that is heart-wrenching.  I'm talking about things people say that are just so jarring to my ears -- even if they're perfectly acceptable to others' ears -- that I scoff when I hear them.  More often than not, my objections center around verbal indolence -- people just fall back on these things either because they've heard them so often they think it's hip to repeat them or they can't figure out the correct way or a different way to say something similar.  To that end....

To Your Point:  This comes out a lot on talk shows.  I first heard it ad nauseum when I listened to Mike & Mike, then The Five.  When someone says something with which the next speaker agrees, that speaker says, To your point....Why not just say:  I agree with what you're saying, or, To add to what you just said...?  Instead, it's fashionable now to say To your/X's point....Egads, be original or learn how to use other parts of the language.

Journey/Chemistry/Connection:  This is always mentioned at some point when couples -- usually celebrities or those in the public eye -- mention their love affairs.  It's either a discussion about how lucky the person is to have the other person along on their shared journey, or what great chemistry or a  wonderful connection they had from the minute the laid eyes on one another.  How hackneyed.  Just find another way to say that the person bowled you over with her beauty, or how the person's personality shone through above every one else's.  These nebulous terms are meant to sound sophisticated when all they really do is show that the person is lazy and can't find ways to adequately describe the person whom she loves above all others.  And this isn't gender-specific; both genders are equally indolent.

I Married My Best Friend:  Great.  I get it:  You like each other.  I've got best friends, and they I have the love of my life.  My sin par.  Best Friends are not Lovers.  Or at least they shouldn't be.  They should be more.  They should be above everyone else on the planet:  Friends, family, strangers, presidents, prelates -- you name it.  

Soulmate:  This one tickles me.  On these foppish shows like 90 Day Fiance, where contrived situations put two people together on the fast-track to marriage, the contestants -- because that's what they really are -- wax loving about their opposites as being their soulmates.  In one hilarious instance, a Frenchwoman who was horribly treated by her American paramour to whom she'd referred as her soulmate broke up with him after his less than gentlemanly ways and then resurfaced a few months later with a new (and decidedly uglier; although the first one wasn't gracing the cover of GQ any time soon) American fiance whom she readily introduced as her soulmate.  We all make mistakes.  Any one who's been divorced will attest to that.  But this all-too-ready leap to soulmatehood is a little unsettling.

You're the Man/In the hole:  This is pure golf.  I've tried to play golf.  As I tell anyone who asks me that as far as golf goes I'm a heck of a first baseman.  Still, I enjoy watching the Ryder Cup and the Masters at Augusta (the course more than the golf).  But when these wannabe Jack Nicklauses start screaming either of these after the golfer strikes the ball it sounds so...pretentious.  The person speaking is trying to elevate himself into the golfer's level, to which he decidedly does not belong, but it's of no consequence.  And doing this in public does what, exactly?  It's like a bunch of drunk frat boys who grew up and remained drunk frat men.

That's What I'm Talking About:  This has come to replace I like this/that.  Someone will be shown something or will simply see something and utter this tired, overused phrase as if they had been talking about whatever it was right before it was shown.  I've never understood whether this is meant to sound hip or self-important.  Either way, it's kind of douchey.

We're Pregnant:  Um, no you aren't.  Unless there's an umbilical cord connecting both parents somehow, with half the baby in one parent and half the baby in the other, only the woman is pregnant.  And if both parents are pregnant, doesn't that mean the father gets a say as to whether to abort the fetus?  You can't have it both ways.

Fish On:  This is the pescatorial equivalent to You're the Man/In the Hole.  Casual fishermen, emboldened by any number of fishing shows on TV, will shout this when they hook a fish.  Whatever happened to I got one!  And what exactly is the fish on (I know, I know).  Unless I make my living fishing, I would avoid this one.  It's douchey.

Woke:  I know what it's mean, but isn't Woke a verb?  When did it become an adjective?  

Just:  This is a pet peeve, and it's really wrong of me.  The next time a layman gives a prayer in church, count the number of Justs that are included in the prayer.  Then listen to the pastor pray and count the same.  The disparity is huge.

Just sayin'.

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Twenty-five Years

 Twenty-five years.

A quarter century.

It was twenty-five years ago today, May 12, 1996, that I last saw our Mother alive.  It was Mother's Day, and Mom had terminal lung cancer.  We didn't know how much longer she had to live, so each day we had with her was precious.

Mom had undergone chemo, but for some reason -- I don't remember why -- radiation was not considered.  Mom had lost a little hair, but she hadn't lost much weight.  She looked tired, drawn, but didn't seem to be putting on a brave face with us.  She seemed delighted to have her children around her.

Mom was to me my rock.  She gave me life, protected me from Himself, encouraged me, taught me about life and living and was always in my corner.  Sure, we had disagreements, spats even, but in the end she was the one person on whom I know I could count.  I wasn't married and was just beginning what would turn out to be a disastrous and unfortunate serious relationship, so she was to me my girl.  I acquired the strong genes of her family and looked like one of them, thankfully.  

My love of language, literature and education came from Mom.  She taught me how to throw a baseball and how to bake and cook.  She supported me in athletic endeavors even though she didn't understand a curveball from a free throw.  Her enthusiasm for anything her first child did was always on display.  Despite this, Mom was no Stage Mother.  If I stepped out of line I heard about it.

As I got older and things worsened with Himself, Mom and I would talk about it confidentially, always careful to do so out of earshot so as to not anger him.  We had to stay apart from one another for several years to make her life easier; any time I came around the house, he would get in fights with her about my alleged misbehavior.  I didn't misbehave; he just hated me and took it out on the both of us.

Mom smoked like a chimney for over forty years.  We tried to get her to stop but it wasn't until she had acupuncture that she was able to quit.  By then it was too late -- three years after she quit she was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Six years after she quit she died.

Among the saddest things about losing our Mom was the fact that she and Karen never got to know one another.  She wouldn't have been happy with the circumstances of our romance -- both of us left bad marriages and divorced before living in sin and then remarrying -- but she would have had a blast with Karen.  I would have been their unwilling foil for most of their hijinks, but I know they would have loved each other's company.  Karen and I talk of it often.  Besides never becoming a father with Karen, this is my greatest regret.

I am now sixty-years-old.  My Mother has missed forty-one percent of my time on earth.  I think of all the things we could have done together if she'd only been around for half that time.  I see other people who smoked like fiends who got to live into their eighties and nineties; Mom died at age sixty-four., just four years older than I am now.  

Her loss pains me every day.  I think of her often and talk with her as if she were still with me.  I'm proud to be her son and glad that she was my Mother.  I appreciate more than ever all that she did for me and think of her every Mother's Day.

I know she's waiting for me and in some ways I can't wait to be reunited.  I want her to know Karen and watch them laugh themselves silly at my foibles.  She loved me like no other until I met Karen.  With any luck Sherman and Custer have made her acquaintance and are keeping her company until I join them all.

I love you Mom.  I miss you and can't wait to see you again.

Thank you for giving my life, teaching me to live and keeping me alive.

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

House Hunters International

 Karen and I like to watch House Hunters International ("HHI") for a variety of reasons.  We get to see virtual tours of places we may someday like to visit, or that we'll never get to visit.  We like to see if we can pick out the best of the options for the couple.  And we get to kibbitz.

For those who aren't familiar with the show, it involves a couple, usually American but not always, who is moving to a foreign country to relocate or to buy a vacation home.  They hook up with a local realtor who shows them three properties.  Before the search begins, the realtor meets with the couple (although sometimes it's a single person with a friend in tow) to find out what they're looking for, what their budget is and sundry other information regarding their search.  That's where the fun begins.

Then the realtor shows them three places, whether they're renting or buying, and the couple tags along to see the places.  That's when the fun gets a turbo boost.

At the end, the couple sits together at a bar or some quiet location, acts like it's discussing what they've seen and what they really want and then make a decision.  What has been leaked about this is that by the time this is filmed, the couple has already been living in whichever location it's chosen, so this is all for the show.  Then the episode ends with a retrospective of sorts anywhere from two to six months later where the couple speaks glowingly about how they love their choice and how it was the best for them.

An added bonus to the set up is the unseen narrator who moves the action along.  Her name is Andromeda Dunker.  This stuff just can't be made up...unlike the show.

Anyhoo, there are several aspects that seem to recur no matter how old the couple, what country they're in, if they're buying or renting, if they speak the language, whether they're young or old...in short, one of the following is bound to appear in every episode.

--  Local Charm:  This drives me absolutely insane.  If someone's moving to a foreign country, why is there so much insistence that the residence have local charm?????  Why isn't the locality itself charming enough?  We've seen so many couples piss and moan about how this location doesn't have the requisite charm that they overlook the obvious advantages to the place...not to mention how cheaply they can add local charm with artwork, furniture, kitchenware, etc.  What's more, half the time they don't even know what true local charm is and are relying on ersatz charm they've seen in the U.S.  Ugh....

-- "It's too far from my work":  As people whose work commutes average anywhere from two to three hours daily, to and from work, it's enervating in the extreme to listen to these people whine about how their prospective commutes are thirty minutes or less.  Seriously?  What's more, what happened to wanting all the local charm?  Isn't taking the time to go to work an opportunity to soak in the local charm?  

--  "It's not as X as we had in America":  News flash:  You've moved to a foreign country.  There's a reason it's called a foreign country.  Although they may speak English in the foreign country, they also speak a foreign language in the foreign country.  No, their rooms aren't as large as ours, their refrigerators aren't as large as ours, their bathrooms aren't as nice as ours...did you do no research before you decided to move to Country X?  It flabbergasts me to see how little some people know about the country to which they're moving.

--  "We can only spend X since one of us won't have a job here":  Yes, he/she will.  Every time someone complains about their budget due to the fact that one of the couple doesn't have a job yet, and they go looking at possible sites, make their choice and come back in two or three months...voila! The other spouse has a job.  So for all the gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and tearing of hair, eventually any economic concern the couple has is resolved.

--  The Couples Themselves:  It is rare to find a couple where both people are likeable.  It doesn't matter which spouse, but usually one or the other spouses is obnoxious and unlikeable.  Nothing's good enough for them, or he cares too much about spending $1 more than their planned budget, or she complains about how she's giving up everything to make the move with him...enough already.  It's a wonder why some of these couples even married.

-- Extra Rooms For Guests:  It never fails.  A couple has to have extra rooms for guests.  Do they not know there are hotels overseas?  Can't their guests get a room?  On one level, where there's an elderly parent that may visit, I can understand the need and perhaps the desire to have a room in the new location for that guest.  But where it's a young couple, or even an older couple, visiting that can easily afford to rent a room at a hotel nearby, why all the angst?  While these folks were looking for a place to stay in their new country...where were they staying?  I doubt they pitched a tent in the local park.

-- The Realtors:  If one watches the show enough, certain realtors in certain countries seem to be the go-to real estate agent for the show.  Britain has a bald guy with a full beard who is slightly affected.  Watching him try to shoot a basketball was...painful.  Then there's a guy in Germany and Belgium who's fond of unbuttoning his shirt down as far as he can to show off his hairless chest.  A real estate agent in Holland wears long skirts that are about as wild and mismatched as the wild and mismatching blouses she wears.  And it's painful to listen to some of the Asian real estate agents speak if for no other reason than they are about as humorless as a person can still be and call oneself a person.  The best part of listening to the real estate agents is their asides to the camera about the couples when they're separated, although by far the best moment occurred in Australia with a bizarre tree-hugging pair -- just friends, apparently -- who were mesmerized by the tree they were hugging in the front yard and ignoring the broker's suggestion they go inside to look at the house.

-- The Money:  Where do some of these young couples get the money to spend on houses or apartments?  This is more of a question for the younger couples and ones on other shows, but occasionally a young couple will be moving abroad and have gazillions to spend on a place.  They look like they've been out of high school for about five years.  Did they win the lottery?  Are they descended from old money?

-- Balconies:  Everyone wants a balcony.  Why?  Can't you just look out the window?  And when they'e presented with a balcony, sometimes the balconies are laughable.  Open the door, step out a foot to the railing and then shuffle down to the end of the one-foot wide balcony, then shuffle to the other end.  Why?

-- Inside/Outside the Locale:  Invariably, one partner wants to live in the city center, while the other person wants to live outside the city.  Usually, this is where the complaint about how the one partner gave up everything to move overseas with the other partner (see, The Couples Themselves, supra) whines about how they don't want to live inside or outside the city.  How on earth did these people ever marry?

--  A View:  This cracks me up.  When one of the main requirements is a view, and the couple is shown a place that has a view -- say, of the ocean -- they ooh and aah about being able to see a sliver of the ocean through other buildings.  That's a view?  Or if it's mountains, they can see the distant mountains -- or a portion of them -- through the utility wires and rooftops of adjacent buildings.  I must have a different understanding of what constitutes a view.  I would readily agree that looking at the apartment building nextdoor isn't a view, but what people accept as a view mystifies me.

--  Outdoor Space...For the Pet: Now, as a proud owner of two bulldogs whose scatalogical habits are demanding, to say the least, I can appreciate the need for an outdoor facility for pets.  But what's wrong with walking them across the street, or down the block to the park?  Bring a poop bag, put on your coat and shoes, and walk the pet to do its business.  Why is it a requirement that Fluffy has an outdoor bathroom with the house?  Unless it's Lassie who's also footing part of the bill, make it go to the park and bring a poop bag.

We love the show.  We try to see which of the three choices the couples will choose, then determine which one is in their best interest.  

Considering what Andromeda Dunker likes in houses, though, we shouldn't be surprised by the always eclectic nature of HHI's couples' wants:

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Goodbye, Son of the Morning Star

Endings can be either good or bad.  For losing streaks, bad luck or a bad marriage, the ending can be good.  For relationships, long flights or bad marriages, the ending can be bad.  Sometimes, there is no question that the ending is neither desirable nor good.

Such is the case of losing a pet.

Custer was a rescue bulldog Karen and I adopted nearly eleven years ago.  He was the goofiest, most playful and loyal pet I've ever known.  Karen says that when we went to get him, he glommed on to me immediately and never looked back.  I wish I could say the feeling was mutual at the time, but what I may have lacked in intensity at the start I more than made up for at the end.

My buddy was beaten so badly that he had dents in his skull.  Not surprisingly, when we first brought him home, if we opened aluminum foil or put on our coat, Cus would cower in fear that he was going to be hit.  I never hit him, of course, but he didn't know that I wouldn't do that, such was his fear.  

He certainly pushed our buttons at times, from the familiar-to-pet-owners use of the house as a toilet to his infamous destruction of a feather bolster.  At the time of his latter escapade, I remember being both angry because I had to clean it up -- which I did using a snow shovel, such was the destruction -- and bemused by the absurdity of our bulldog tearing apart the threateningly dangerous feather bolster and then sitting in the corner proudly awaiting our return so he could show us his handiwork.

Custer wasn't the most beautiful of bulldogs; that laurel would fall to his future brother, Mosby, with whom he was engaged in a love-hate relationship:  They loved to hate each other.  But Cus had some great and unusual features.  Most notably, he had the softest coat of any bulldog I've ever met.  He had a somewhat elongated body, which made him look like a large white cigar from the profile.  Karen loved his speckled ear.  Karen also felt he was gorgeous no matter what.  I felt that way once he smiled or got excited; otherwise, he was a doppelganger for my late maternal grandfather.  Even Karen admitted the resemblance.

We took Custer and his sidekick Sherman on trips with us.  When we were out with the pair, people almost always stopped, laughed and asked to pet them.  We took them on vacations without incident.  One time, when were at a gas station and had let them out to do their business, a van pulled, the passenger window was rolled down and one simple question was asked:  How much?  

Custer's playful goofiness manifested itself in various forms.  Whether it was being paddleboarded on one of the Great Lakes, or chasing the beam of a flashlight, or barking and dancing around when he had to go out to do his business, Custer's enduring trait was personality.  He would photobomb others' pictures; I never knew if he was oblivious to his lack of etiquette, just happy to be included or happy he was free to roam without fear of sanction that led to this, but countless people have some unnamed bulldog in their family albums thanks to Custer's generosity.  

He would also try to chase our quicksilver fast cat Bupkes, but his loping strides didn't quite match that brash bark that accompanied them.  He had the hearing of an eavesdropper when a bag of food or the refrigerator door was opened.  He was stone deaf when you told him he had to do something he didn't like doing, like going outside just because we wanted him to get a little fresh air or getting a bath.  Custer made it clear that his tolerance of water stopped at the lake or a pool; bathtubs just didn't do it for him.  He also loathed getting his nails trimmed.  Each and every visit was like a convict being dragged to the gallows.

Custer never met a treat he didn't like.  I don't think I ever saw him turn up his nose at any offering.  He would wolf it down with relish and then look for seconds.  He made begging an art form, causing the famous statement that Custer is looking at me with kind eyes to be uttered.

Sherman and Custer were brothers who had few disagreements.  The only one that I remember being concerned about took place right above my face one day.  But the two of them were kith and kin otherwise.  When Sherm died on October 4, 2016, Custer seemed to take it hard.  He was despondent beyond out expectations.  The bulldog that loved to run on the beach barely walked down the strand a few weeks after Sherman's passing.  The only remedy we could think of was to get him a partner.

We found Maisie, another rescue, but she had been kenneled so long that she didn't know how to be a dog.  She and Custer shared beds during the day, but what little interaction there was between them resulted from Custer getting perturbed when his visually-impaired sister would inadvertently run into him.  Like a chiding parent, he would snap his jaws and snarl at her until she meekly walked away, unaware of what she had done.  Still, there was one adorable moment where I caught the two of them in bed, with Custer's front leg around her, unintended or not.

Custer never met a person he didn't like.  And he shed all over everything and everyone. As Karen always warned people who wanted to pet him:  Be careful.  He only sheds on people he likes and he likes everyone.  Truer words were never spoken.  If given the chance he would sit in people's laps.  When I would lie on the floor to pet him, he would sometimes get distracted by a chewbone and then use me as a platform to chew his bone.

Most often, however, when I laid on the floor I could get him to let me rub his belly.  It would start with me rubbing his belly from behind his back as he laid on his side, then I'd scratch his armpits until he would pivot onto his back and let me get his chest and his belly.  This could go on for minutes at a time.  If I was really good on a particular day, I could put him to sleep doing this.

But of all Custer's antics, the two that I will forever remember, and the two whose absence will cause me the most sadness and tears, involve the basement and the refrigerator freezer.  For some reason, while he was still able to do so, Custer would follow me downstairs and wait for me at the bottom of the stairs.  When I'd tell him we had to go upstairs, he would bark and twirl around, then dash up the seven stairs to the landing, where he would wait for me.  I wasn't allowed to pass until he nibbled on the pad of my palm.  When he was satisfied with his tribute, he'd ascend the remaining three stairs and enter the living room.

Getting a drink was always a two-person affair.  Custer could be dead to the world in his bed, but once I opened the freezer component to the refrigerator, he'd jump up and wait by the side of the opened door. I'd pop a couple of ice cubes in his mouth and he'd happily chomp away.  When he was done I'd give him another pair of cubes.  This made him tremendously happy.

Age and infirmity wore Cus down.  His happy-go-lucky self morphed into the canine equivalent to a couch potato.  He'd have occasional spurts of energy, but more often than not he was happiest in his bed, on a tile floor or the garage floor, lying down on his belly to cool himself off.  He would struggle to his paws and then shuffle outside to do his business.  When he was younger, he would sprint back in the house after pooping, as if he was celebrating a great feat.  Toward the end of his life, he walked so slowly his age was all too apparent.

The end came suddenly, although Karen and I had been discussing its eventuality for nearly a year.  Cus had been having dry heaves followed by what seemed to be a throat clearing.  This would go on for about a minute and then he'd be fine.  While I was on a phone call, Custer threw up.  He hadn't been visibly sick, so this came as a surprise.  Karen cleaned up his mess and he laid back down.  Later in the afternoon I got down on the floor to rub his belly.  He rewarded me, as was his wont, with licks on my face and nibbles on my palm's pad.  I got up to watch a movie with Karen before dinner and while we were watching the movie, Custer vomited yet again.  Not once, but three times, with plenty of substance as well as bile.  As he was standing to retch, he fell over, as if he'd been pushed over from the side.  We knew then that he was beyond seriously ill.  I jumped down immediately and cradled Custer, reassuring him, senselessly, that everything would be all right.  Karen quickly called the veterinarian.  We threw paper towels on the piles of vomit and bile and I carried Custer by his mortal enemy Mosby, who was too startled by the events to move.   I put Cus in the back of the car and we sped off.

Along the way Karen and I discussed various scenarios, probably in an attempt to buoy our spirits, although we both knew, in our hearts, that this was Custer's final car ride.  I dreaded the thought.  A few months back we'd watched the movie The Art of Driving in the Rain, and after it ended I absented myself to bawl, thinking about how I would handle Custer's end.   

________________________________________

It's been over four months since my buddy left us.  I'm still heartbroken.  I don't make a public spectacle of my grief; I don't claim he went over the Rainbow Bridge or anything of the sort.  For those people that do that is their business.  All I know is that my buddy's gone and I miss him dearly.

I miss him when I go to the basement and he doesn't come down with me, wait until we're going upstairs where he can whirl like a dervish and then race up the stairs to wait for me, where he'll nibble on the pad of my palm without breaking the skin.  I miss him when I get ice out of the freezer for my drink, waiting and drooling until I give him a piece.  I miss him when I get down on the floor where he'd sidle up to me and lie down for a belly rub.  I miss him when I'd ask him whether he'd need to go out to do his business and he'd whirl again like a dervish and bark that loud, stentorian bark of his.  I miss him going out to do his business and then sprinting back into the house.  I miss loading him into the car for a trip, when he'd jump up to help me get him in the car.  I miss him when I'd give him a bath and he'd look glumly at me as if to ask if it was really necessary.  I miss pointing the flashlight's beam on the floor and make myself silly laughing at his imitation of cat chasing the light on the floor.  I even miss his insouciance when asked to take a walk or go outside with us and he'd quietly demonstrate his defiance by lying down on the ground, refusing to move.

The end was far too quick and sudden for me.  We got him to the vet and because of Covid restrictions, he was taken in without us.  After a few minutes the tech came to get us; our greatest fears were realized.  We went into the room for the last minutes I'd ever have with him and I quickly laid down on the floor.  Cus, as if oblivious to what was about to happen, licked my face all over as was his wont.  It was as if, as Karen said, he knew and was telling me it was OK.  If that was so, I disagreed mightily.  I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, whether I should be fighting harder for him to stay with us.  Yet, in my heart of hearts, such a decision would be a selfish one that would only prolong his agony.  Custer was the best pet I'd ever known and he deserved my selfless compassion.  

The vet walked us through the steps and administered the drug.  Slowly, Custer's heart stopped beating as I held him.  I didn't want to let him go, even though I knew he was gone.  As I released my embrace, his tongue quivered gently.   A post-mortem electrical impulse, but a last flicker of his spirit.  My goofy, loyal buddy was gone, gone to play with Sherman and wait for Karen and me.

We somehow made it home.  I wasn't sure I'd be composed enough to drive but somehow I was.  The house, still filled with two other dogs, seemed empty.  I felt a large chunk separating from the rest of it and falling through my chest, hitting every rib on the way down.  

Over the next few days, I beat myself up over the most trivial of things.  I was too taken up with my own grief to do what I should have done.  I should have asked the vets for a piece of ice, one last piece of ice for my buddy.  It's something I still have trouble with to this day.  It would have been a fitting way to say goodbye.

Custer's photograph, the only good one I ever took of him, graces my bookcase.  I can still feel his soft fur, smell his stink, sense his wet tongue on my face.  

I will miss that boy until the day I die.  

Until then, I hope Custer is having fun with Sherman as they both get heaven ready for me and Karen.

(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles