An Apple Core, a Toilet: Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood (11 page)

Few of them stuck around. Goodness only knows how many package deliveries, Encyclopedia Britannica salesmen and Girl Scout cookies we missed out on through the years.

But anyone who continued walking toward our house, such as the mailman who met her howl daily, would eventually be greeted by a Collie mutt who wiggled out of the bushes, her tail wagging wildly, a threat to no man.

***

My father was adamant that Jingles should never be chained.

When he grew up in the city, there were a few dogs in his neighborhood, and he abhorred how they were shackled in their small yards, where they yelped helplessly throughout the day.

Part of the reason we talked him into bringing Jingles home was that Mr. Bennett, Ginger’s owner next door, had successfully trained Ginger to stay in his yard.

My father’s deal with us was that we had to train Jingles to do the same.

The process was simple enough. Mr. Bennett instructed us to walk Jingles around the perimeter of the yard every day. When she stayed within the established lines, we gave her a treat; when she strayed, we said "bad dog."

To be effective, we would have to do this every day for weeks. We did our best, but, being kids — and with my father always working every hour he could to generate the dough needed to keep our home running — we didn’t do as good a job as Mr. Bennett did with Ginger.

Jingles grasped the concept well, but she had a need to fly the coop every now and then.

One day I was watching her from the kitchen window as she sauntered behind a thick pine tree. I lost sight of her for a spell, then, suddenly, I saw her running like hell for the corner of the yard and escaping through a gap between forsythia bushes.

By the time I ran out and shouted her name, she was well more than 100 yards away, up into the Jacksons’ backyard. She came scurrying back down the hill, her tail between her legs.

She always knew when she did wrong, but that never stopped her.

Inevitably, though, she was successful running off. This was never a cause for worry, as she always made it home for supper.

Jingles never missed her daily can of Ken-L Ration, though occasionally she ran off after supper.

If she wasn’t home by dusk, my father, grumbling, would get into our Plymouth Fury station wagon and drive around the neighborhood, calling her name.

I remember lying in bed such nights, my window open, his deep voice echoing over the hills.

“Here, Jingles,” he’d say. “Here, girl. Here, Jingles.”

He’d always find her eventually. She’d be wandering in faraway neighborhoods, sometimes being fed real burgers — none of your burned-to-a-crisp varieties — right off backyard grills.

One of her favorite spots was the new 7/11, just four blocks away. She’d beg treats from people as they exited the store, snaring her fair share of hot dog scraps and Ho Ho’s.

When my father found her, she’d always freeze in her tracks, panicked, her tail between her legs.

“You get home right now, girl!” he’d say, and she’d break into a sprint and head straight for home.

She’d often be waiting for him when he pulled into the driveway a few minutes later.

Always relieved that he’d found her and gotten her home, he couldn’t stay mad at her for long.

He’d soon be petting her with tremendous affection, his dog-lover’s heart gushing, as she shook her body and wagged her tail wildly, relieved to be back in his good graces.

But one day, she did not return and my father was unable to find her.

***

Jingles hated fireworks.

Though they were illegal in Pittsburgh, and still are, some of the older kids in our neighborhood always got hold of some.

One year, someone set off an M-80 — equivalent to a quarter-stick of dynamite — in the sewer only 100 feet from our house. The explosion made a spectacular noise.

Jingles lit out for the hills and probably didn’t stop running, despite my repeated calls to her, for a mile or more. Her nerves were still on edge when she returned a few hours later.

She hated thunder even worse.

One summer night, as my father worked overtime, my mother loaded us all into the station wagon to visit another family. It had been raining, but no one expected the thunderstorm that was to come.

We left Jingles in her bed in the garage, and all was well.

Hurricane-like winds unexpectedly passed through the area that night — they toppled trees in a nearby community but did no damage to ours — and we were unable to return home until they passed. The storm lasted only 50 minutes or so and, afterward, the sky was clear and calm.

When we finally returned around 9 p.m., we found that Jingles had somehow opened the door that led from the garage into the basement family room and had proceeded to run through every room in the house.

Bedspreads were undone and pillows were knocked off couches and chairs. She had, apparently, searched every room with the hope of finding someone to comfort her. But with no one in the house, the poor creature surely cried and shrieked and fell to pieces as she raced from room to room in utter terror.

She went wild with happiness when we finally arrived home, and my mother didn’t complain, though there surely was dog hair throughout the house. My mother let her sleep inside with us that night.

But there were neither fireworks nor thunderstorms the day she disappeared.

None of us knew where she was and as darkness settled over the house, we were in a panic.

My father drove around for hours that night — well after midnight. It was the first time he was unable to find her.

Had she been hit by a car? My father called the police and animal rescue, but there had been no reports of any accidents or of people finding stray dogs matching ours.

No of us were able to sleep much that night. I remember lying in my bed, overcome by helplessness and agony, listening to my sisters sobbing in their bedrooms.

Truth be told, I did my own share of sobbing that night. In fact, it took me hours to cry myself to sleep.

***

I prayed I’d wake to find her back, but she wasn’t. I prayed that God would reunite her with us.

I rode my bike several miles from home, calling her name — I asked people if they had seen a mutt Collie — but I could not find her.

When my father got home from work, we drove around for several hours more, trying to find her — without luck.

By the third day of her absence, a tremendous funk settled over us — we feared we would never see her again. I continued looking for her — and my dad continued driving around at night calling for her — but Jingles was gone.

Before she left, our summer nights had been full of laughter, squabbling, the screen door opening and slamming shut. But now our home was filled with grim silence.

It never occurred to my sisters and I — we did not understand such things yet — how incredibly blessed we had been.

We had two parents who loved us, a clean home, a safe neighborhood, excellent schools. All of us were healthy — we had sound futures. In a world in which millions of children go to bed hungry at night, we had won life’s lottery.

Aside from our grandmother dying a few years before, we’d never experienced loss. We took for granted that our perfect world would always be so — that our mother and father would always be there, that Jingles would always be under those shrubs.

By that third day of her absence, our sense of loss and emptiness was becoming our new “normal.” We missed her desperately — we feared she was in pain or hurt — but we had done everything we could do to find her.

You can only cry so much before you lack the energy to cry any more, and we finally reached such a point.

It was a point of exhaustion — a point of desperation. We’d experienced many things in our family, but desperation had not been among them.

I lay down in our quiet, sullen house on that third night of her absence and tried to sleep. I could not.

I heard the faucet dripping in the kitchen, a couple squabbling a few blocks away, Johnny Carson’s monologue playing on someone’s television over the next hill…

I was numb to it all until I heard a familiar sound.

***
 

It was distant and muffled, but I heard it:

“Arrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!”

Was it wishful thinking? Were my ears were playing a joke on me?

I heard it again.

“Arrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!”

And then again.

I jumped out of bed and raced downstairs and out the front door. I was soon standing in the street, trying to hear what I’d thought I’d heard.

There it was again.

“Arrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!”

I saw, way up at the top of our road, something trotting under a distant street lamp. 

I heard the sound again.

“Arrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!”

It was Jingles. Her coyote barking grew louder as we began sprinting toward each other.

I met her in front of the Kerns' house and she jumped up to greet me. I was crying as I held her in my arms, the two of us rolling around under the street lamp.

She was covered with mud and burrs. She stank like she had never stunk before.

I didn’t care. 

The commotion caused neighbors to come outside — the Kerns, who’d brought Jingles’ sister home, were as happy as we were that Jingles had returned.

Soon, the rest of my family was awake and outside. We stood in our front yard, hugging Jingles, getting her stink and mud and burrs all over us.

My father laughed aloud as he chastised her.

“You gave us one hell of a scare, you dingbat,” he said.

She jumped on him and knocked him to the ground. He rolled onto the grass, holding her and laughing — relieved, as we all were, that she was home.

We still don’t know why or how or where she’d run off for three days. Did someone take her? Did she escape?

Or perhaps her disappearance had to do with some primitive need to run off and roam free.

I forgave her then. I forgive her now.

***

And I miss her desperately as I write these words.
 

When I suffered my first broken heart, I sat on the front steps, and she was right there with me, comforting me as I petted her belly.

She was always there when things weren’t going well, and her presence was always comforting.

When I’d come home from college, not having seen her for months, she’d rush out of the shrubs paws-first and tackle me, shrieking with joy as we rolled around in the grass.

Even after I’d left home in my early 20s — even as the years began to wear her down — she’d jump out of the shrubs to greet me every time I came home.

One summer night, when I was 24, she did not rush out to greet me.

She'd been in pain for months, arthritis developing in her hind legs. She’d been getting forgetful. She’d wander a few blocks away and be unable to find her way home.

My father would find her and bring her back. 

She didn’t always respond when her name was called. She was nearly hit by a car a few times as she wandered into the street.

She was having trouble getting up, the pain evident as she fought to stand.

We all knew it was time to bring her peace, but among us all, only my mother had the strength to do it.

My mother had made peace with Jingles years before — as my sisters and I got older and left the house, it was easier for my mother to keep clean.

My mother told us that Jingles was very peaceful on her last day. Jingles had always hated to ride in the car — that usually meant a trip to the vet — but she put up no fight that day. She enjoyed the wind blowing through her fur as she hung her head out the passenger-side window.

As Jingles lay on a table at the vet’s office, my mother stood by her side. The vet gave my mother some time to be alone with Jingles.

She petted Jingles and talked to her. She thanked Jingles for enriching our family and our home —- thanked Jingles for giving her children so many wonderful experiences and memories.

Jingles lay there calmly, her tail wagging, in her own way fully comprehending what my mother was communicating to her.

“It’s going to be all right, girl,” my mother said, petting her gently, as the vet returned to the room with a needle. “It’s going to be all right.”

Slowly, peacefully, Jingles left this world.

That happened nearly 40 years ago and it still breaks my heart that she is gone.

Though sometimes, as I lay down to sleep at night, I dream of a distant howl that brought me unimaginable joy so many years ago.

Good Old Neighbors
 

I drove through my old neighborhood recently.
It is like many suburban neighborhoods that sprouted up in the 1960s. Many of the people who moved there grew up in the city. All of them wanted big yards in which their kids could play. Many wanted to be near St. Germaine Catholic Church and its elementary school.
We moved into our new house in 1964, when I was 2. It was a basic, square house — brick on the bottom, white siding on the top — designed for raising children.
And there were a lot of children. I was born at the tail end of the baby boom. Neighbor kids were everywhere. The Gillens had four; the Bennetts, three; the Greenaways, four; the Kriegers, five ...
It was a traditional time, to be sure. Fathers worked and worried about the bills. Most mothers stayed home and worried about the kids.
But there was less to worry about then. Moms ran the neighborhood. Kids were free to play.
One summer, the fad was to make skateboards by nailing old roller skates onto two-foot pieces of 2-by-4. So many kids rode their skateboards down Tracy Drive, the pavement turned gray.
When the young families moved into their new homes, a lot of work needed to be done. Grass, shrubs and trees were planted. Concrete patios and driveways were poured. Porch roofs were built, basements remodeled into family rooms.
Most of the fathers were in their 20s then. They spent Saturdays helping each other. They enjoyed breaking a sweat and drinking a few ice-cold beers.
Most every decision these young parents made was based on the needs of their children. The principles they lived by were simple. They treated their children as little souls that God gave them to watch over. They wanted them to have a solid moral foundation and good education. Most of us attended St. Germaine School.
Despite the struggles these parents encountered — all people, rich and poor, encounter struggles — most stayed married. Most believed they would be together "until death do us part."
More than a decade ago, after my parents moved out of the neighborhood, they threw a party for the old neighbors in their new house. I tended bar at the event.
The last time I had seen many of these people had been more than 25 years earlier, when I was still a lad myself. At the party, I had a chance to learn about these good people.
Every person in that room was a child of the Depression who came from nothing. One told stories of how the row house he grew up in was freezing cold in the morning. He wouldn't get out of bed until he heard his father go down to the basement to fire up some coal.
Another told me that for nearly 20 years of his marriage, he worked three jobs — 60 hours a week — to keep up with the bills.
In spite of the fact that they hadn't saved much money and worried about their futures, they married young, had families right away and worked hard.
They scrimped and saved and gradually built a wonderful world for themselves and their children. And every one of them raised children who are all doing well in life.
These good people are in their 70s and 80s now. They're retired and living the good life. They have plenty to celebrate.
It was my honor to spend an evening with them.