The other day at the library I was looking for books on outside living spaces. Skimming through one of the books I came to a page that had kids playing with a dog on a redwood deck.  It got me thinking about the pets I had when I was growing up and whatever happened to them? When I was growing up I can’t really say that I had my very own pet. My dad had his dog, Buddy; Kaye or Grandma K.K. had her horse Domingo, dog Peeko and cat Dolly, but for me, we had the family dog. Our first family dog was Sparky. A black, long lagged dog with white spots and a tail that was always waging.  When dad brought Sparky home from work he was already 5 or 6 months old, one of the men Dad worked with brought Sparky to work, if Dad hadn’t brought him home he would have ended up in the dog pound.  Before the leash law some of the dogs in the neighborhood would run around the streets just like us kids. If you didn’t want the strays around you then you just threw rocks at them until they went away; most of the time it worked!  Sparky ran around with Corky the dog next door. For being dogs I guess they were best friends. One of the games they played was tag; Sparky or Corky would pick up a stick or a rag then take off with it, the other one took chase, they would run and run until one caught the other or they just keeled over in pure exhaustion after a short rest they would start again. Just like the dogs us kids had games too. One of the games was follow the leader on our bikes. It was always a lot of fun, in and out of drive ways, over curbs, around parked cars and so on. On this particular day five or six of us were playing follow the leader going as fast as we could on our bikes. About this time Sparky and Corky were playing tag running all over the place  back and forth across the street, under bushes and around cars………… I think I’ll stop here for just a moment and ask you this question, have you ever heard this story? There were only two cars in this one horse town and they both ran into each other. Well guess what?  Kids on bikes, dogs running across streets, SMASH, BANG, CRASH.  As I picked up my face from the curb Corky and Sparky were getting up as will. Then both of them sat down and looked at me.  Then suddenly they both took off, I don’t know if it was the blood they saw on my face or what, but they were gone.  After three stitches, and a couple of days, things got back to normal and us kids started riding and the dogs started running.  As the years went by I can remember other times as well. Sparky once got a cold and Dad rubbed Vicks vapor rub on Sparky’s chest to help him breath better, then Dad put one of his T-shirts on Sparky to keep him warm; it looked pretty funny. Another time Sparky and I were in a parade in Portland Oregon in the Hollywood district; I was made up like a Viking and Sparky was made up like a clown. Sparky had a pointed party hat on and a tutu around his neck. It was a lot of fun.  Sometimes we would wrestle I would pretend that Sparky was a big bear or a giant wolf. We had some good times for a family dog. Then one day the people next door moved to Ohio and Corky went with them. Sparky’s best friend was now gone and no more playing tag.   Not long after that Dad came home with the company pickup truck and told me to get Sparky, Dad loaded Sparky up into the truck and off they went.

When dad came back he was driving his own car, and no dog. I asked dad, “Where’s Sparky?” Dad said he took Sparky to a farm ware he could run and have fun.  It was a sad day for me!  I never saw Sparky again and dad never gave me another answer. Looking back years later I think dad new about the new leash law and he also new Sparky needed to run.

     Our second family dog was Rusty the muscle bound dog; the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Dogs. This dog had more muscles than any human on earth. This dog could do 20 pull ups, nonstop on a fence, and he could climb a tree like a cat. If only Rusty had a cape he could have flew. Rusty was another dog Dad brought home from work. Rusty was probably two or three years old when we got him, like Sparky, Rusty already had his name. I don’t know if having big muscles for a dog is bad or not but Rusty always had to prove that he, not only, had the biggest muscles but also that he was the toughest. Any time Rusty got around any dogs bigger or smaller Rusty had to beat the tar out of them, I think Rusty thought it was fun or he was just a bully! After school it was my responsibility to take Rusty for walks, but the truth be told, it was me that got the work out. Rusty liked sports too. He like playing catch and fetch the ball. One day my Dad and my brother Rick were playing catch with a hard ball. They were throwing pretty hard back and forth; Rusty was sitting there watching the ball when suddenly he jumped up in the air and tried to catch it. The ball hit Rusty in the head and knocked him out. In boxing the term is out for the count. Rusty was also a good swimmer. When we went fishing at the lake Rusty was always in the water. One day we went fishing on the Clackamas River. Rusty had never been to the river and the water was moving very fast. Rusty was sitting and enjoying the water when all of a sudden he jumped in. The river took him down stream bobbing him up and down like a cork. Dad and Rick dropped their fishing poles and off they went to save Rusty. A half mile downstream they finely caught up with him and pulled him out. Rusty shook it off like no big deal. In our back yard we had a giant weeping willow tree. The kids on my block and I used this tree as a place to hang out, we even built a platform to stand on; it was pretty cool. In order to climb up the tree we nailed wooden runners on to the tree trunk for a makeshift ladder. It worked really good, maybe a little too good; before we knew it, Rusty was up in the tree too. Rusty with all his muscles would get a run at the tree and climb and pull himself right up into the tree with us with no problem; around 15 feet. The problem was, once he was up in the tree he couldn’t get back down. We built a wooden box just big enough for him; then we attached ropes and made a makeshift pulley to lower him back down. This worked well. Then a different problem started. Rusty started going up into the tree when no one was home; he would be up in that tree for hours at a time. Eventually when we returned home, there would be Rusty looking down at us with a big smile on his face. We knew that we had to do something so we covered the bottom three runners so he couldn’t climb up any more unless someone was home. Problem salved. Then early one morning around 2:00AM we all heard this awful sound coming from the back yard. It was so loud and so terrifying it not only woke us up but the neighbors too. We were all looking out the windows trying to see what was going on, finally Dad got brave enough to go out and take a look. Peeping through the window I saw Dad with his flash light looking around the back yard, then the light shined up in to the tree. Then we heard……..  Rusty! How did you get up there? We think Rusty probably saw something in the tree and went up after it. Realizing he couldn’t get back down Rusty started making this strange scary sound. Then I saw Dad climb the tree, put Rusty in the box and lower him to the ground. After Dad was back on the ground too he took off the bottom three runners. As far as I know that was the last time Rusty was in that old willow. As usual, time keeps going, the tree got cut down, I grew older, moved away, and got married, For Rusty, he grew older too and passed away on his bed in the corner of the garage.

Grandpa Tom