by asc
Edited by J. WARNER
So here’s the subjective and biased story as I like to tell it. You will have to pardon me, but some parts of it might be true.
So my wife wants a dog. In my mind I am old enough to have been dogged at least 6 or 7 times in my life and that should be sufficient. I have really liked living “dog-less” for the last several years. However, my wife has a magic spell over me, and after 30+ years of a wonderful marriage it’s hard for me to ever say no to her, especially since she rarely says no to me, only when it’s called for or I am really out of line.
So I wince, and say okay but this time we are going to have some rigid rules!!!
Rule # 1.
“I’m never going to clean up after the dog”!
Rule # 2.
“I’m allergic to dog hair, the dog stays outside”
Rule # 3.
“If the dog needs to be walked, I’m not to be expected to walk it, ever”
Rule # 4.
“You must always feed the dog because I don’t have time”!
Rule # 5
It must be a fairly small dog – not over 25 pounds.
If the truth be known, at this point, I have no, (zero) interest in dogs period!
The little woman, (my wife, she’s 6’ tall), say’s: “not to worry I will do all of those things and by the way, our new dog, (whom we haven’t even gotten yet), her name is Callaway!”
Now we know how clever my wife really is because:
• My favorite pastime is golf.
• My golf clubs are Callaway’s
• I have 5 golf caps that say “Callaway ”
• I have “Callaway” golf shirts and jackets
and.. my favorite golfer of all time is Phil Mickelson who is a Callaway spokesperson and now a “Hall of Famer”
• She says we are going to adopt a “rescue dog.” What the heck is a rescue dog?
A St. Bernard with a little keg of “hooch” hanging around her neck?
Let the process begin!
We look at a zillion photos of rescue dogs over the internet. “This one’s too big, this one’s too small, this one looks like my Aunt Minnie”. No one in our house likes our Aunt Minnie!
Finally, we see “the perfect dog for us,” Little Callaway, AKA Pepe, a male puppy, is a “rescue dog,” (keg of hooch not included) from Ensenada, in Baja California. Callaway, not exactly a Mexican sounding name but suitable for me as I hope to teach the little guy how to play golf. I don’t play golf very well myself, but I was told recently that my game was going to the dogs.
The adoption is all set: All we have to do is drive to the “big dog city” to the church of the Open Dog House, I’m not kidding, the Mother superior of the Rescue Dog Mission is an ordained minister. This all works for me because as I get older I think of being closer to my god. My dyslexic friend Otto, says there is no doG, but I disagree and I hope for a closer relationship as time goes by.
So, the big day has arrived and we see Pepe, Callaway or Callaway Pepe, as you will, for the first time. He’s a handsome puppy with a head too big for his body and big feet to match his big head. This dog is not going to be little and will probably weigh close to 100 pounds some day.
We couldn’t ask for a more handsome dog, he looks like a cross between a Golden Retriever and Adonis, the Greek god. Everywhere we go people ask what kind of dog is he? (He definitely looks masculine and “he-ish”). Some of my best friends are “he-ish”. They, ardent admirers, and some people who just want to make small talk, I hate small talk – ask: What kind of dog is “it”? First of all, it isn’t an “it” He is a living, breathing, precious, little being! Anyway, I don’t want to tell them that I don’t really know, so I usually tell them that he is a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian or Great Dane. Besides, it all depends upon what your definition of what “it” is!
He kind of looks like a dog out of one of those cartoons in the newspaper. Do you remember the newspaper? We didn’t always wrap fish in it, before the Internet, we used to read it every day and depend upon it for all of our in-depth news. As Pepe Callaway, might say La Prensa es muerte! ( I digress)
So, how did the cartoon thing come into being?
True Story! We all know that there is a story behind most everything, don’t we?
So, here is the true story, as I perceive it. I ought to know as I am the one who is making it up as I go:
I am an “Early Bird.” I hate that term, as it connotes old people who go to dinner early to exploit a restaurant’s lower prices. I think that it makes me look like a real “cheapskate”. I usually get up about 4:00 AM every day. My wife, on the other hand, is a later sleeper. (She would be a “night owl” if I would let her, but I do let her sleep in until 7:00 AM on a “good” day.)
So, I have all of this free time in the AM and I get this clever idea of leaving her an endearing little note every day on the bathroom mirror. So, that’s what I do.
The 3M company, who I believe invented the Post It Note ™ is my preferred vehicle of conveyance for these wonderful, creative, not so wonderful and not so creative, “pearls” of creative genius or not, depending upon one’s own point of view! ( We call them “Stickies”)
After I write 754 “endearing notes,” for a couple of years, I take a break for a day and “wife,” as I call her , endearingly, asks in her usual polite and somewhat beguiling way, “I didn’t get my sticky note this morning”
That means she’s been reading them after all! I hope I haven’t made any commitments that I can’t ever keep. I’m sure that I must have at one time or another in writing close to 1000 or so of these little notes.
So, as you can see, I use the word “so” a lot, I decided to draw little images.
(I was an art major my first couple of years in college). So, here I go again, it doesn’t matter if I wasn’t very good at it, because they are only little cartoons that I put on the bathroom mirror that only my wonderful, accepting, wife will see.
Anyone who knows her agrees, she constantly humors me and my dalliances with creativity.
By my own admission, my first efforts were “awful” but I vowed to strive to a higher goal, of at the very least, “abject mediocrity”
“When the going gets tough, I’m inclined to wither up and quit”
Not really, but I have always wanted to say that. Well, (a new transition word to replace “so”) it seems that the little cartoons are a nice addition to the little sayings. The artwork still stinks but, after all, I was an art major, and nice people usually won’t say anything much if they don’t like it. They just look at me in a pathetic manner, implying, you “poor soul” “what did you learn in school?”
So,! (I’m back to using the word “so” again. In fact, I really like it), I now am writing the little messages with drawings (unskilled cartoons).
I begin to take “liberties” and say “edgy” things. My new nickname becomes “edgy” and I start taking “pot shots ” at the establishment. My wife starts to ask:
“You really didn’t say that did you?” “You really don’t want to say that do you?”
Well, (my new favorite word to replace “so”) wouldn’t it be better if I had “an alter ego” to speak for me? Alas the emergence of “Callaway” the imaginary, almost, dog! Dogs can say anything and it’s okay. In fact dogs can do almost anything: grunt, groan, burp, pee, rip up your very best baseball cap and people will say: Oh, (not”so”) isn’t that cute?
Wella Wella!! Hence, the creation of “Cal.”
Cal can say anything, within reason and get away with it. The rest of the story is unremarkable history. Cal needed a friend to bounce off his less than thought out ideas and just about that time he met Lulu at the dog park. Lulu, a petite, young English Bull Terrier, (Callaway has always been captivated by a British accent) clearly was the most beautiful, drop dead gorgeous female at the Dog Park and he became smitten with her immediately! Hence, the “unholy alliance” with the “Lu,” as she , Lulu, prefers not to be called.
There you have it, in a conch shell, the rest is history: Cal led to Lulu, they both needed friends, the friends needed a safe place to reside and with the stroke of a pencil, a pen, and a computer keyboard, the birth of a community: DOGiCITY.™ We hope you like it, as it brings us a lot of simple pleasure in some “not so simple times” ASC
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