E G O S P E W

Grendel was a sweet, large black dog with three serious character flaws:  she was twice my size and scared the liver out of me, she chased and bit postmen, and she left soft fecal piles that were inevitably my demise when playing in Charlie Creamer’s long sloping isosceles back yard.  Charlie was my best friend.  His father was the college chaplain.  His mother, Donna Reedlike in patient exasperation while raising her independent-minded rebel-in-progress, was generous with the paper towels and never winced at the smell.  Charlie and I were faculty brats.

I attended second grade while Charlie forged way ahead in third.  He was loudly protective of Grendel and vowed to save her from the evil arm of the Postal Law — which besides swinging aggressive chains and aiming spray repellant at her eyes, also threatened to have the monster agressor impounded.  Charlie’s grand plan to placate the authorities involved his molding her a muzzle out of clay in art class.  This seemed like a fascinating project, but to my unsophisticated mind, stretched the limits of materials properties, not to mention, art.

My last and most intense vision of Grendel and Charlie is this:

We were walking across the college campus (as faculty brats are wont to do) towards the new dorm construction that would result in Sherrill Hall.  (For any ancient alumni reading this, calibrate your mental maps.  My topographical recall is infallible.)  On our left was the recently completed chemistry-physics building and on our right was “South Dorm”, one of three early-’50s belligerently-rectangular brick edifices lining Pulteney Street.  Charlie, Grendel and I were meandering southward, considering a traversal of St. Clair Street to check out the construction site for the future dorm.  It was a hot summer Sunday with nobody much around. Moreover, there were limitless cinder blocks, wooden planks, deep pits, drying concrete, wet mud, and enormous worker wasps to investigate.

Grendel, gifted as most dogs, gathered our intentions and took the lead, cantering across St. Clair.  At the same moment, an enormous old Plymouth sedan had turned the corner from Pulteney, driven by a senior member of the faculty (I’ll call her Miss Murdoch) and accelerated up St. Clair, unaware of our intentions or trajectory.  Grendel bounded ahead, directly in front of Miss Murdoch.  The car’s domed hood was so high and Miss Murdoch so tiny behind the wheel that she never saw Grendel.  Meanwhile, Charlie and I, frozen at the curb, held the perfect perspective to observe every detail as the car rolled slowly at Grendel.  

Directly in the Plymouth’s path, she was overwhelmed by its mass.  But, being so old and towering, the car also had large wheels, high axles, and just enough space for Grendel, cowering and yelping, to crouch down as the car moved over her, its drive shaft spinning against her fur.  Miss Murdoch never had any idea, never heard Charlie’s screams or Grendel’s protests, and off she drove in total oblivion. 

Grendel emerged as the rear bumper passed overhead, very ruffled, a bit oily, but intact.  She exploded back to full height and, at top speed, headed back past us, terrified, straight for home.  Charlie took off in pursuit.

I started to follow but realized I couldn’t run before attending to a frequent sartorial affliction.  “Charlie, wait up!  My shoelace . . . I have to tie it.  Hold on!”

“No-o-o!  I can’t!  I have to go . . . ” Charlie wailed over his shoulder.

How could he abandon me?  I just have to tie my shoe. 

So I stood, watching the black streak of Grendel disappear into the distance, cutting diagonally across the quad, and Charlie running the fastest I had ever seen, after her.

A: Genetically speaking, it is considered poor form.  Except they’ll effing breed anything with anything, just to increase the anythingness.  Originally, somebody decided to cross a Labrador Retriever and a Standard Poodle, to do what . . . make a poodle that would snag dead birds or a lab that required a beauty shop?  Personally, I think they did it just to legitimize a fun name: Labradoodle! It does tickle the tongue, indubitably.

Whoops, I just found this reference regarding their supposed origin:

“In 1989 Wally Conron of Kew, Australia, began crossing Labrador Retrievers and Standard Poodles to create the Labradoodle because he wanted to have guide dogs suitable for blind people allergic to dog hair.”

Well thanks, Wally, Mr. Socially Responsible Aussie.  Make me feel like a schlumpadoodle.

Q: Relations
So here’s a little brainteaser for you Mensa wannabes.  One of these things is not like the other.  Which, and why?  (And when will the Internet get scratch ’n’ sniff?)

Harrigan	Labradoodle	Monopoly Piece
Tibetan Terrier	Hybrid	Boomer Commercialism
Honda Insight & Owner
Hybrid

A: Okay, it was kind of a trick question. Sorry.
There are several Venn categorizations and relationships applicable, especially when you split the Insight and its Owner into separate entities.

• Three are comprised of meat and bones and two of metal and space-age polymers.
• Three are marketed to Boomers.
• One is marketed to tree-huggers.
• Four are the product of hybridization.
• Two are related directly to me (via blood or adoption).
• Three are dogs yet two are old dogs — the latter only partially intersecting the former.
• Five are cute.

Q: Mendel, Marx, Morphology

Considering dominant/recessive factors of Buddhist monks and Australian missionaries, what would you get if you crossed a Tibetan Terrier (A) with Labradoodle (B)?
This would result in a:

1. Tibelab Terridoodle.
2. Labrat Toodletan.
3. Tibetadood Terrilab.
4. Doodbet Ribrala.
5. All of the above, plus one of every other breed.

A: How many words can you form from BEATLES?
[That'll keep you busy.]

(1992) 

A 3-1/2 year old denizen of this city, my Tibetan Terrier Harrigan, on our customary midnight walks, has learned who belongs on his streets versus that which is alien. He passes countless curbside trash cans, cardboard cartons and garbage bags (tied into a pair of cute little bunny ears) with little more than his normal canine curiosity. Even tumbleweed plastic sacks blowing down the street and garbage-rifling bottle-redeeming homeless people no longer warrant a second glance.

Among the silent apparitions which, by contrast, have deservedly prompted a sudden round of baying were:

1. A 15-Foot-Tall Yellow Ditch-Digging Caterpilar Machine Towering Dinosaur-Like, Asleep in the Street
2. An Abandoned, Shadeless and Extraordinarily Hideous Table Lamp, Awaiting Its Next Owner
3. A Suzanne Somers Thighmaster

I am prepared to control his natural instincts to attack at the appearance of dogs three times his bulk or the occasional aggressive feral cat. But on a particularly quiet evening I was startled by the alarm he raised at beings unknown ahead. My New York nerves screamed “Mugger Alert!” What hooded figure was about to jump out from between the parked cars or darkened stoops?I followed Harry’s lead cautiously as the leash sang with tension and we approached the threat. Rising from the curb 20 yards ahead, amid the normal refuse, was a large empty Gateway Computer carton. (In order to convey their South Dakotan origins, Gateway uses white boxes printed with irregular black spots, cow-fashion.) Harry knew that this cubist black and white animal he had never seen before and it certainly was not native to his New York.

I praised his vigilance, then let him come to terms with the spotted box, lifting his leg in enviable expressiveness, and add it to his roster of the rare, but benign.

This has been an absolutely true story.

I am proud that this account was published in the September 1997 issue of “Animal Tales”, the magazine of the Humane Society of Prince Edward Island, Canada.