Several comments about my post “That’s not my dog” made me to decide to visit Cass once more.

The first is what i wrote within days before i had to put him down. The second was my way of dealing with what has to be one of the saddest days of my life.

Cass’ ashes are part of the base of my flag pole at the top of our hill, looking over his domain. The pole went down hard in the February winds. i’m working on a newer, stronger version. It will go up, i just don’t know exactly when. But it will go back up. It’s a tribute to Cass.

Old Dog Gone

i am not sending this to you because i need solace or support. I do not want your agreement nor disagreement. i am sending this to you because i want to share my feelings at a critical moment of my emotional well-being. I want you to know how i feel because you are my friend.

My old dog will be leaving soon. It will be my decision as to when. i will take him to a clean, neat, well-lighted room, and hold him while these well-meaning, kind and helpful people inject him with an end-of-misery liquid. He will not know. i will. For the first time in my life, i will be in total control of the situation. It will be the most miserable day of my life.

Hell, i’ve had some pretty miserable days in my time, but without fail, part of the misery was because i wasn’t in control. This time it is totally my decision, although i will give time and age a partial credit. Worse, i must interpret how he feels about all of this, and for 15 years all i could figure out about how he feels is that he really does love me, he enjoys people and he is, literally, one stubborn son-of-a-bitch.

Now i’m not a pets’ rights advocate. My oldest daughter gets that from her mother, not me. And there’s nothing wrong with that either, especially for these times, but i do believe in the natural law of the animal kingdom. i also recognize dying is part of the scheme of things: damn near impossible to avoid. But here i am putting more worry into this old dog dying than some people worry about killing other humans.

Ole Cass is a fine dog, even noble. Even yet, he’s noble though the eyes aren’t clear, the legs are hobbled by big dogs’ bane, the ears don’t hear. He has taken to yelping to gain assurance that i am near by.

Have i mentioned he’s stubborn too? Won’t go like most dogs do. He keeps on hanging on, noble-like, never giving up.

But lord, what a magnificent, splendid, independent cuss of a dog he’s been, a joy for 15 years. Pain in the ass, sure, but a joy.

i never have owned him. Yeh, i bought him, even tried to train him. He took what he wanted and discarded the rest.

But now, he can’t tell me he’s ready. He can’t tell me the pain and the lack of freedom outweighs the benefits of breathing. i must interpret, act in his stead. There is no living will to guide me. He is not totally incapacitated, just enough so to require me to make decisions about his quality of life.

He has chased the rabbits, run over the possums, played with the coyotes, caught the polecat, outfought the doberman, body-surfed to the delight of the crowd, dug holes that would awe the “diggingest dog,” damn near caught the roadrunner. No more.

i am reminded of the last morning i spent with Ray Boggs, a hero in my mind. Ray was in his last day, and, despite the morphine that was deadening the pain, he knew. He was not big into big, dramatic productions, and i think that early morning talk with me was what he wanted. While i sat in the respond mood only, he began an engineer’s analysis of the curtain rod hanger around his bed. His static and dynamic breakdown was methodical, mechanically engineered, correct, and accompanied by my nods and grunts of agreement. He neared the coup de gras of rendering this curtain rod hanger a most ineffective product, when he stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “But hell, it’s only a curtain rod.”

So now i must deal with a curtain rod, when in certain moments it seems to be the hanger of the universe.

And it is all so irrelevant because soon ole Cass will be a good dog gone regardless of my decisions. And my life will be a bit easier but a bit more empty than it’s been in a while.

Then i will be able to deal with my belief that dying is a part of the life experience and that we must deal with our dying and other dyings as a consequence of living, not a tragedy.

It will be easy then, but not now.

Bonita, California
September 7, 1999

Cass Done Gone

a part of my soul left today.
the stubborn, ole cuss of a lab was more me than him
i worshiped the way he defied the world
until it no longer mattered.
some people told me
i would know when it was time.
i did not believe until
that silly old dog told me two nights ago and
told me last night it was okay.
he has been my mirror, my dreams, my soul
fifteen years.
i could tell him me like i can tell no other.
i am not ashamed of crying, feeling lost.
my granddaddy would scoff:
it isn’t the way it was back then.
there is an emptiness in my soul.
i am really not sure i’ll recover.
yeh, the pain will go in time;
the emptiness will be covered by events passing by,
but the hole will never be filled,
he was one of a kind to me.
he was me
he is gone.
i will bury his ashes at the top of the hill behind the house.
you can see the beach where he body surfed;
you can see the trails where he ran with abandon,
scaring hell out of coyote, rabbit, possum and birds alike;
if you turn around you can see the home he ruled
welcoming unknown people as if they were long lost friends;
taking on all dogs who foolishly entered his territory:
the doberman, the big shepherd, and all other intruders
stood clear after one encounter .

my feet feel cool now.
for most of his life, he would lie under my desk,
while i read, contemplated or typed with
his head resting on my feet.
the silence is awkward:
even in his sleep, he would grunt, wheeze,
kick the walls, chasing something in his dreams,
my dreams.

run sweet dog again;
pant with delicious tiredness after chasing the blues away;
scan the field with those keen sparkling eyes that
always read joy to me;
catch the next wave to bound into the bubbling surf
shake the misery with the salt wetness
from your coat of gold;
lick the face of someone
to give them unmitigated joy.

goodbye, sweet Cass.
goodbye, you joyful part of my soul.

Bonita, California
September 13, 1999

Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellars) was told that when he said, “I thought you said your dog did not bite,” in “The Pink Panther Strikes Again.” It remains one of the funniest lines i’ve ever heard in a movie.

It is also the way i think of Cass.

i have had dogs for pets, not as many as most, about six by my count. i have loved them all, enjoyed them all.

But Cass was not my dog.

We lived together for fifteen years. We played together. We walked together across the high desert lands. i chased him. He chased me (along with about every critter he ever came across). He body surfed while i watched. i carried him on my shoulders when he was too tired and refused to walk. The damages he caused are legendary, especially when it came to Maureen’s prized possessions.

i have more tales than most about Cass.

But Cass was not my dog.

i have had many friends. Still do. Many remain close. i hope they are not insulted when i say they are not my closest friend.

Putting him down, even though i remain certain it was exactly the right thing to do, is the toughest thing i’ve ever had to do in my life, and i’ve had to do some pretty tough things.

Even today, tonight, as i run across a photo of him, he remains not just my closest friend, but part of my soul.

But no, Cass was not my dog.

i wrote this in 1963. It initially seemed a bit strange to me as it sounds so much like my first experience with the Santa Fe Station here in San Diego, but i was not in the Santa Fe Depot until at least the 1980’s. Then i remembered. In early June 1963, my parents took me to Nashville’s Union Station. There was no train involved, but at the time, Trailways Buses had a station in the old depot. As a third-class midshipman, i took a bus from Nashville to Newport, Rhode Island. i could have flown but reasoned (well, may reason wasn’t really involved) i could take the money i saved and use it for other purposes. i blew it all. The bus went through Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and probably several other places. i left Nashville noon Saturday and arrived in Newport around 7:00 am, Monday morning. There are a couple of other stories around that trip. But i’m sure this poem was generated by a scene in one of the bus stations on that trip. i’m thinking maybe Louisville.

A Lonely Thing

the huge room with the high ceiling was virtually empty;
the loud speaker’s bark echoed with a hollow ring;
the black night air was forlorn, almost chilly,
the bus’s muffled roar was a lonely thing.

the old man with ragged shoes sat down in the wooden seat,
his odor was of the musty, smoke-filled air;
he picked up the butt of the nickel cigar and caressed it,
lit up and stroked his long, near-mangy hair.

the huge archaic clock showed it to be early morning
as the speaker throated huskily once more,
the old man arose, straggled out of the entrance;
alone, he gazed back through the glass-paned door.

i am now beginning to post poems i posted before the great crash and were lost or i never put them out there. i hope you enjoy them as most are different from what has been on this site…i think. i wrote this one in 1962 after being dumped by someone. i was a romantic then and must confess i haven’t changed all that much.

Do You Know

Do you know
the whole world is dark,
but there is light in the sky?
something inside
indescribable
brings peace but no calm;

Can’t you feel
the world around?
it’s appalling
to know you are alone;

Is there anyone
who feels the same you feel?
all in the world
must feel something similar.

See the red barn;
the barn is red;
the sun sparkles off the tin roof
painted black with
white letters broadcasting
“See Rock City;”

let us go to Rock City and live in the world of wonderment.

It is late.

This country is pretty much put to bed; its celebration weekend is over. The revelers, aka drunks, like the ones laughing, talking too loud, chugging them down at the nineteenth hole this afternoon, have worn down, gone to bed worthless after celebrating in a sad, sad way for folks who died for them.

The patriotic made their speeches, placed the flowers and inappropriate mini-flags by the gravestones of the fallen warriors, who may or may not have given their lives for our country, but just died after serving, but they died and served nevertheless; so i guess it’s okay.

i sit in the dark thinking about friends i know who died for us.

i think about how it happened and how we get all discombobulated with the hype
surrounding what should be quiet reflection and thanks to those who bought the farm, a term i don’t think many who were not there then now understand what it meant  when the warriors created such a term.

i am not a hero; i served just shy of a quarter of a century pretty much driving ships.
i remember ’69 at the Red Mule in Norfolk with Doc, the hippie’s contribution to Navy officers when he said, “Gonna volunteer to go to ‘Nam.”

And i said stunned, “What the hell are you talking about, Doc?

“You are a hippie, a peacenik, against the war.”

And Doc said, “Well, i’ve been thinking about it, and our parents had World War II. It was their war, and whether we like it or not, this one is our war, and i want to be a part of our war.”

“Makes sense to me,” i replied, which, of course, made no sense whatever, but the next day i called my detailer to tell him i wanted to go to war, to Vietnam, and just to prove what an idiot i was, i told him “i want to be a “GLO.”

“GLO” is the Navy acronym for “Gunline Liaison Officer” who, with no sense at all, goes forward of the forward lines, spots enemy targets, and calls in the gunfire or attack aircraft.

My detailer is excited. You see they didn’t get a hell of a lot of guys volunteering to get their ass shot off. And then he says,” “You’ll have to extend your active duty for two months.”

i say “What the hell?”

And he explains there is two months of training to be a GLO, and that would give me only ten months in country, and they (that magic unknown “they”) require you to be in country for a year, so you would have to extend your active duty obligation for two months to get that year in.”

And i say, “Bullshit. You want me to extend for two months to get my ass shot off? i don’t think so.

“What else is there?”

And i go on to what else there was, which was riding a ship, watching over the Koreans we carried to Vietnam and back.

That was a long time ago. Yesterday, i thought about it. After all, yesterday was Memorial Day, when old sailors think about things like that, and had i gone, there’s a damn good chance we would have been honoring my dead ass had not that two-month thing stuck in my craw.

So you see, those folks we honored yesterday, who gave it their all, were just like us. Some were super patriotic and felt it their duty to put it on the line. Some were born to take life to the bone edge, risking it all, not for glory necessarily, but certainly inclined to get the adrenaline rush. And back then, some went because it was before they rolled numbers, and if you weren’t in college or a reverend or banged up in some way, chances are you were going and you went.

And some died.

That’s war, no matter what we call it. Some die. Sadly with the evil in this world, some have to die. For us.

So we take a moment and honor them for dying for us. Or at least, i hope most of us took that moment away from all the frills of a holiday. i hope most of us put our political bullshit aside, and had a quiet moment of respect for those who gave us their all, regardless of how they got to their end.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn’t their end, because they died for us so they live with us.

i hope.