CeeJay By Tom Kelly Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy. • Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) in Vice Presidential debate with Senator Dan Quayle (R-IN) 1988 A bout a year and a half year ago, I took possession of a tiny handful of squirming puppyhood, rescued from the traffic in the middle of U.S. Highway 167 which was under construction at the time in front of our former office building in Downtown Dodson. The puppy, which I estimated at the time to be no more than six or eight weeks old, had bolted from under the building next door, where his mama had evidently either given birth to her current litter of four, or five, or six, or had placed them for safe keeping while she foraged the neighborhood. Actually, it was Patricia Wendt, the Journal’s advertising sales manager, who caught up with the puppy, which ran headlong into the highway and into the hands of one of the construction workers who had picked him up and stood looking about, puzzling where the animal came from and whose it was. I was at the time still feeling very blue about the loss of my “One Good Dog,” Clancy, who finally left the planet after 16 or so faithful and interesting years. Clancy was born during my “desert period” in New Mexico, but he had the soul of a true Southerner—smart as a whip, gentle as a spring brook, and just ornery enough to be both interesting and frustrating at the same time. He feared both thunder and the sound of gunshot, so I never had to feel guilty about failing to train him as a hunter, which has never been a part of my repertoire of manly arts. And he was an aviator, able to fly over most fences not protected by electricity. As circumstance had it, the stray pup in Dodson was marked similarly to my former companion, Clancy—a slightly deeper chocolate brown over a white coat than Clancy’s auburn-on-white coloring, but close enough to evoke a recollection of Clancy’s baby days, when I held him, still damp from his birthing in the maternity section of our Las Cruces garage, the sixth and final of a litter from mama BeBe, who was Miriam’s faithful companion. Against good advice, I finagled ownership of the new puppy, installed him as a resident of our Dodson home, and undertook to try to raise him as an “office dog.” He was, of course, a puppy, with all the usual disgusting habits that puppies have. Soon he became persona non grata at the office, and was less than welcome at home as well. Nevertheless, I took him through the usual tour to the vet’s office for shots, worming, naming, recording of vital statistics: Name, CJ, (CeeJay) as in “Clancy, Jr.”, an improbably wishful mistake; Breed, Dodson Street Dog. Exactly so. And so it came to pass that CeeJay grew up, not without trauma, however. Clancy grew up as a member of his own dog family, in a pack which included his mama BeBe, with his older half-brother Pancho, and after the disposition of most of his own litter, with his full sister and litter-mate Nena. This probably had something to do with his gentle equanimity, but Clancy also seemed to favor a personal relationship with me, and I with him. CeeJay grew up after BeBe and Pancho and Clancy had left the pack, and Nena was in her dotage, ill tempered and snappish when confronted with CeeJay’s outlandish puppyness. Nena is now gone also, and it’s just CeeJay, and a female street dog that moved in with us without invitation or ceremony three or four years ago. This lady of the street looked enough like her beloved BeBe that Miriam adopted her. Name’s Guadalupe; Lupe for short, in the Hispanic manner. At first, Lupe was the Big Dog in the family, but it didn’t take CeeJay long to become a gawky, long-legged hound that made himself the Top Dog to the aggravation of everybody. Now that he’s master of all he surveys, CeeJay, like old Lucifer, goes about seeking what he may destroy—shoes, books, magazines, pillows, blankets; the list is endless. But alas, CeeJay has met his nemesis in a compact fuzzy little gray mama cat that moved into our space a few weeks back and delivered a litter of kittens, of which two seem to be thriving. The cat family is outside in the front of the house, where they sit and wait to be fed. CeeJay roams in a three-acre fenced back yard, but recently took out his aviator license and went airborne over the back yard gate, to harass the cats. But the mama cat huffed and stood her ground, turning him back. After I managed to put an extension on top of the back yard gate that has so far held him inside, CeeJay merely stands inside the front door and howls when I go outside to feed the cat. Clancy killed cats on sight. By the bushel. So, ask anyone; Ceejay, you’re no Clancy. But you’re my dog, dang it. After all, Dan Quayle was elected Vice President. And some thought he was a hound dog, too. |