FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #21
Here we are again….. just you and me and the fire. Boy it’s nice to be here with my steaming hot strong coffee heating the inside of me while the fire does it’s thing on my back side. It’s a good thing I don’t have to go to work today, ‘cause I’d sure hate to give up my spot this morning. Just look at it out there…. every tree and bush and blade of grass is covered with ice. That poor ole birch tree is bent over like a willow. It reminds me of that poet, Robert Frost, talking about the birches bent to the left and right, and how the bent boughs never ever right themselves. Then Rex asks me what’s a poet. And I tell him that a poet is a person who describes the obvious in a manner that is sometimes hard to understand….. but this Frost fellow makes it easy to understand what he sees…. Say, did I tell you about the other night when I went to this meeting with Mama….Rex says no, but he bet that I was going to tell ‘im….. Well, I was given a note pad and was asked to list the ten most significant events in my life… Wow…. and what I think is amazing is that I actually did that. Oh, incidentally, no offense, but your arrival on the scene wasn’t one of the significant events. It was really interesting to reflect back at all the things that I had survived that makes me what I am today….. whatever that is….. You’re the same way..Think about all the significant events in your life.. Remember when you were a little pup and you rolled in that mud hole and got completely covered with mud. And if you remember that, you will recall how I grabbed you and gave you the coldest shower in your life while you cried your eyes out. I know that was a significant event, because you have never repeated that incident….. And look at me… I told you about that time I was in the Navy anchored in the Whang Poo River in Shanghai and drank that awful whisky that was purchased off a sam pan, and I got so sick that I thought I was going to die……I didn’t die….and just like you, I haven’t repeated that incident….. I haven’t touched whisky for the past 52 years. We all learn from our experiences….. the good ones and the bad.. I guess one of the goals in life is to have have more good experiences than bad ones, and I believe I’ve been blessed with an abundance of good ones, like being a HS jock, the Navy, college, getting married, 4 great kids, ,teaching, super camp experience, running an asphalt business, and best of all is having a loving wife who tolerates my huge cache of weaknesses….. I’ve lived through some real bad stuff, but that’s what life is all about. Most humans make mistakes, and travel down paths that turn ugly…. but the survivors learn to read the signs of bad roads and avoid them….. I’m a survivor….. An old one….I hear from a lot of people who say things like, “boy, it’s a bummer getting old”…. but I don’t agree with that. I think it’s great. You see, Fellow, when you’re old you have full time to enjoy a whole batch of significant events that you may have missed when you were “making mistakes” walking the wrong paths…. Hey, guy, I just realized that I’ve been doing all the talking this morning. Yey, says Rex, and it’s kind of boring….. Ok says I …… what do you have to say….. and Rex says ?…. “let’s eat”… Sounds good to me.
And so it goes,
Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #20

Gee, it’s been a long time since we’ve been alone by the fire. Sometimes our lives get ahead of us and we don’t take time to communicate with each other. And I really like to talk with you in this setting because of the mutual respect we share. I don’t yell at you and you don’t growl at me. Oh, by the way, ya know the other day when Sue brought you that huge bone…whenever anyone got within four feet of you; you let out this horrible growl. Where in the world did you ever learn to use such a mean growl? Hey, think it was great! You should use that growl when robbers come around the house. Humans have words just like you do. We call them “fighting words”. Words, or in your case, growls can really be devastating. When a human says mean words to another human, those words can dig in a create turmoil within, similar to a broken bone. And fighting words can transform a normal human into a destructive machine. That’s the job of the military. You know what today is? This is Election Day. And that means that the last four months or so all the candidates have thrown “hate words” and “fighting words” towards each other that make your worst growl sound like a kitty purring. They have lied and cheated and tried to make their opponent look bad. These candidates are supposed to be the best humans that are available to lead the rest of us and yet they behave like (I hate to use the expression) animals. Now tomorrow, when the results are in, the losers congratulate the winners and try to say something nice about them. And the winners will say great things about the losers. But neither side will apologize for saying all those evil things that they said about the other. So that’s one of the things I like about you. I have never hear you growl at one of my friends. And I try to show you respect by not giving you a hard time except when it deserves. I think people, and especially candidates, could learn something from us. Let’s go have breakfast.
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #19
You’re looking chipper this morning for a guy who couldn’t get to sleep last night. I knew you wanted out when I heard you growling and barking, but when I opened my window and smelled that skunk, there was no way I was going to open the door for you to go out there and make a fool of yourself again. You should know by now that when you see one of those little fellows teasing you, that they mean business. Remember that time when you had to spend the night in the barn because of Mr. Skunk? I’ll bet the horses and the cats laughed at you all night long. Ya see, you big dummy, one of the things that you have to remember in life is that when you see a situation when you are going to make a fool of yourself, you avoid it. You don’t fraternize with skunks…….. You don’t jump up on people period, unless it’s me. You avoid the big room……. In general by now you pretty much know your place and what you can do and what you can’t, or shouldn’t do. Hey, we people are no different….We know our place……. A couple weeks ago this charming lady calls me and asks me if I want to go to a party. Sure, says I…..I love parties. Where and when are the next questions….. She says “it’s a shower for Marge, and the husbands are invited……There is deep silence by me…… She says “are you still there?”…. I tells her to think who she’s talking to. Says I, “If you were going to have a party for a girl who’s having a baby, and you wanted to make a list of people that you wanted to invite, just where do you think I would be on that list?”. Her answer is that all the husbands will be there. Sure they will…… By the way, Big Fellow, whenever you want to get under the skin of a female when she asks you to do something that you don’t necessarily want to do, just call her a “girl”. I guess when they get to be at some age that nobody knows,except them, they want to be called “women”. You know, like they call those little girls that romp around in the gymnastics room “women gymnasts”. If you were to jump up on one of them, you would turn her into a doily…….Well, anyway, the party was last night, and I didn’t go. Mama went alone, and remember, you and Stan and Dick and I had a real good time right here. And we didn’t sit around unwrapping little frilly things that you and I have never seen….. The trouble is that this gal who called me, somehow convinced all the other wives to invite their husbands……. and you wouldn’t believe it, but all the other husbands attended…..They didn’t give in very easily. Ole Val went up in his room and pouted and the only way his wife could get him to go was to threaten him about giving him a hard time whenever he wanted to do men’s stuff, like going to the track, or bowling, or going down to the strip bar for a table dance or two. And I don’t know what that Sandy did to Roger to get him to go. Somehow all those wives got together, and managed to talk their husbands into this event. I guess Mama was out in the garden or the barn when they organized against us, which is the only thing that saved me. So I state right here and now, that real men don’t go to showers…… they take them.
Let’s you and me go have a real man’s breakfast of thick coffee, bacon, sausage, eggs. and a cup of grease on the side…….Sounds O.K. by me says Rex……Oh, by the way, thanks for listening this morning.
So it goes,
Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #18

Good morning big guy! I noticed you slept pretty hard last night. What do you think? Are you getting old or something? Then he tells me that there are some days that his bed feels so good that he just doesn’t want to get out of it. I know the feeling, I tells him. So we both lay there a while quietly, waiting for the sun to decide whether it’s going to come out or not…and he tells me he’s hungry. So what’s so unusual about that? I’ve never seen you when you weren’t hungry! He says that all he can think of is that lamb cake sitting there in that fence waiting for someone to cut into it. You must be talking about Vera’s Little Lamb that she made for the festival last week. You know, the one she entered in the cake contest and she didn’t even get an honorable mention. And you think you’re going to get to eat it? You probably were out chasing butterflies when she talked to me about Lil’ Lamb. Here’s what she wants me to do. I have to go out in the garage and make a casket for Lil’ Lamb…and not just a pine box! She wants a real casket made out of mahogany…you know, stained and all that stuff! And then she wants to have a funeral out in the yard under the old oak tree. Hey, I’m not done yet! She wants a tombstone…for a cake! I think she’s losing it! But, if that’s what Mama wants, then that’s what Mama gets. You and I will have to go to the lumberyard and get us some mahogany and then go out in the garage shop and go to work this morning. But, I have a great idea for you! Just before we place Lil’ Lamb in the casket, you should grab the back leg and she won’t ever be the wiser. I can’t think of a better treat for you than a leg of lamb to go along with your dog food. That really sounds good to me, says Rex. Let’s go have breakfast so we can get an early start.
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #17

Wow, it’s been a long time since we have had a chance to sit down and visit “one on one”, just you and me. What with all the family visit, you were just too busy to talk with me. You had to run around and see what Isaac and Eli were doing…and then it was Gregg and Malisa. Remember all the treats the kids gave you? I really liked the way you reacted to little Isaac when he told you to “sit” and “stay”. Here you were, about three times the size of almost four year old Isaac, and when he told you to sit, you just flopped down and cooperated with him. You could have just as easily picked him up by the seat of his pants and told him to sit down. You two really became good friends. And then Rex tells me that he’s heard me use that term friend a lot and he asks me what it means. So then I have to do all through this language thing with him. I tell him that when you meet people for the first time, they are an acquaintance. And when you have a brother or sister, they are family. But a friend is someone really special. You see, I tell him, a friend is someone you know really well. Now when I say really well, I mean that you have to know a lot of bad things about them. And now we come to the important item of what a friend is…you have to accept the bad things that you know, as well as the good. Hey, this isn’t an easy thing to do, but when you can sincerely overlook the evil in a person, they become friends. Let’s take the case of Herm, the Worm. I know so many evil things about that man that he could easily become a candidate to the Hall of Shame, but so what? You overlook it and concentrate on the good stuff. Of course, that isn’t easy either (just kidding). People have lots of acquaintances, but usually they don’t have a lot of friends, I mean truly friends. This is because we get turned off when we see someone doing something wrong and we don’t invest the time in finding the good parts. Acquaintances can be short term, sometimes lasting only a few days, but friends are life long. You can be away from a friend for long periods of time, and then when you see them, you just pick up where you left off. Friends are probably the most important commodity in a human’s life because you have to earn friends with an involved commitment, but you can buy most of the other things you need in life, like cars, houses, food, appliances, but you can’t buy friends…you have to earn them. Ya see, Big Fellow, I look at you as a friend because of all the good and bad things I know about you. And I still think that you’re a pretty good guy and I hope you think the same about me. Rex thanks me for clearing up this friend thing and says, come on now, let’s eat!
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #16

It’s nice in here this morning, but why don’t we go out on the porch and I’ll have my coffee and you can have one of those fake bones laced with candy that you’ve been raving about. Great, says Rex. Say, you ought to try one of these bones. Naw, says I, you stick with your food and I’ll stay with my good ol’ bacon and eggs. Rex asks me where Mama went so early this morning, and I tell him that she had to go early this Sunday morning to help set up the breakfast for Fathers’ Day. Not another special human day, says Rex. What in the world will be the next one? Well, tell me about Fathers’ Day, he says. I tell him he should know about Fathers’ Day because he also has a father. Well, the idea of Fathers’ Day began way back in 1909 with a Spokane woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd, who thought that fathers should be honored the same way mothers are honored. Her dad was born in June, so Sonora chose June 19, 1910 to be the first Fathers’ Day in Spokane, Washington. But it wasn’t until 1972 when Nixon (I told you about him a while back) established a permanent national observance of Fathers’ Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. This one of the things that old Nixon did that was pretty good, but people don’t remember him for good things, they only remember the bad stuff. Rex says that he doesn’t remember anything about his father. Hey, I says, a lot of humans don’t remember anything about their fathers either. And some humans who do remember their fathers wish they didn’t because they remember negative things about them. You see fellow, a human mother or father is a person who has the potential to possess all of the negative attributes available to humans, like unfaithfulness, alcohol and drug addiction, being a bully, or in general, just not being a nice person. Hey, you dogs have the same kind of problem. I know some dogs would just as soon bite you as look at you. So the short of it is that if you are lucky enough to have a good father, you are in good shape because there is just nothing as great as having a good dad. A dad can be the most influential person in an individual’s life. He’s the guy that you want to tell the good things you have accomplished, like good grades or good deeds. A dad can teach a child how to throw a ball, or catch a fish, but this is just a way of becoming good friends. The real thing a dad teaches is values. You know the difference between right and wrong. It’s sort of like you and me. What do you mean by that, asks Rex? Well, just like now, me telling you about this Fathers’ Day. And when I had to tell you about the danger of chasing cars, and trying to turn Herm’s car over, and not biting people. Someone had to teach you all of those things. And I had to teach my boys about drinking, smoking, cheating, and in general, how to be good people. Sometimes I could teach by being real nice to them, but sometimes I had to act like I was real mad at them, one time I had to spank one of my boys for doing something real bad, and my hand hurt for a full day, but it worked because that bad deed was never again repeated. Rex asks me if I ever had to spank my daughter, and I said “never”. Just like I said before, if anyone has been fortunate enough to have a good dad, they can consider themselves the luckiest person in the world. Just remember no one has ever chosen his father. Let’s eat!
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #15

Let’s not build a fire today and we can just lay here and talk. Great, says Rex. So Rex asks me where I disappeared to yesterday? I tells him that I thought he was getting a little nosey. But if you really want to know, I went over to the lumber store and bought a porch swing. Porch swing, says he. You have two swings already. You have one on the front porch and one hanging in the maple tree in the back yard. Ah ha, says I. So we do have two swings, but we don’t have one under the apple tree and that’s the perfect place for a swing. Rex asks me if that has anything to do with that song he has heard me singing for the past couple of days. I tell him that as a matter of fact, it does have something to do with that song. Way back during the “Big War”, a whole lot of songs became popular and that’s when Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree was sung by the guys who were away at war. You see, the fellows didn’t want their girls to sit with anyone but them. So the poor girls had to wait until the war was over before they could sit in swings that were under the apple trees. I heard of a few girls who were so desperate that they had their swings taken down from under the apple trees and put under other kinds of trees so they could sit in the swings with other fellows…and not get into so much trouble. Let’s go have breakfast now and right after we finish, let’s get the swing out of the garage and take it out to the orchard and install it under the apple tree before Mama gets up…and then we’ll surprise her. You and I will get Mama, you on one side licking her hand, and me on the other side with my arm around her, and we’ll walk out to the barn and sing “don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, anyone else but me”, and then we’ll show her the new swing! Hey, I know she’ll like it!
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #14

This is getting unreal. Here it is, the end of May and we are still having fires in the morning. When, oh when, will it get to be summer? That sure was a good funeral yesterday. As a matter of fact, I think it was the best funeral we ever attended. Rex asks me if a funeral is like when people get real sick? Naw, getting sick is a lot different than getting dead. You ought to know about getting sick, the way you messed up our rug the other night. So Rex wants to know what’s the difference between getting sick and getting dead. So I tell him about how when he went out back in the pasture and ate that awful stuff that he shouldn’t have eaten, Mother Nature made him sick. Mother who, he asks? Your Mother Nature, you dummy! All living things have a Mother Nature…even trees, worms, tadpoles, everything. She tells the trees when to they need water, and she helps worms find food, and she tells tadpoles when to lose their tails. Mother Nature makes you sick when you eat the wrong stuff. And you should have learned not to eat that stuff, but you did it again and she made you sick again. She made you so sick the second time that you learned! Mother Nature is a wonderful person who is incredibly busy. I wonder if she ever has time for herself? You can get sick many, many times during your life and still not get dead. Mother Nature works miracle after miracle to make her subjects better. Hey, look how she took care of Grandpa Barn Cat when he was injured. But sometimes things get so bad that even she can’t keep her subjects alive. Like when Sally accidentally steps on a worm, or when a fly splatters a windshield, or in the case of that unfortunate 39-year old man who while driving and automobile at a high speed, hit a tree. Now getting dead is when you don’t breathe anymore. And you only get dead once! The whole purpose of living is to not get dead. Now, do you understand this funeral stuff? Yeah, I think I do understand about getting dead, but what about this funeral stuff? Well Rex, here’s what happens when you get dead. Your best friend, wife, or someone who isn’t dead tells everybody that you’re dead and a time is selected for everyone to gather around and they talk about you. And there is a lot of food available, like beef, turkey, ham, three kinds of bread, potato salad, three kinds of Jell-O, desserts, coffee, pop and beer. Wow, says Rex! I’d like to attend the next funeral. Say, how come you wait until the person is dead before you throw such a great party? It seems to me that you ought to have a party for the guy while he’s, as you say, still breathing! Hum, says I. Let’s go have breakfast while we’re still breathing.
So it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #13

Well, here we are again. It sure is good to look out the window and see all the green. Seems like summer just suddenly appears, sort of like turning to another channel on the tube. Vera and I will be gone a little while this morning. We’re going to Dexter to see the Memorial Day parade. Rex says, what’s that? What’s that, says I. Do you want to know about the parade or what? Rex says he wants to know about this Memorial Day. Is this another day where you people kill something, like a tree or a turkey, or even an egg? Naw, says I. This is a day when you remember something. We don’t physically do anything. This day was set aside to honor those who died in our nation’s service. We used to call this day Decoration Day, but now we call it Memorial Day. Shoot, this has been going on since May 30, 1968. Rex says that people die every day, so what’s this thing about honoring people who die? So I says that we don’t honor just anyone who dies, we honor those who have died while fighting against other men who try to tell us how to live our lives? Wait a minute right there, says Rex. Let me get this straight. You yell at me for playing rough with Corky, and now you tell me that if someone tries to tell you how to live your life differently than the way you are accustomed, you try to kill him? And if the other guy kills your guy, you honor your dead guy? Well, no, says I. It’s not that way. See, we in America have what is called a “free society”. We live in a way that provides us freedom to pretty much do what we want to do and sometimes other countries get a little jealous about us and come over here and threaten to take our freedom away. And if they get too pushy, we have to defend ourselves. Rex looks up and says he gets it. When another country wants to tell you to cool it with this freedom thing, you all get together and talk about it over donuts and coffee and settle it. Well, says I, not exactly. What we do is build tanks with guns, airplanes with guns, boats with guns, and then we just build guns for guys to hold. When these countries get too pushy we just show ‘em who’s who. Hey, we got to defend ourselves! Those other countries have guns too, ya know. Ol’ Rex just lays there this time. He says he can hardly believe what he’s hearing. The Rex sits up and he tells me how he wouldn’t bite anyone for anything, even if they were trying to get his food. He said that he would probably growl at them and maybe even bark to scare them off. But he says that we humans just look at someone and try to kill them. I can’t believe you people! You even set aside a day to honor all those people who have died while trying to kill other people. Ol’ Rex lays down and shakes his head slowly back and forth. And then he says so quietly that I can hardly hear him. Boy, I’m sure glad that I’m a dog! I can see he’s pretty upset, so I say to him, hey Big Fellow, don’t take it so hard. Sometimes even I find it hard to be human. Let’s have breakfast.
And so it goes…Gordy

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH REX #12

Wow, who would have thought we could have had a nice fire this morning on the day after Mothers’ Day. It’s 28 degrees outside and for this time of the year, that’s as cold as a copper toilet seat in the Klondike. So Rex asks me why I didn’t have breakfast with him yesterday and I told him it was Mothers’ Day. Then he gets this blank look on his face as if to say “so what”. And I have to go through whole thing of telling him about Mothers’ Day and how for the last 45 years or so, the Men’s Club of St. Pat’s Church has prepared a breakfast to hone the mothers of the parish. No dogs allowed in the dining area, but the mothers bring just about all the rest of the family including grandmas and grandpas, and sometimes even an uncle who went bad. The men who put this thing on don’t have to work so hard at it because they have done it so long it’s just sort of a yearly routine. Each guy knows what he has to do on this day, so he just does it. Leo gets the eggs, another guy gets the sausage, someone gets the butter, baked goods arrive, fruit makes its way, everything just happens. The same guy seems to get what he is supposed to get and he keeps on doing his job until he can’t do it anymore. Once in a while someone moves away, but usually the reason he doesn’t do his job is because he dies and then someone else takes his job and he does it until he dies. What’s that?, asks Rex. Oh, I forgot you don’t know about death. You’re so busy living and moving around all the time, you just haven’t had time to learn about what happens when someone stops living. And how could you learn about death? The other day I told you how Grandpa Cat didn’t show up for meals for four days and I told you he was probably dead. But then he comes dragging in all beat up for his dinner. Hey, I’ll have to spend time on this death thing at another session and then I’ll tell you about the nine or so lives of a cat. I think barn cats have about twenty lives. So back to this Mothers’ Day…don’t you remember how your mother took care of you when you were a little puppy? How she sacrificed herself to feed you and your brothers and sisters. That’s why we have a Mothers’ Day. We set aside one day from the whole year to pay tribute to all the mothers. Boy, I wish my mother was still living. I tell you, I would never let a week go by without calling her, just to hear her sweet voice. And I’d try to do some things for her that I know she never had a chance to do when she had her five girls and me to take care of. I’d take her to a concert to hear great music, and to musicals, and I’d gather one thousand one dollar bills and put them in a paper bag and tell her to spend them on herself. And most of all I would tell her secrets that only she and I would know. Oh well, it’s too late now. But it’s not too late for breakfast. Let’s eat!