Here’s a Saturday pic taken on I-35 in Oklahoma, heading north.

http://www.ericwilder.com

While browsing through a local used book store I came across a cookbook titled Simply Creole Cajun by Floyd J. Babineaux (Cookbook Publishers, Inc. 1986).  The lucky find was signed and inscribed by the author and it contains many wonderful recipes.  Chili might not seem like a Cajun dish but I assure you that it is eaten all over Louisiana, and this recipe might just change your mind about its origin.

CHILI MADNESS

(Original bowl of blessedness)

Whenever I meet someone who does not consider chili a favorite dish, then I've usually found some one who has never tasted good chili.  No other food has inspired the passionate following that this dish has.  Chili lovers come from every walk of life.  This recipe is straight from the Cajun and a very proud chef who modestly claims it is the world's greatest.  It is unusual, containing no onions (you may add onions, if you care to), but instead ingredients like gumbo file and chicken fat not ordinarily associated with Chili.  Try it sometime, when you are in an exotic mood.

This brew simmers for a total of 12 hours so as the Cajuns say, “You be sure and have plenty of cold beer on hand.  First off, before anything, open yourself, a few beers.  Now you know you can start.  Good luck Neg!

6 lb. beef brisket, coarse chili grind                   4 ground hot red chili

1 Tbsp. ground mild red chili                             1 tsp. cayenne pepper (Rex is the best)

2 Tbsp. dried oregano (preferably Mexican)      8 medium cloves garlic, crushed.

4 bay leaves, crushed                                        1 tsp. gumbo fillet (ground sassafras)

3 Tbsps. ground cumin                                      3 Tbsps woodruff or 2 oz., unsweet chocolate

1 tsp. paprika (you can add more to make        1 Tbsp. salt or salt to taste

chili a darker red)                                            

1/3 c. bacon drippings                                      2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. lime juice                                             1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard.

2 Tbsp. Masa Harina (corn flower).                  4 (12 oz.) cans beer

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce                           1 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. chicken fat                                           Liquid hot pepper sauce (Tabasco a must)

Okay Neg, time for another beer and get the pot out and call the friends.

Combine the beef with the ground chili, carib, cayenne pepper, oregano, garlic, bay leaves, gumbo file, cumin, woodruff, paprika and salt.  Heat the bacon drippings in a large heavy pot over medium heat.  Add the meat and spice mixture to the pot.  Break up any lumps with a fork and cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is evenly brown.  Stir in the remaining ingredients (including the chocolate), if used, and the chicken fat and liquid hot pepper sauce.  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered for two hours.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  (Add onions, if you like. I do.)  Simmer uncovered 10 hours or longer, adding more beer or water and stirring as need.  Skim off fat before serving.

Cajun tips: brown meat to gray-looking before adding any spices.  You can also add a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes.  Talk about good!!

http://www.ericwilder.com

The Paseo Arts District in Oklahoma City has seen a revival in recent years and the Paseo Arts Festival, a fixture of Memorial Day has led this resurgence.  Marilyn and I attended the festival and I am happy to report that it is alive and well.

The day started out cloudy.  While the temperatures were in the eighties, the weather was still pleasant.  As we left the house we were only worried about rain.  The rain never came in Oklahoma City but the sun did.  By two it was hot and humid but bearable because of a nice southerly breeze.

The past week has seen a record number of tornadoes in the state and today was no exception.  Somehow, Paseo and Oklahoma City managed to dodge the bullet.  Marilyn and I had a wonderful time and I took many photos.  Here are a couple of pics.  For more pictures of the festival, please visit my website:  http://www.ericwilder.com

I began watching Steve McQueen on TV in the 60s.  He played bounty hunter Josh Randall in the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive.  McQueen was one of a kind.  There has never been another leading man before or since that could portray his depth of emotions with little more than a blank expression that conveyed more depth in silence than any other actor can summon forth with every word and gesture they have.

McQueen never appeared in a bad movie but my favorite is The Great Escape.  He has the courage to defy the Nazi’s and escape from the concentration camp on a captured motorcycle.  When he jumps the tangle foot wire, the evil Nazis in hot pursuit, you know without being told that this is a man of substance.  Hopelessly tangled in the wire, he awaits the hoard, still defiant, playing with a baseball, the silent symbol of American resolve.

Tonight I was listening to Dusty Springfield, my absolute favorite diva.  She was singing her cover of Windmills of Your Mind from McQueen’s film The Thomas Crown Affair (watch the original and not the remake).  The song is pure poetry with words and music by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and Michel Legrand.

Here are the lyrics and I beg you to listen to Dusty’s version.  If you’re not yet a fan, you will be.  Hey, and please take my advice and catch a few old McQueen flicks.  You’ll be hooked too, I promise.

WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND

Like a circle in a spiral,
like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that I said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circle that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

http://www.ericwilder.com

            "No place like it in the world."

            "Wyatt, you just like it cause it's free."

            "It's not free.  I paid a dollar, didn't I?"

            "I paid the dollar," Carla said.

            Despite her chiding, Carla had a grand smile.  When I put my arms around her, she leaned against me, resting her shoulders on my chest.  "You know what I really like about the ferry ride?"

            "Being with me?"

            "No, the river is like a giant, powerful being.  I feel more alive out here than any place in the City."

            A passing tug's whistle signaled proximity to the docking point and we hurried downstairs to the lower deck.  After rolling off the ramp we parked the car at a dockside meter, needing it only for the return trip to the City.  The ferry had made its last run for the night.

            Everyone knows about Jackson Square and the Cabildo but there are places in the Big Easy tourists rarely see.  The Jazz Palace is such a place and Jazz isn't the only language spoken there.  Musical tastes, ranging from hip-hop to zydeco, are eclectic in the City.  Tonight it celebrated the blues and one of the premier blues men still alive and performing - Snakebite Thompson.

Mama Tujugue, owner of the Jazz Palace, had scheduled him for a single performance.  A performance I'd waited twenty years to see.  Anticipation shadowed our steps as we tread the waterfront boardwalk to the Palace where dozens of blues fans had already gathered.  They crowded into the converted warehouse as we arrived, hoping to secure a table close to the stage.  Mama Tujugue met us at the door and let us in without charging admission.

            Mama Tujugue, her fine features highlighting the best aspects of all the many races contributing to her origins, topped six feet in stocking feet.  Her very existence was an anomaly of life in the old South, more specifically, New Orleans.

            Old New Orleans' hierarchy embraced gradations in race.  People of mixed blood often occupied places of special prominence.  They even had names for these gradations.  A mulatto was the offspring of one black and one white parent, a quadroon one white and one mulatto.  There were dozens of distinctions - sacatron, octoroon, griffe and marabon, to name just a few.  They all specifically described mixtures of blood.

            Now, Mama Tujugue was simply a beautiful New Orleans business woman.  Show business and she didn't mind accenting her heritage to play to the crowd.  Tonight her bright yellow peasant dress ballooned from waist to ankles.  In the matching turban that crowned her precisely coifed head she could easily have passed for a famous New Orleans lady, circa 1750.

            Mama led us to a table near the stage where a local group was murdering their rendition of Basin Street Blues.  Carla ordered an Abita, local amber beer brewed across the lake in Abita Springs.  I made do with water.

            The Palace was a converted warehouse, cheaply renovated to highlight music and not architecture.  Jazz posters and Mardi Gras banners, draping exposed rafters, provided the only decoration but no one seemed to mind the seediness.  A half dozen harried waiters and waitresses hustled to serve those gathered for the occasion.

            Shortly after midnight, Snakebite's band took the stage.  Crowd tempo quickly turned from raucous too frenetic.  The band launched into a finger and lip-limbering number.  They ended with a drum solo that brought down the house.  As applause streamed from the audience, Mama Tujugue sent over more Abita for Carla and lemonade for me.  When overhead fluorescence dimmed, the room became totally silent.

            Amid suspense-heightening darkness the drummer rolled out an expectant beat, the bass man joining with a slow three-note riff.  Then, from somewhere on stage, vibrato strains from a throaty electric guitar immersed the room in sound.  It caused a wave of applause to swell through the crowd.  The spotlight, beam narrowed to a circle of blue, slowly enlarged, focusing on a point near center stage.

As the music grew louder, along with growing applause, Snakebite Thompson's face appeared behind a gooseneck microphone.  His closed eyes and pock-marked cheeks combined in a contorted grimace, exposing the depth and pain of some unknown despair.  Original black enamel, chipped but untouched, coated the old Fender strapped across his shoulder.  We watched, trapped in a timeless hypnotic trance, as Snakebite launched into Cruel Woman Blues, his scratchy voice dueling with a pulsating melody produced by the throaty electric guitar.  Applause erupted from the audience.

            What a stylist.  He was more than I expected, far exceeding his recorded performances on cheap vinyl.  Snakebite Thompson was real, his effect momentous, but what occurred next sent us all into communal shock.  A gunshot, fired from somewhere in the darkness, resonated through the warehouse and Snakebite's resultant scowl went without notice, at least until he dropped the guitar and clutched his chest.

            The single gunshot awoke the audience from its trance and no one waited around for the inevitable second shot.  Rising in unison, they piled through the door, along with every member of the band.  Well, everyone except Carla and me.  Thinking better of charging into the line of fire, I wrestled her to the floor and under our table.

            Wyatt, was that gunfire?"

            Not answering her question, I rushed instead to center stage where Snakebite lay writhing on the floor, clutching his chest, blood pluming from beneath his hand.  Anticipating another gun shot, I dragged him behind an electric speaker.  The second shot never came.

            Wailing sirens, echoing from across the river, moved toward us.  When they arrived the old warehouse was almost empty.  It didn't stop a dozen cops from bursting through the doors, pistols drawn.  Rushing to the stage they grabbed my collar, threw me face-down against the floor and crammed a shoe into the small of my back.  One big cop almost yanked my arms from their sockets as he cuffed me.  Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax and ignore the cocked .38 pointed at my head.

            "He didn't do it," Carla said, lunging from under the table.  "He only tried to help.  The person who did it is up there."

            All eyes followed Carla's finger as she pointed toward the balcony.  I even managed to wriggle around and take a look myself.  That's when I saw the woman standing there, a smoking pistol grasped firmly in her hand.

            Jimmy Don O'Rear was the burly police detective investigating the shooting.  He was young, a full thatch of red hair covering his big head.  He wasn't smiling and he had the

look of a man that rarely did.  He ordered his men to uncuff me but I could tell they didn't like his orders.  Still, they did have a prime suspect holding a smoking pistol.

            Although situated across the river, Algiers is a precinct of New Orleans.  A sedate precinct compared with the others.  Jimmy Don O'Rear seemed like a good cop with something to prove but I wasn't sure exactly what.  Maybe that he was every bit as tough as his brothers across the river.  It made me wonder as Carla and I watched O'Rear's men cordon the crime scene with yellow tape.

            Snakebite cursed a blue streak when paramedics loaded him on an ambulance bound for Charity Hospital, across the river.  At least he was still alive.  Now everyone's attention focused on the woman in the balcony.  Jimmy Don's men quickly had her in cuffs.  Carla and I followed him up the stairs, along with Mama Tujugue, upset and becoming increasingly unable to contain her growing frenzy.

            "How long will this take?" she finally demanded.

            "Till we're done," Jimmy Don said.

            The detective's accent was a strange blend of North Louisiana redneck and Irish Channel patois, but he was all business.  At the moment the only business worrying Mama Tujugue was her own.

            "Well you better get done mighty fast," she countered.  "Tomorrow's Friday, my biggest day.  I got a zydeco band coming in all the way from Breaux Bridge."

            Mama Tujugue's announcement failed to impress Jimmy Don.

            "Save it for the Padre.  We may finish up Monday."

            “No way, my banker will own the place by Monday."

            Jimmy Don halted, returned Mama's harsh stare and held up his hand.  "Get off my case, lady and let me question the suspect."

            At the mention of the woman in cuffs, Mama Tujugue looked at her for the first time.  Appearing to do a double-take, her mouth gaped and hands dropped to her sides.

            "Geneva!"

            "You know this woman?" Jimmy Don asked.

            "She’s Geneva Thompson.  I've known her all my life."

            "Thompson?  Any relation to the victim?"

            "His wife," Mama Tujugue said.

            Jimmy Don exchanged a knowing glance with his second-in-command, a blue coat sergeant with snowy white hair beneath his police cap.

            "Sarge, it looks like we have a motive," he said.

            "Geneva wouldn't hurt a fly," Mama Tujugue said.

            "Well apparently she did."

            O'Rear broke away from Mama Tujugue's stare, turning his attention to Geneva Thompson.  "Anything you want to tell us?"

            Geneva Thompson was an attractive middle-aged woman, shorter and darker than Mama Tujugue, but about the same age.  Mama put her arms around her and they both dissolved into tears.  Jimmy Don waited until they regained their composure, and then cleared his throat to remind Geneva of his question.

"I did it.  I shot my husband," she said.

            "Now wait just a minute," Mama Tujugue said.  "I didn't hear anyone advise Geneva of her rights."  Mama cast Jimmy Don and the old sergeant a look that could kill before continuing her angry tirade.  "I'm not a lawyer, but I suggest you do it right now and forget what Geneva just said."  With a harsh glare at Geneva, she said, "Now lady, you keep your mouth shut.  Not another word, you hear?"

            Through her tears, Geneva whispered, "I did it.  I did it."

            That's all Jimmy Don and the sergeant needed to hear.  Nudging her toward the stairs, they prepared to haul her away in the patrol car.

            "Wait a minute, Detective," I said.  "This woman didn't shoot Snakebite."

            All eyes were suddenly on me.

            "Who are you?" Jimmy Don said, squaring his hips and staring down his Irish nose at me.

            "Wyatt Thomas.  This woman is innocent.  If you had eyes, you'd see it yourself."

            "Look here, wise guy.  I got a suspect with a motive and a smoking gun.  What do you know about anything?"

            "He's a P.I. across the river," Carla said, elbowing her way into the fray.  "He's forgotten more about crime than you'll ever know."

            Jimmy Don eyeballed Carla, then looked at me and sneered.  "Most P.I.'s turn my stomach.  If you don't have something concrete to add to this investigation, then get out of my way."

            "This lady didn't do the shooting," I said.  "A Government sharp-shooter couldn't have made that shot from here.  It came from the right side of the stage."

            Jimmy Don glanced down at the fallen microphone, a good hundred feet away and considered my remark.  "How the hell would you know where it came from?"

            Carla didn't give me a chance to answer.  Reaching beneath my jacket, she yanked the shirt loose from my belt, exposing the ropy layer of scar tissue on my stomach.

            "Cause he knows what it's like in a fire fight.  Can you say the same, Detective?"

            Jimmy Don studied the scar a moment and said, "Gunshot?"

            "You can see it is," Carla said.  "Now do you believe him?"

            I didn't let him answer.  "The bullet caught Snakebite just below the heart, in his left side.  Someone standing off-stage shot him but it wasn’t this lady, at least not from here."

            "Then what's she doing with the pistol?"

            "I don't know, but you might find out by having your men take a look down there."

            "Who has access to that part of the building?" Jimmy Don asked, looking at Mama Tujugue.

            "Band members and their families," she said.  "A corridor leads to the stage from the dressing rooms.  There are several tables at stage side for family members to watch the performances without dealing with the crowd."

            Jimmy Don tapped the sergeant's shoulder and nodded toward the exit near the right of stage.  "Tony, take some men and check those dressing rooms."

            Sergeant Tony bounded down the stairs and disappeared with a group of policemen along the darkened corridor leading to the dressing rooms.  They soon returned with a woman, a much younger version of Geneva Thompson.  Streaked mascara and a puffy face revealed her present emotional state.  Before she could speak, Geneva Thompson blurted another confession.

            "Baby," she said.  "I'm sorry I shot your daddy."

            "You know each other?" Jimmy Don asked, directing his question to Geneva.

            "She’s Enid, my daughter.  And Snakebite's," she added.

            I didn't miss the knowing glance exchanged between Geneva and her daughter, nor the implied instructions of silence it carried with it.

            "We found her hiding in the closet in one of the dressing rooms," Sergeant Tony said.

            "What were you doing in the closet, Miss Thompson?" Jimmy Don said.

            "My name's not Thompson, its Barnett," she said, earning another admonishing glare from her mother.

            No one missed the glance this time, including Jimmy Don O'Rear.  "Is this your mother?" he said.

            Momentarily chastised into silence, Enid Barnett only nodded.

            "Then Mr. Thompson is your stepfather?"

            Enid nodded again as tell-tale tears began streaming from her eyes.  Outside on the river, a passing tugboat blew its mournful whistle.

            "Leave her alone," Geneva Thompson said.  "She's grieving because I shot her father.  I've confessed to the shooting and now I insist you take me downtown, or whatever you do with criminals."

            Jimmy Don shrugged, glanced at Sergeant Tony and pointed toward the stairs.  "You got a point, lady.  Who am I to argue?"

            Sergeant Tony nudged Geneva Thompson toward the stairway and Jimmy Don started after them, but stopped abruptly when I said, "Wait a minute."

            "I don't have time for this, P.I.  We've had four hundred murders since New Years and I've worked my share of them."

            "But she couldn't have made the shot from here," I said.

            "Maybe she shot him there and ran up here to get away.  Maybe her daughter saw her do it and hid so she wouldn't have to finger her mother.  Whatever, I have a confession and a smoking gun.  Unless you can convince me in thirty seconds or less I got the wrong shooter, then stand back and let me do my job."

            Jimmy Don's soliloquy started six feet away from where I stood but ended with the hulking detective standing six inches from my face, his own red from anger.  When he finished, I waited until he took a deep breath and stepped back a pace.

            "I'm savvy.  I know you are doing everything in your power.  No one's blaming you or the Department for the murder rate.  I just see no sense in you booking an innocent woman."

            "I didn't twist her arm for the confession."

            "Maybe she's pulling the old wounded bird trick on you."

            Jimmy Don gave me a crooked look, but said, "What the hell are you jabbering about?"

            "Where a mother bird feigns a broken wing to draw a predator away from the nest."

            Jimmy Don's eyes closed and he took another deep breath and I held up a finger to prevent him from cutting me off.

            "What if Enid shot her stepfather?  Geneva saw her do it, followed her to the dressing room, took the pistol and had her hide in the closet.  Then she went as far away as she could get.  Right here on the balcony.  She held up the pistol so everyone would think she did it."

            Jimmy Don's big arms folded tightly against his chest, but he was obviously considering my story.

            "What's the motive?"

            "Anger?  Jealousy, maybe?  Help us, Mama T.  You know Snakebite.  Why would his stepdaughter want to shoot him?"

            "Snakebite's the kindest gentleman I ever met.  Wouldn't hurt a fly, but -"

            "But what, Mama?"

            Mama Tujugue looked first at Geneva and then down at the hardwood floor.  Another tugboat whistle pealed across the river before she finally spoke.

            "Snakebite's a womanizer.  Chases anything in skirts.  Always has.  It's a game with him."

            "Even his stepdaughter?" I asked.

            By now, both Enid and her mother were crying.  "I'm sorry," Enid said, clutching the older woman's neck.  "You always forgave his running around, but I couldn't let him do it to both of us."

            Sergeant Tony released the cuffs from Geneva Thompson without asking and quickly transferred them to Enid's wrists.

            "Mama," I said.  "Call your lawyer and go down to the station with Enid.  Carla and I will give Mrs. Thompson a ride to Charity."

*          *          *

Later that night we drove across the Greater New Orleans Bridge to Charity Hospital, Geneva Thompson huddled alone on the back bench of Carla's Mustang.  Carla's attempt at small talk sounded more like exhausted babble.  It didn't matter because Geneva had too much on her mind to respond.  My own brain had numbed to near total shutdown.

            Even at this hour barges and steamers plied the busy river.  Jazz and neon beckoned tourists on Bourbon Street.  The crime we'd witnessed was of no great consequence.  No more than a family squabble compared with the rapid spread of violence and burgeoning murder rate in the City.

            Great Babylon, President Andy Jackson's wife had called the Big Easy.  Maybe so, but it's still home of the greatest free ride in America.

END

http://www.ericwilder.com

Life on other planets has always interested me.  The first human hasn’t visited Mars yet (unless you believe the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs) but we now have a robot spaceship there, taking samples.  I think it’s wonderful!

Mars Lander Flexes Robotic Arm - AOL News.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Several years ago when my step-daughter Shannon was living with Marilyn and me, she brought home a big black Rottweiler.  She is a sucker for animals and according to Marilyn, was always bringing home a stray dog or cat, or bird with a broken wing when she was young.  She hasn’t changed and now has many dogs, cats, guinea fowl and horses on her eleven acres in Logan County.

The Rottweiler’s name was Chuckie.  He was big and black with white and tan markings.  He was around ten years old and had belonged to an old woman that was going to a nursing home.  There was no one else to take the dog and if Shannon hadn’t come along the only other option was the pound.  Shannon moved to other digs shortly after bringing Chuckie home.  Even though she dropped by regularly to take care of him, much of the feeding fell upon Marilyn and me.

Chuckie was old but he was an imposing animal, weighing in at well over one hundred pounds.  We have a large pen on the north side of our property and Chuckie took to it right away.  I was a little afraid of him and we sort of got off on the wrong foot.  The first week that he was here, I went into his pen to fill his water bucket with the hose.  It was after dark and I’d had a few toddies.  After filling his bucket, I turned to leave the pen only to find my way blocked by the big dog, his teeth barred as he emitted a low-throated growl.

I thought that I was a goner but walked slowly toward him and said, “No Chuck, you sit,” as sternly as I could muster.

Chuck didn’t sit but he did stop growling and let me move past him without tearing my arm off.  I learned the next day that Rottweilers are territorial, and that before being adopted by the old woman, Chuckie had lived with a man that often beat him when he got drunk.

“He doesn’t like men,” Shannon told me the next day as she arranged his food bowl and water bucket closer to the fence so that I didn’t have to go into his pen.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said.

From that point I was determined to make friends with the giant dog.  Every morning when I went for my morning paper, I would stop by his pen and give him treats.  Every day when I got home from work, I would take him treats.  Soon, he would jump up on the fence and let me rub his ears

The first time it rained after he moved in with us, I looked out the window and saw him standing in his pen, getting soaked.  Considering the time that I had spent in the boonies of Vietnam getting rained on, I decided that he needed shelter – the sooner the better.  I had a six-foot length of wooden fence in the yard so I lifted it over the fence and made a quick and dirty lean-to.  I covered the structure with black plastic sheeting to shield it from the rain.  Within minutes, Chuckie got under the lean-to as if he had lived there all his life.

When Shannon visited she would let him out of the pen and allow him to run around in the back yard.  During these times, I improved Chuckie’s lean-to by adding cedar chips.  Before winter arrived I got him a big dog house and he loved it.

Soon, I was comfortable enough with the big dog to let him out of his pen even when Shannon wasn’t there, and I was happy to learn that he was just a big overgrown puppy.  When I sat by the pool, he would rest his large head on my knees and let me rub his ears.  He also liked to swim in the pool.

Shannon often took him with her during the day.  He loved riding in the back of her truck, hiking with her and swimming in the nearby lake.  Chuckie had found a home but that is not the end of his story.

Chuck had lived with us a couple of years when we noticed that he had a tumor on his belly.  We watched it for awhile and could tell that it was growing.  Shannon’s vet finally told her he needed to remove it.  He did and Chuckie was in horrible pain for what seemed like hours.  He wouldn’t lie down because of the pain in his belly, despite the efforts of Shannon and Marilyn to soothe him.  Finally the pain killers kicked in and he fell into an exhausted sleep.

The operation worked, at least for awhile.  Chuckie was more energetic and responsive during this time and I have little doubt that it was the best days of his life.  The tumor stayed gone for around two years before recurring.  This time it was much worse, Chuckie had grown quite old for a Rottweiler and was also suffering from hip problems (a common genetic trait of Rottweilers).

Chuckie’s health soon began degenerating at a rapid pace and it was obvious that he was in constant pain.  One day, Shannon took him for his last ride in the back of her truck to their favorite hiking trail by the lake.  The old dog could barely walk but it enjoyed lying in the shallow water one last time.  Finally, she took him to the vet, gave him one last ear scratch and had him put to sleep.

My big Lab Lucky is also getting old, now eleven.  He lives in a large pen (quarter acre) on our property with Velvet and Patch.  Marilyn and I were considering putting him in Chuckie’s old pen so we had it cleaned out last week and reseeded with grass.  Yesterday, I strolled through the enclosure with my Pug Princess.

The pen is fairly large – twenty by thirty feet, at least.  Several large trees provide plenty of shade, although there is enough sun to lie beneath on a chilly day.  One side faces the road and honeysuckle vines cover the chain link fence.  What I found at the end of the pen was a very healthy clematis plant with eight purple blossoms growing amid the honeysuckle.  The essence of their beauty reminded me what a wonderful dog that Chuckie was and what a comfort he was to have around.

The big black dog was a castoff that had been abused and neglected most of his life.  He was intelligent, had a wonderful personality and had probably dreamed doggie dreams of having a real friend someday.  I am so thankful for Shannon and her soft streak.  Because of her, he got his wish.

Even though Chuck and I got off to a rocky start, I came to love that big black scary-looking dog, and I miss him now.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Years ago, I was a freshman in college at Northeast Louisiana in Monroe. At the end of the hall was a cigarette machine, a soda machine and one that sold Honey Buns. One night while I was studying my roommate came running into the room in an animated state of excitement.

"The honey bun machine is broke. Help me, quick!

The machine was broken. Every time you pulled the retrieve handle, several Honey Buns would pour out of it. My roomy and I cleaned out the machine.

Several weeks or so later, after consuming many Honey buns, I never wanted to see a Honey Bun again as long as I lived. It made me think o