The Big Dig

Man's best friend is his dog?  Wrong. The dog is a BOY'S best friend, especially if it helps the boy get into trouble.

 

When David, Penelope, and Jeffrey were preschoolers, our home was on a corner, one street of which was a cul-de-sac. Most of the neighbors along that street also had small children or early school age kids.  Routinely, David and Penelope spent their late mornings visiting somewhere along the cul-de-sac. Jeffrey, not so much, as he wanted to be with them in principle but did not hesitate to "smell the daisies." That is, he inspected the quarry, followed delivery men, entered kitchens unbidden, and otherwise casually separated himself from his siblings.

One fabulously gorgeous spring morning, David and Penelope wandered down the street as usual, with Jeffrey kept in our very large backyard along with "Jim," the more or less Australian shepherd.  Jim didn't mind at all.  He had appointed himself Jeff's nanny.

 

But Jeff had apparently decided that, as of that moment, he should have been promoted to the next trust level.

 

First, he tried opening the gate latch without success. Then he went to the yard tree.  But none of its branches got him near enough to the six foot fence.  He entered the garage, but he couldn't manage its opener.  So he went to work on the support frames of the fence nearest the cul-de-sac.

Jim had been at Jeff's heels all the while and now was beneath Jeff as he climbed the fence. When Jeff reached the top, Jim's tail began switching.  If Jeff was going over, Jim hoped to be let out, too.  But Jeff couldn't figure how to get down the smooth street side of the fence.  After a bit,he began to cry.

ENTER BOY'S BEST FRIEND!

Positioning himself directly beneath Jeff, Jim began to dig.  Jeff looked down, and the light went on. He climbed back down and joined Jim in digging. Eventually the two had created a tunnel under the fence large enough for Jim to wriggle through. Jim then turned and waited for Jeff to follow.

Neither dog nor boy looked Sunday school bound, sprinting to the far end of the cul-de-sac.  But their faces both showed their triumph. I couldn't bring myself to intercept their flight. Perhaps they deserved to be promoted to the next level. Besides, there was  an ace in the hole:  the cowbell.

Instead of phoning neighbors to locate our kids, we used a real copper cowbell. When I rang the bell, Jim always responded. He would come out from wherever, look and see me. Then he would disappear for a few moments, reappearing again with the children, literally herding them home. 

Now there would be three instead of two; but Jim probably found that to be even more fun. He hadn't been trained at all. For Jim, it was just a herding dog doing his thing.

Bill and the Linnets

 The only thing orthodox about my father was his politics.  No, not even that.  He was registered Republican, but he disliked intensely every office holder, regardless of party.  At least he was consistent.  Every Democrat was a “known Communist.” Anyway, when I saw a very substantial edifice rising in our back yard, I asked my mother (not Dad) what the structure was to be, she replied, “Canaries.”

Yorkshire Canaries

I said I didn't know Dad even liked them.  “I didn't either,” she conceded. “These will be Norwiches and Yorkshires.”

“Oh,” I said, meaning “Don't fill me in.”

Norwich Canary

I was relieved that I hadn't asked Dad, as I'd thought such were only dogs.  I'd learned to be careful about things like that.  Some time before I'd seen him sinking two deep holes in our backyard while six telephone pole cross arms lay to the side. I asked him what it was for, and he'd said, “Office work is sedentary.”  It hadn't been until I saw him doing flyaways off the gym bar that he'd erected that it became evident what the connection was between telephone pole cross arms and “sedentary."

 

Eventually, “Norwiches” and “Yorkshires” meant a substantial aviary about 8' by 8'.  (And, much later, a nice little cabin for me, the first privacy I'd ever had). The hut couldn't keep the birds year around because San Francisco's climate wasn't all that great for little semi-tropic birds in an unheated hut. They were eventually removed to an area in the garage where they got triple the space, and I got the ex aviary.

Bill

The Yorkshires and Norwiches were big, and they didn't sing.  Bill, the black cat with a white tipped tail and white apron, had no interest in them, probably because they were downstairs, and he preferred upstairs in the kitchen and living room. He liked to curl around  the little cage where the small, green “real” canary sang and scattered its bath water on him.

 

Green Canary

Bill was born under our cellar stairway, after which his mama vanished.  He was de facto lord of the house (and the whole neighborhood).  Bill made quite a show of pretending that the green canary wasn't there.  The canary did the same with him.  So, Yorkshires and Norwiches, or not, life looked to continue to be relatively serene....well, for a week, or so.

Linnet

I usually left my bedroom window at the back of the house ajar. It faced the ocean, and I could hear the surf more clearly. That was sufficient for a linnet couple which decided the slight opening was my invitation for them to  establish their family beside my bed.  They selected the notch where my bedroom dresser mirror connected to the supports, then created a nest. 

The first two days they stole stuff from around the room. Then they cruised the house.  They were not fussy. Paper, an eraser, hair, lint, a shoelace, a few pieces from the lot outside, even a toothpaste cap. When my mother brought in a saucer of water and some canary seed, they quit leaving  the house at all.

Linnet

Nor did they fear Bill.  Early on, when he entered my room, they swooped him; but when he didn't even look up, they left off. When their eggs hatched, they screamed at Bill for a while. But Bill was a good actor, and they stopped threatening  him as long as he stayed away from my dresser.

There was only one “incident.”  Once, my mother said, she heard a terrible to-do in the living room.  On going there, she saw that the male linnet had entered the green canary's cage.  Bill stood, back arched, hissing at the linnet.  The linnet was screeching right back at him. My mother believed it was a linnet version of laughing in Bill's face.

       

The next spring, when a second pair of linnets sneaked into our home, Dad tried to inveigle the pair to nest in the aviary in the basement.  They were insulted.  The moment escape was available, they left the basement and took up residence in my sister's room.  So, until I left home for college, and long after Dad had put the aviary to rest, we had self-invited linnet  families stomping on our newspapers,  pecking at our ears when reading, and generally making life miserable for Bill. 

Jeff and the Parakeet

The man who shared our back fence had an aviary of budgeregars (parakeets) and other pet birds.  Jeff, then in first grade, was fascinated with them, and said he would like to have one. We pointed out that there was some care involved, but he assured us that he was up to it.

I saw how serious Jeff was, so I arranged that he could have one, if he earned the price.  He nodded vigorously, and a series of tasks was arranged for which he would receive credits toward the purchase of a bird and its cage.  He made good on his pledge and earned the fee.  Our neighbor invited Jeff over to select a bird and receive instructions on care.  Then we went to a pet store and collected a cage, seed, and sundries that parakeets are supposed to have.

Shortly, the bird owned the house.

It used the cage for night sleep, but little else. Mostly, it perched on Jeff's shoulder, attacked his books, ate cereal from his breakfast bowl, competed with the radio and t.v., and took naps on the ceiling lamp of the living room.  It thought every guest had come to see him personally.

He aged well, too, but began gradually to have some problems that come with advanced bird seasons.  He developed a lump.

A family discussion concluded that a vet trip was in order. The vet said, yes, he could remove the lump. He was not sure how much it would extend the bird's life, though.

His fee would be seven dollars.

       

Jeff said, "Seven dollars!  I only paid one for him!"

The vet said, "Would you rather lose this fellow and buy six more?"

 

Jeff said, "No, we only have one cage."  But one of the other children observed that the bird didn't use its cage anyway.

The operation was successful, and Jeff's parakeet spent several more years not using its cage, even to sleep. The bird preferred sneaking into the bathroom and spending the night on the shower head. In the morning it would challenge anyone who wanted a shower.

Crossing into Bulgaria

Not being able to cross into Canada without a passport now is an inconvenience, but it is nothing like some other places. I liked crossing from France into Belgium. You do that at fifty miles an hour.  Some places never were any fun. They probably won't ever be, either.

Crossing from the former Yugoslavia into Bulgaria, the border authorities wanted to make sure that you knew they didn't really want you there. They stopped my car in front of a thirty meter puddle in the road.  A guard glared at my French car.  But his face softened when he saw that I was an American.  He handed my papers back with an almost smile.  Then he resumed his standard scowl.  Brusquely, he pointed across the puddle, waving his hand.   Pointing at the puddle, I held my palms up as a question. The guard nodded, then pretended to slap something off his arm.

Of course!  To kill bugs! I said thank you in the one Bulgarian word I knew (which I'd learned in Yugoslavia and promptly forgot, as I never had occasion to use it again).  Apparently, Bulgaria assumed that Yugoslavia was a bug-infested land, whose creatures attached themselves to tires.  My tires were probably littered with terrorists, too.  I was about to enter Nirvana.  Except, of course, that I was leaving a Communist one.  Anyway, my tires were being purified in that puddle.  I hoped that the purifier wouldn't eat holes in my tires.  I would need them until I got back across the Adriatic to Italy.

As I put the car into gear, I saw  a fellow in rags, toting a big bundle.  He was going to have to wade though that midgies cleansing stuff.  So I stopped beside him, pointed across the puddle,  nodding.

He smiled broadly.  However, the guard yelled something which I doubted was a Bulgarian ballad. The man's smile faded.  He would have to wade.

I looked back at the guard and motioned for the man's bag to be put inside of my car.  The guard nodded without smiling. The bag couldn't fit into the back seat of my car; but I could, and did, stuff it into my trunk.  I drove across.  The guard grinned while the poor man waded.  On the far side, wet to his knees, the peasant recovered his bag. 

His smile was huge, as he said something in Bulgarian, which I did not presume to be a  folk ballad.  It sounded more musical than the guard's snarl.  I offered the man my hand.  His was rough and grimy; but his face was beautiful, as he murmured, “Ahhh – MER – eeekah.”

Sveta in Sofia, Bulgaria

Shrine Football

The Shrine College All-Star football game was the first such anywhere. Naturally, it began in San Francisco.  At the time, college football was pretty much parochial.   University of Southern California had home games with Notre Dame, and the Rose Bowl invited various teams to play the Pac-Ten Conference winner. But there wasn't much long distance competition otherwise. The success of the Rose Bowl, and rapidly improving air transport, encouraged New Orleans, Miami, and Dallas to do as Pasadena had, and bowl games began to proliferate. 

San Francisco's tiny Kezar stadium (35,000 max), was really inadequate for the Shrine's income needs.  All its net income provides free treatment for child polio victims. And the January date put the game in a losing competition with too many other major bowl games.  Eventually, the Shrine moved the game to Hawaii, and to a later date to separate it from the Bowl Championship Series.  The income still goes to the Shriners Hospital for Children on 19th Avenue.

The Shrine All-Star game in San Francisco was the very first all-star college game, and a loner for a long time.  The daily Hawaii-San Francisco flight by Catalina aircraft had a six person capacity. When my water polo team went with Stanford’s football team to L. A., we left on Thursday to meet U.S.C. on Friday afternoon, and then U.C.L.A. on Saturday forenoon. We sat in the Coliseum and missed our Monday classes.  Today, it takes longer to get to the airport than for jet planes to get to L. A.  The thousand miles between U.C.L.A. and Washington State U. near Spokane is nothing these days for the teams or the student fans.

My high school was across the street from Kezar Stadium and can be seen peering over the stadium rim.  This was a special shot of the Polytechnic student body.

When, as a preteen, I got to see an East-West Shrine Game, there was no TV.  You went to the game, listened to a radio account, or read about it in the papers the next day.

All I knew about football and Shrine games then was that the hospital was supported by the contest and was on 19th Avenue, about 25 blocks from my home.  I thought “The Shrine” might be Catholic, because Catholics had shrines (like for Mary, mother of Jesus).  That didn’t keep me from being elated when the Y.M.C.A. physical education director said our gymnastics squad could go free to the East-West Shrine game by performing at half time. WOW!!!

My mother, of course, was more concerned that I'd catch pneumonia clad in tee shirt and shorts in San Francisco air in January.  She made me leave the house with Dad's bathrobe for protection when not performing.  I left it at the "Y," which seemed easier than arguing.

Looking back, I realize that our little group had a great location.  It was just behind the West's players’ bench.   We were close enough to recognize a couple of the West's All Stars, and, when he ran by, an East All Star player from Minnesota who'd been featured in the sports news.  He was a monster!   I remember recognizing the West's running back.  He was the smallest player on the field.  When he ran with the ball, he disappeared into the mass of huge bodies and squirted out from it yards down field.

Our “Y” coach told us to keep our I.D.'s as souvenirs; but I didn’t know what a souvenir was until I had discarded mine.

I think the West won that day.  Our coach was happy, and the people leaving after the game smiled.  What I actually remember best about that day was a whole bunch of middle-aged men parading around before the game and at half time wearing funny hats with tassels.  I'd never seen a Catholic wear a tassel.  I asked Dad if padres ever wore those “dangle” things on their caps.  He shook his head, no.  So, I asked him if bishops ever wore “funny” caps.  He nodded, so I figured all those guys marching around at haft time were bishops, or something like that. 

I remembered to bring the robe home, so my mother was happy.   She asked me how the day went. I said, “It didn’t rain.”