Friday, September 05, 2003
Orange Dog on a Chain
From my childhood home at the southeast corner of 8th and Harrison, I could see the north side of Harrison Avenue. The Chesters family lived on the northwest corner and my view of their house always showed what I'm sure they called pride of ownership: manicured lawns, freshly painted house and garage. The Chesters themselves were always well dressed and the Chesters children were polite and friendly. I avoided the Chesters like the plague.
When I became old enough to cross 8th Street by myself, I used the other side of Harrison to get to 7th street and that always brought me within inches of the front porch of the house occupied by an unseen renter who occasionally chained a Chow to one of the porch columns. By occasionally, I mean that they would wait until I had completely forgotten the terror I experienced when it would run and lunge at me from the porch and I would hear a dragging chain, the sound of the still air being replaced by a snarling, slobbering, yipping Chow dog inches from my ear. I would jump up and to the side at the same time and my heart would pound and legs would shake for two or three blocks as I walked and thought about the relative strength of the dog, the collar, the chain and even the porch column. I hated that dog.
Sometimes I would remember to look ahead for the dreaded orange monster and he wouldn't be there and I would be full of hope that he had moved away and just about the time that I was sure he had, about the time I forgot about the hideous orange dog, about the time that I let down my guard and began to focus on important kid stuff, that's the time that he would ambush me again, the chain, the whoosh of air, the wet snarl, the yip, yip, yip and the embarrassment of falling for it again!
Finally the orange dog and his unseen owners did move away, I began to ride a bike and then a car and then grew up and moved out and now, in a strange way, I sort of miss the Chow dog. But not much.
