Ode to Spike

My grandmother and great-grandmother used to tell me about Spike, the family pet.  My great grandfather was away during WWII – he was stationed off in the Pacific, leaving his wife and 4 children to move to his mother’s homestead property on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona.  Their new home was a clapboard house with an outhouse in the middle of the desert – no neighbors to be seen, and they shared this desolate home with Spike, the first male Staffordshire terrier in the State of Arizona. 

Spike was well loved, with four kids in a new place that they were not fond of, bored out of their minds, he put up with their hugs, loving, dragging him everywhere with them, he made a great impression on those kids – he was their one and only best friend until school started. 

This dog was trained to kill anything non-human, so because of this, Spike never left any progeny.  The female pit bull was of no interest to him, he only had interest in hunting snakes, lizards and vermin. 

One time a man showed up in a truck with a small poodle.  Spike literally had to be stunned by a smack on the head with a shovel to save the poodle’s life…. It wasn’t Spike’s fault, he was only doing his job… and the man was warned before this incident…not to open his car door and get out – but he refused to listen…

Spike’s other fun activities made him seem very human with a wicked sense of humor, such as escorting the children in the pitch black of night to the outhouse, and then…. Leaving them!  Or, leaving presents, such as a 6 foot dead rattle snake on the floor beside their beds in the morning.

All the stories about Spike, he even became my beloved dog, yet he passed away a long time before I was even a glimmer in my mother’s eye, before my mother was even a glimmer in my grandmother’s eye for that matter. 

R.I.P Spike!!!!!

Summer Vacation Memories

In the 1970s, my parents used to rent a house on Fire Island... we'd pack up and make the couple hours drive in our Volvo to the docks for the ferry, so exciting, and then once we crossed the bay on the ferry, we'd go off to find our new temporary home.... the excitement of which room would be my bedroom ... and being able to throw my bathing suit on and jump into the water and swim and play!!!!!

(this is not the house - but it is the style of homes)

I was about 6 or 7 yrs. old when we stayed at The Pines.  I remember "Tea Time" at the bar where the docks were - and the music would start, and everyone would get out and dance under the disco ball.  Thinking back on it - I remember sunshine, wooden docks, multi-million dollar yachts, sipping on my Shirley Temple, and men without shirts on and nice bodies dancing on the floor around me... sounds pretty fun, doesn't it?  I can even remember the music playing, like "I Shot the Sheriff" by Bob Marley or "Don't Rock the Boat" - Hues Corporation. Sometimes a gentleman would even ask me to come out on the dance floor... I would accept depending on how many sips I got of my parents' Salty Dogs when they weren't paying attention!!!

The house we stayed at was all squares and glass - that beachy modern look - and it sat on the Bayside of the island - where there were impressive views of stars at night or summer storms rolling in from the mainland.

So much to explore, and no worries about boogeymen coming and snatching me up... those were magical days and wonderful memories of times with my family....