Mornings With Barney

by Dick Wolfsie

  It reached the point where “Barney” was all over the house. He was on the walls, in drawers, under our bed, on shelves in the garage, on the pool table in the basement. Unlike promotional T-shirts that I was given after a TV remote, I couldn’t possibly discard or give away any of this memorabilia that slowly but surely was taking over my house like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. On rare occasions when I was on a cleaning binge, I would chuck something, then hours later I’d fish it out of the garbage, wondering how the elderly woman from Tipton would feel if she knew I was trashing her pen and ink drawing of her favorite TV celebrity.

  Mary Ellen agreed that we couldn’t discard anything, but she didn’t want the living room to look like the pub at the North American Hunting Club, so only two pieces of art found a place in the living room. Translation: my wife picked what she liked best and proclaimed: “And this shall represent all the other stuff in the house that shall not be in plain sight.” Not many things get to be in our living room without going through a strict Mary Ellen selection and screening process. For example, I have an Emmy Award. Would you like to see it? I’ll meet you in my basement.

  One piece she loved was the work of Bill Arnold. He was not a painter, or a musician, and not a photographer. He was a . . . I have no idea what you would call him. He made things out of barbed wire. That’s right, barbed wire. With nothing but a small, specially made pair of pliers and hundreds of feet of wire (usually one long piece) he could twist the material into virtually anything. No blueprints, no plans; just a vision in his head. He mostly made animals—birds, foxes, beavers, bears, horses. Each one was life-size. I think Bill was a genius, but a lousy businessman. One day he just left town. Gone but not forgotten. His life-size deer sits in front of the entrance to the Indianapolis Zoo, as do several other pieces of his artwork throughout the park.

  How good was he? He once crafted a bald eagle and secured it on top of a telephone pole on I-70. It drove the folks at the Department of Natural Resources crazy because they got dozens of calls about the poor, sick (and endangered) national symbol that clearly required some medical attention—it hadn’t moved in days. Motorists pulled off the side of the road and clapped their hands in an attempt to rouse the bird. When the DNR made Bill take it down, he put the eagle in a cage on his front lawn. Then the Humane Society started getting calls. That’s how good he was.

  I invited Bill on the show and asked him to give a demonstration of his artwork. I called him the day before the scheduled remote.

  “Bill, it’s Dick Wolfsie. Just wanted to know if you had any idea of what you wanted to make on the show.”

  “Well, Dick, would you like me to make a statue of Barney?”

  “Gee, Bill, that never crossed my mind. That’s a great idea.” It was always better when the guest thought it was his brainstorm.

  We did the show and explained the process he had perfected. The total project to make Barney would take about twelve hours and almost 300 feet of wire. We couldn’t broadcast every twist and turn, so we had to do another show to unveil the final product. A few days later, Bill revealed a masterpiece in wire, so realistic in its own way that it even captured Barney’s personality. Yes, there was even a touch of mischief in his barbed-wire posture. So, I’d put the wire sculpture as my number-one favorite.

  The second piece is a glorious pencil drawing of Barney by Debra DeFazio based on the photo taken by Ed Bowers several years earlier. So many paintings and drawings of Barney over the years, but none captured his personality more than this one. Those eyes. Man, did she capture his eyes.

  There is a close third—not good enough to pass Mary Ellen’s muster for a place in the living room, but close just the same.

  That piece of art comes from Rob Taylor, founder of Forth Dimension Holographics, in Nashville, Indiana. Entering his shop, you enter, well, another dimension. It is one of the few places in America where you can have a hologram made of yourself or your children. Hey, how about your pet? Holograms are realistic and very creepy. It’s like the subject is actually inside the frame suspended in some kind of animation.

  The original photo, taken in 1997 as part of a segment on Daybreak, is a dual hologram. Look at it from one angle and there I am; take a glance from the other side and you see Barney. According to Rob, when this piece was hanging in his shop, Barney received far more second looks than I did. “He holographed better,” said Rob.

  A copy of the hologram hangs above my desk in my home office. It does require some special lighting to make it come alive, but it still gives me goose bumps when I see Barney staring back at me. If you are ever in Nashville, Indiana, you can see it, too.

  So those are my favorites. But everything else is a threeway tie: the beagle walking stick, the watercolor painting, the carved beagle tree stump; the embroidered beagle pillow; the beagle clock; the chalk drawings; the ice sculpture; the wax candle, the neon sign. The list is endless. I have never thrown anything away. Although the ice sculpture did melt.

  Puppy Love

  As Barney became more and more of an intergenerational hit, he and I visited scores of elementary schools. Any dog is a hit at a school, but our walks up and down the corridors created quite a commotion. My speech was brief to the kids, usually just an opportunity to tell the kids to encourage their parents to watch the show along with some safety tips about petting dogs. I threw in a little beagle history, too, just to make the presentation a touch more educational.

  My favorite response to a question was from a thirdgrader. I was explaining how a beagle’s hearing and sense of smell are excellent, but the eyesight was not quite as good. I phrased the question a bit inelegantly, I guess. “What sense is Barney lacking in?” I asked.

  “Common sense,” said a kid who never missed the show.

  Inevitably, the teacher would follow up our visit with an assignment to the class to write a thank-you note to Dick and Barney.

  For a long time, I just let the stack pile up, assuming that each letter was simply the perfunctory thank-you and a sophomoric drawing of Barney. I kept these in a huge box over the years and, quite honestly, had not read many of them. Then one day in one of those mad housecleaning moments, I decided that if I was going to discard them, in good conscience, I had a responsibility to read them—every single one.

  Here are some of my favorites, slightly edited. I only picked the ones that made me laugh out loud.

  Dear Mr. Wolfsie,

  Thanks for coming to our school. I would like to watch you and Barney on TV, but my mom just lets us watch stuff that is educational.

  Dear Mr. Wolfsie,

  I love your dog. I think he is smarter than my brother. Is he for sale?

  Ernie

  Dear Dick and Barney,

  Thanks for coming to our school. Can you come for dinner some night? My mom would love that. I’m not sure about my dad.

  Love,

  Kaitlyn

  Dear Dick and Barney,

  Thanks for coming to visit us. We were all very happy. Mainly because Mrs. Potter canceled the test.

  Lana

  Dear Mr. Wolfsie,

  It was very cool when Barney crawled on his belly when he wanted something. My father can do that.

  Eric

  Dear Dick and Barney,

  My teacher said any of us could grow up to be like you, but just in case we don’t, we should study hard.

  Love, Toni

  Dear Mr. Wolfsie,

  Who makes more money, you or Barney? I have watched you on TV and you should split it.

  Effie

  Dear Barney,

  Thanks for coming to our school. And for bringing Dave with you.

  Love,

  Erika

  Dear Dick and Barney,

  My dad said that you needed a dog to get people to like you. I really don’t like dogs. Will a cat work?

  Jona

  Dear Mr. Wolfsie,

  Where do you work? I see you on TV in the morning sometimes. But where do you
work?

  Anna

  Yes, it was hard to think of what I did as work. With all the pressures and politics of TV, I had a job that wasn’t really a job. I wore jeans; I brought my dog; I met new and interesting people every day. I didn’t go to a factory every morning, I went to a Frisbee contest; I didn’t work at a bank, I went to a banjo convention. I didn’t have to show up at the office. I just had to show off.

  Touched by a Beagle

  Barney seemed to grow more comfortable in his skin as the years passed.

  “A major part of his success was that he was so comfortable with people,” Lee Giles recalls. “He never lost his patience, especially with the kids.”

  But it wasn’t just little people. Barney and I first met Sandy Allen at a charity event in the early nineties. She was the tallest woman in the world. All seven feet seven inches of her loved Barney. On several occasions we also visited her in the retirement village where she lived. Sandy had a rough life. She was born in Chicago, then left by her mother and raised by her grandmother. She once observed that she was kind of like Barney—abandoned at birth, never fully appreciated. Barney always jumped onto a chair so Sandy could pet him. Kneeling or reaching down to the floor was virtually impossible due to her size.

  Sandy’s height was both a liability and an advantage. To be sure, her abnormal tallness afforded her some opportunities in life, but this required calling attention to her stature, like when she was hired as a greeter at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in Canada. Her whole life she had to endure both the ridicule of others and the sheer complexities of getting through a day dealing with problems posed by her size—like finding a pair of size 17 shoes. She used humor, just like Barney and me. When people would ask, “What do you eat?” she’d point to her T-shirt, emblazoned with the phrase, “I love short people. I had three for lunch.”

  When Sandy had a bout with some health issues, Barney would jump up on her specially made bed (no small leap) and nuzzle himself against her. Sandy would beam and remark, “Thanks for bringing Barney; he’s the only reason I watch the show.” Then she’d ask if that hurt my feelings. It didn’t. I was used to it.

  Accepting others regardless of their looks, size, or mental ability was Sandy’s mission in life. It was also Barney’s. Happily, dogs don’t make such distinctions, but Barney’s public display of total acceptance probably served as a lesson to all who watched. The message was: we all should be more like Barney—more loving, more tolerant.

  Sandy died in August 2008. She had remained upbeat until the end but had clearly tired of her battle against the restrictions placed on her by her own body. The local stations ran video of the assisted-living home in Shelbyville, Indiana, where Sandy resided. In a shot of her room, a photo of Barney was clearly evident on the bulletin board above her bed. They were together at the end. She was truly his biggest fan.

  As a television reporter, I was attracted to stories like Sandy’s, tales of people who dealt with prejudice and discrimination.

  But remote live TV did not always lend itself to issues as heavy as this. A taped package or a longer format program give you more time and the luxury to develop the subject. But during my morning spots I had only three minutes each hour—barely enough time to ask a couple of basic questions.

  That’s why I was torn when a local support group of parents whose children had Down syndrome contacted me about doing a program highlighting their efforts.

  How could I raise awareness of the organization, spread the word that support was available for new parents, and do it responsibly in three-minute intervals? Oh, and still make the show light and entertaining? Remember, I was supposed to provide the break from hard news.

  After exchanging a number of phone calls with the executive director of the support group, I began searching for an angle. I needed more than talking heads, an insider reference to shows where nothing is happening, just people yakking at the host.

  I was good at finding a hook to hang a show on. Potential guests were not. They knew that they wanted to get on TV but didn’t grasp the visual nature of the medium. “Can’t we just talk about our event?” they would ask. The answer was no. I needed more than that.

  “Do all the youngsters ever get together?” I asked the president of the Down Syndrome Support group, still in search of a show concept. “Well, next week, we’re making a calendar to raise money and we have to meet with the photographer and all the families.”

  Whoa! There it was. Problem solved. We’d do a photo shoot with these adorable children. We’d observe the artistic process as it unfolded with the subjects and the photographer.

  Barney and I arrived at 4:45 AM I don’t think the photographer had ever been up that early in her life, but she knew what a superb opportunity this was to publicize a unique group of children, as well as her craft.

  We did the first segment with the photographer, talking about the challenge she faced in creating a dozen different shots that would send a positive message about these kids. When the children arrived a little later, they were antsy. I looked at the photographer’s face. She knew this was going to be a very, very long morning and she had to “perform” on live TV.

  At one point, the photographer wanted all ten children in one shot, preferably sitting on the daybed in her studio. The parents put their toddlers in place, but this was kind of like herding cats, as each child tried to scramble away, often grasping and crying for Mom and Dad. The chaos added to the youngsters’ anxieties and I could see some genuine fear in their precious faces. I worried about the idea of using the kids for pure entertainment purposes. I certainly didn’t want anyone to think I was exploiting the children.

  Enter Barney. He had been sitting next to me, watching the chaotic activity. Suddenly he sprang onto the bed and situated himself between this mass of humanity that was spread out across the mattress. The kids squealed and began, well, pawing at Barney. The wrapped their arms around him and lavished him with kisses. In their exuberance, several children literally fell on top of him as they jockeyed for position to pet him. He never batted an adorable brown eye. Instead, he just basked in their attention, attention that almost bordered on abuse. It mattered not. This was classic Barney. Somehow, some way, he knew these kids required a different posture on his part. And later when I saw the photos that were snapped at that instant, it confirmed what an extraordinary moment it was.

  Just as extraordinary was the morning Barney and I spent with Emily Hunt, one of the bravest little girls I have ever met. She had been thrown from a ride at an amusement park in northern Indiana and was paralyzed from the waist down. In addition, the accident had killed Emily’s fifty-seven-year-old grandmother. A fun family outing had turned tragic for the Hunt family. The case had a devastating effect on the family but resulted in her dad’s commitment to not only Emily’s future but the plight of all those suffering from spinal cord injuries.

  Emily attends school on a regular basis. She still holds on to her dream of one day becoming a professional dancer. Her courageous spirit and determination have been an inspiration to many in Indianapolis, the state, and the nation.

  I wanted to help publicize the foundation that her father, Mike, had set up to fund research in this kind of paralysis. Doing the show required that Mike, like all guests, rise bright and early to appear on camera. He was pessimistic about Emily’s participation because at that time (she was only six) bathing and dressing, as well as connecting the necessary breathing apparatus, was time consuming and would have meant getting her up literally in the middle of the night.

  Emily was not a morning person, I was warned, but I knew that her presence on the show would impact the viewers emotionally and that this would lead to increased attendance at the annual fund-raising walk around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

  To make it easier on Emily, Mike allowed us to bring the camera into her room and talk to her while she was still in bed. The bed was very high off the ground, a necessary adjustment so that caregivers cou
ld more easily dress her and pick her up to move her to the wheelchair.

  I walked into the room, Barney trailing behind me. Emily produced the expected scowl. I felt horribly guilty about the intrusion, although my motives were pure, as Mike knew. What could I do to cheer her up? What, indeed? Barney took a flying leap onto the bed, possibly a record for a vertical jump by a beagle, beating the record set with Sandy Allen’s bed by a hair. He rolled over on his back, incredibly positioning himself right alongside Emily. Sadly, she could not scratch him, but her smile lit up the room.

  Any dog could boost a little girl’s spirit, but this was different. Barney was not his usual hyperactive self. He had responded to her situation by kicking it down a notch. It seemed they just looked into each other’s eyes for the longest time. How much of this was in my imagination, I don’t know, but I can’t recall another situation that touched me more.

  Maybe your dog would have done that very same thing. But Barney did it in front of 100,000 people, no doubt pumping up the fund-raising for Mike Hunt’s foundation for people with spinal cord injuries.