Brilliant sunshine flooded the cloudless sky. I decided to take a break and run Uncle Tom’s Javelin over to the gas station. I still thought of it as his, even though I had inherited it and was now the official owner. It was a 1968 beauty, still in excellent condition.
The Javelin’s gas tank filler neck was in the back, behind the license plate. I pulled the license plate down, unscrewed the gas cap, and stuck the cap between the license plate and car to hold the plate down. I lifted the nozzle from the pump, squatted behind the car, and inserted the gas pump nozzle into the opening. I squeezed the grip and flipped the little metal tab into the groove to hold it in place. Nozzle secured, I stood up to make sure I was visible to other drivers. Everything locked and loaded, just like always, only this time, as I straightened up, the nozzle flew out of the filler neck, spewing gasoline as it went.
I took a direct hit of gasoline in my left eye. Gasoline drenched my clothes. The nozzle fell to the ground, pumping gasoline onto the pavement.
I ran into the station store, dripping gas. “I have gas in my eye!” I told the attendant. “Call 911! Where’s the eyewash?”
The young man working the counter (and by “working” I mean “leaning against the counter looking bored, probably stoned”) blinked sleepily and said, “Like, dude, we don’t have an eyewash.”
What? I almost screamed. The law requires that gas stations have an eyewash station. It’s part of the OSHA safety regulations, just like having a first-aid kit.
“Okay,” I said, holding my temper. “Where is the restroom?”
He yawned and said, “Over there.”
“Point it out, take me over there, or get me a guide dog!” The initial shock was wearing off, and my eye was starting to hurt.
I leaned over the sink and began splashing my eye with cold water. The drain was clogged, and water overflowed the sink, cascading onto the floor.
I returned to the counter and asked if he’d called 911.
“Well, like, no, dude.”
“Do you know how to call 911?”
He stared blankly at me for a minute, then finally picked up the phone and called. As soon as he set the phone back down, I pointed out that it would be a good idea to turn off the gas pump, which had continued pumping gas the entire time. I could see gas spread across a swath of asphalt, flowing from the station’s pavement onto College Avenue. From there, it would drain into the river.
After another long pause, Mr. Rocket Science mumbled, “Oh, yeah . . . man, like, the whole place could blow up.”
He pressed the remote switch to turn off the pump, then had the gall to tell me that I had to pay for the gas that had gushed out. By this time, I didn’t care; I just wanted my eye tended to. Saving my eye was more important than arguing over who was responsible for spilled gasoline.
Paramedics arrived soon after and flushed my eye thoroughly with saline solution. They recommended that I go home immediately and shower, because gasoline can seep through clothes and burn the skin. As soon as possible after that, I should see my eye doctor.
I reeked of gasoline. I washed my hair three times and could still smell gas. I shoved my clothes in the washing machine, hoping that the stench would rinse out and my clothes wouldn’t be ruined.
My ophthalmologist of many years had just moved into a brand-new building devoted entirely to the care and treatment of eyes; I felt awful for stinking it up. He diagnosed a grade II chemical injury to my cornea and sent me home with eye drops. At home, I showered again, this time using Dawn dish detergent instead of regular shampoo. Six times I washed and rinsed my long hair; it still reeked, but short of shaving my head, there wasn’t any more I could do.
Now that I knew I wasn’t going to lose my eye and that my conference and travel plans would be fine, I started to get angry.
I called the president of the company that owned the gas station. He said that he’d heard there was a 911 call at this station, but nothing more. I filled him in on the details.
I don’t know if the L word—lawsuit—was on his mind, but he raced over to my house. He refunded the money I’d paid for gas and gave me a stack of coupons to use in the future. Then he drove the Javelin to the station, filled it with gas, detailed the entire car, and returned it, gleaming in the late-day sun, to the house. He even offered to pay my medical bill, but I declined, because I was insured and had a small deductible.
I spent the rest of New Year’s Eve curled up, nursing my eye. Tomorrow has to be better, I told myself.
New Year’s Day dawned as bright and beautiful as the day before, with predictions for temperatures in the seventies. I was relieved and delighted. The first day of the new year was going to be great, I just knew it.
My vet school classmate Anna and I decided to go riding. She loaded her mare, Aria, into her rig, and I loaded Marcie into mine. My rig consisted of my father-in-law’s twenty-five-year-old three-quarter-ton GMC pickup truck with a class-three trailer hitch on the bumper pulling a twenty-one-year-old horse trailer, currently carrying a twenty-three-year-old mare.
We drove to a nearby natural area and had a lovely ride in the warm weather, happily enjoying the sunshine and peaceful lake. The horses were glad to be out and about too, stretching their legs after being cooped up in the corral after the recent stretch of bad weather.
After the ride, Anna and I loaded our horses into our respective rigs, and first Anna, then I, pulled onto the steep drive leading out of the natural area.
As I began the slow climb up, I glanced in my rearview mirror and gasped. To my absolute horror, I saw my horse trailer sliding down the hill. I slammed on the brakes and honked my horn so Anna would realize something was wrong. I’d need her help to attend to an upside down, injured, or (God forbid) dead Marcie.
We were lucky; the trailer rolled gently down the hill and came to rest against the triangular Western fence that marked a steep drop-off. If that fence hadn’t been there . . . I thought I would die of fright at the thought of what could have happened.
I ran past the gathering crowd of curious onlookers and opened the window to the trailer. My placid pony stared at me as if to say, “Hey, that was cool! Can we do it again?”
I inspected the trailer and discovered that the hitch was still attached to the horse trailer tongue. I’d hooked everything up correctly; metal fatigue had caused the hitch itself to fail. The hitch had broken off from the truck, setting the trailer free.
We transferred Marcie to the spare space in Anna’s trailer, and Anna hauled both horses back to the corral. Then Anna returned to the natural area and tried to pull my trailer out. Her truck, a little Ford Ranger, didn’t have enough oomph to pull it out of the ditch, so she headed back home again. I stayed behind and waited for the police so they’d know why there was a horse trailer sitting beside the fence that night in an area that didn’t allow overnight parking.
While we were chatting, I told the police officer about my adventures at the gas station the day before too. He looked at me with a strange expression on his face.
He gently advised me to go home, get into bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there.
I thought that was excellent advice, and it’s exactly what I did.
20
The Annie Walk
Tipper danced in excitement as I pulled her husky-print bandana from the closet. She knew the bandana meant adventure!
“Go for ride, Tipper?” I asked, tying the kerchief around her neck.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, ah-woooo!” she howled.
I popped open the back of her dogmobile (also known as the Subaru), and she sailed up and in like an Olympic hurdler vying for the gold.
Earl and I were always on the lookout for fun activities to channel Tipper’s boundless energy. She ran the annual Fire Hydrant Five, a fundraiser for the Larimer Humane Society, with us. She competed in the Doggie Olympics, a benefit for the Larimer Animal-People Partnership (LAPP).
Today’s adventure was the Annie Walk.
&nbs
p; This field trip, a fundraiser for the public library, was one of our favorites. It was named for a Fort Collins icon, Annie the Railroad Dog.
In 1934, Brakeman Christopher DeMuth and several other Colorado and Southern Railroad Company workers rescued a pregnant, emaciated mixed-breed collie at a blacksmith shop in Timnath, Colorado. They named her Annie and nursed her back to health at the Fort Collins freight depot. For the next fourteen years, Annie was the unofficial mascot and greeter at the Fort Collins passenger and freight depots. People still tell stories of how she cheered folks during the Great Depression and how she said goodbye to boys leaving for World War II and licked the tears from their faces when they returned. Newcomers reported that disembarking locals greeted Annie before turning to their own families.
Annie took her responsibilities as a local celebrity seriously. She waited politely against the depot wall until someone beckoned to her, and only then would she approach them to be petted.
When Annie died in 1948, the railroad crew buried her near the depot. DeMuth created a cement headstone to mark her grave. Its inscription reads,
FROM
C and S
MEN
TO
ANNIE
OUR DOG
1934–1948
Over the years, the Fort Collins depot fell into disrepair, and there was talk of moving or eliminating Annie’s grave. The community rallied around Annie’s defense, and in 1995, the gravesite and the C&S depot became designated as local historic landmarks.
When Loveland, Colorado, sculptor Dawn Weimer heard Annie’s story, she decided to create a tribute to Fort Collins’s famous dog. The result is a beautiful sculpture of Annie, installed near the front entrance of the downtown library. Annie’s paw is raised, ready to shake the hands of passersby. I shake that paw every time I visit the library.
The library organized the first Annie Walk to coincide with the statue’s unveiling. This year’s walk began just like the ones before: Lions Club pancake breakfast, picnic style, on the lawn outside the old Carnegie building, originally the library but now home to the Fort Collins History Museum. The library now occupies a newer facility next door.
Tables and tents of vendor booths stretched beyond the picnic tables and past the museum’s reassembled log cabins. Around the corner, on the far side of Library Park, volunteers were setting up doggie activities for the day.
Ancient cottonwood trees shaded us from the clear August sky as Earl and I settled down with paper plates heaped with pancakes and syrup. Tipper, as usual, sat staring at us with those hopeful blue eyes, begging for just a bite. We didn’t share our breakfast with her; we knew her turn was coming.
We strolled past the crowded, pet-friendly booths. Tipper looked longingly at the biscuits and other treats that the vendors were offering, and this time, we said yes. She eagerly filled up on doggie junk food. Earl and I knew we were probably being a little too indulgent, and we hoped she wouldn’t puke during the walk itself.
Tipper loved the crowds, and they loved her. People stopped to pet her and admire her beauty. She adored the attention. Being admired for her beauty was Tipper’s one and only vanity. She was so well-behaved despite (or perhaps because of) all the attention that I was proud to be her dog-mother.
Soon, it was time to gather at the starting line for the mile-and-a-half walk from Library Park to Annie’s gravesite near the old depot.
The crowd assembled itself into a slightly chaotic mass ready to move forward. I recognized a diminutive older gentleman walking slowly with his Harlequin Great Dane named Duke (I think all Great Danes are named Duke). I’d seen them in the downtown hardware store, which sold dog treats as well as the usual nuts and bolts. They stopped by each morning on their daily constitutional. The man purchased a small bag of dog treats and handed the bag to his dog, who carried the bag in his mouth on their way home. I always smiled at the incongruity of this tiny, frail man walking side by side with his beloved 150-pound dog.
Dressed-up dogs had been part of this event from the beginning. Many people spent plenty of time and money on costumes. Ladies with small-breed dogs, such as Chihuahuas, miniature poodles, and Lhasa apsos (we called them “land sharks” in vet school), dressed their little Fifis in ballet tutus. Tough guys outfitted their fierce beasts in studded leather. There was always at least one dachshund in a hotdog costume. As far as we were concerned, Tipper wore a goofy husky costume twenty-four seven; even her bandana made her “costume” a little over the top.
Mayor Ray Martinez and his golden retriever, Oakley, waited at the front of the pack. Ray held out his hands, and Oakley stood up on his hind legs and placed his paws in Ray’s outstretched palms. Ray said, “Bow your head.” Oakley ducked his head down, and they said a short prayer before leading the procession out of the park.
The roads through downtown were open to traffic, so the crowd squeezed itself onto the sidewalks. Folks enjoying brunch or coffee at the many outdoor restaurant patios gawked at us as we streamed by. Shoppers caught unaware dodged strollers and families and college students and old folks and young ones and every type and size of dog imaginable.
Earl hung on to Tipper’s leash—she was bred to pull, and being well-behaved didn’t change that—and we moved with the crowd. Tipper was having a blast, first because she was busy moving, and second, because there were people to look at and other dogs to meet.
The official walk was over once the mass of walkers reached Annie’s gravesite. We stopped to pay our respects, still surrounded by throngs of people and dogs, and soon after, the crowd dispersed as people began making their way back to Library Park.
At the park, vendor booths were still going strong, plus there were dog-friendly activities to try out. There was an Annie look-alike contest; Tipper wasn’t even close, so we didn’t enter that. There was a water-filled kiddie pool too, where Tipper and other dogs could cool off as the summer sun beat down.
Every year, the Canine Learning Center set up a professional agility course on the north side of the library. Tipper had never trained in the difficult obstacles that require speed, attention, and that oxymoron, “husky obedience,” but she loved jumping over the obstacles and dashing up and down the ramps. She even jumped through a hanging tire and ran into (and out of) a tunnel. I had to let go of her leash for that, and I grabbed it the moment she emerged on the other side. The teeter-totter was a puzzle for her, but once she got over the odd motion of it, she maneuvered it like a champ. Earl and I wondered if we’d missed an opportunity by not training The Wonder Husky in agility; it sure seemed like she had natural talent.
This particular year, the stakes were higher. Next to the agility course, the American Kennel Club (AKC) had set up a “Canine Good Citizenship” testing area. Canine participants who completed the ten-step course with no mistakes would be awarded an official AKC Canine Good Citizenship certificate.
Tessa, one of my former students, bounded over to me, her basset hound, Carmine, in tow. Carmine was competing for a certificate; was Tipper?
I thought about Tipper’s natural athletic agility. I considered the true nature of huskies: their high energy, part-time obedience, selective hearing, and desire to run like hell when off-leash. I’d always held her leash when she ran the agility course; this time, she’d be off-leash. But she’d always had so much fun on the agility course.
This could be a triumph or a disaster.
Orange plastic temporary fencing surrounded the course area, so even if The Wonder Husky decided to make a run for it, she wouldn’t get far.
We decided to let Tipper try the test.
Earl and I watched as Tessa handed Carmine off to one of the judges and took her place outside of the fence where she could watch Carmine, but Carmine couldn’t see her. The judges, stationed at various areas around the course, put Carmine through the paces of basic canine obedience, which reminded me that Tipper had failed novice obedience class. We were headed for disaster, no doubt.
The last challenge on t
he course was for the dog to lie down away from all people and stay put, a “down, stay” command. Oh my gosh, I thought; that last one will be the deal breaker. Tipper’s attention span was shorter than a hummingbird’s heartbeat.
Carmine, who’d done everything perfectly so far, lay down on the command, but he was watching the other dogs and waltzed over to join them instead of staying put.
Ding, ding, ding—Carmine’s turn was over. Good try but sorry, no certificate.
Next contestant, please!
Tipper progressed through each station, clearly enjoying meeting all these fascinating new people. I held my breath, wondering at what point exactly she would go from obedient charmer to crazy dog. I broke into a sweat when the judges gave the “down, stay” command.
Tipper lay down. Then she rolled onto her side, put her head down, and fell asleep.
I think she even snored a little.
The judge woke her up to proclaim her a winner.
My husky was officially an AKC Canine Good Citizen! I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around her neck in a big hug, grinning like a goofball and exclaiming, “You’re the goodest dog, you’re the bestest dog!” over and over. Tessa and her mom showered Tipper with praise and lots of petting too.
Earl just laughed at us. The only reason Tipper had passed was because she’d fallen asleep, he guffawed. If we hadn’t walked the three-mile round-trip to Annie’s grave, if we hadn’t strolled by every booth and picnic table, if it hadn’t been so hot all morning, she never would have passed. He couldn’t stop laughing at me and the dog who’d passed the Canine Good Citizen Test only because she’d fallen asleep.
But I didn’t care. She was still a winner. My heart swelled with maternal pride.
Drinking from the Trough Page 18