So, living on Drayton and Rose, where children nearly popped from every window and edifice in the 50s, we sometimes forgot that with that abundance of sticky-fingered, roller-skating, double-dog-daring populace, there were pets. There were dogs, cats, hampsters, mice, chameleons, turtles et al. Our house had more than one phylum represented. I remember a mouse called Mallincrott, Bartholomew Mouse...but who knows? But among these beasts that crawled, hopped, squeaked and purred, there was but one Duke. Duke lived a few doors up on Rose and we actually did not see much of him. But when we did, an impression was born that stayed in our young memories for a long, long time. Duke was a Great Dane. To a child of seven or eight, a full-grown Great Dane lives up to its name. It is great. It was taller, bigger, weightier and faster than any one of us. And, to its credit, it was able to produce more spit than any boy in the neighborhood. Now, most of the time Duke was restrained by its owners. But every now and again, Duke was allowed or mistakenly escaped his family and ran down the street to say hi. He would gallop down Rose toward me, with a head that was bouncing nearly a foot above my wide eyes. His tongue hanging to the side and his bright, black eyes staring into mine. Duke would rush up to me and kind of do a skid to a stop. He never bowled me over, seeming to know that his weight and size might cause a problem. Then from his abbreviated stop, he would rise up and put his paws on my shoulders and seem to smile into my eyes with a gentle pant. For his kindness for not knocking me down, I would scratch his ears while his owners ran down the hill to make sure everything was alright. It was always alright. Duke might have been a bit oversized, but he was a wonderful dog.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 04:17:41 +0000
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