“One Year Ago Today”

The stories of a puppy, a cat, a dog and a kitten, in New Orleans on August 29, 2005

One year ago today I was part of a family
I was loved, I was petted, I had food and drink when I wanted.

One year ago today I was happy
I loved my people – they took care of me

They would never leave me
I caught mice and I purred and I slept on the bed.

One year ago today I was chained in a yard
No shelter from the rain or sun.

Shouted at, beaten, scraps of food and stale water
My only company was my brother, who was treated the same way

One year ago today I was playful and free
Young and small, no cares,
Chasing butterflies, not yet big enough for mice.

I was taken for rides, given treats, shown off to others
One year ago today my tail wagged often.

I was pampered, brushed, fussed over,
I got saucers of milk, food from a can,
One year ago today they scratched my head when I rubbed their legs.

Teased, tormented, made to fight and bite
Never petted, never praised –
One year ago today I was nothing but a dog.

My mother still washed me.
We lived under a porch,
Sometimes the people in the house would pet me.
I liked that.
One year ago today a little girl played with me.

One year ago today the wind blew, the rain came,
And then the water was everywhere.
I heard them say leave, but they would not leave me.
One year ago today my people stayed and they died.

One year ago today my people fled
They left me some food, they left me some water
They closed me in the bathroom and said they would come back in a few days.

One year ago today I was left on my chain
They fled, they left me
Alone, no food, no water
And the waters rose around my brother and me.

One year ago today the waters rushed in
Our little house was crushed
My people fled, I tried, I could not keep up
I was left alone in the flood.

One year ago today the water rose and filled our house
The house I was used to, running through the rooms,
Sleeping on the rug
We tried to stay above it.
I swam and swam and climbed into a cupboard.
My people could not. I could see them in the water.
They could no longer see me.

One year ago today the water came.
It filled every room.
It filled the room I was locked in, but I climbed and clung to the walls.
The water went down and I waited.
My people did not come back.
My food and water were gone, rancid
My people did not come back.

One year ago today the water rushed into our yard.
I jumped to the top of a pile of trash
My brother had no where to go.
I watched him struggle, I watched him try
I watched him drown, I watched him die.

One year ago today I was suddenly alone
Racing from the water that was everywhere.
I ran, I climbed, I swam, I jumped
I found a place above it and I cried for my family
No one was there to answer me.

The water went down
I do not know how long it took.
I went to my people and licked them and nuzzled them but they did not answer me.

The water went down
I meowed, I yowled,
I was hungry, I was thirsty.
They did not come back.

The water went down.
My brother lay in the yard.
I howled for him.

The water went down.
I was back on the ground
Searching for my people, my mother,
Searching for food and drink.

Many days passed
I was hungry, I was thirsty.
I whimpered and barked
I heard voices and barked louder.
“Listen”, the voices said, “A dog!”

Many days passed.
I was getting thin and weak.
I heard voices and mewed as loud as I could
It was not very loud and the voices went away.

Many days passed.
No one came near my yard.
I saw things in the air, I heard things on the streets.
I was so tired, so hungry, so thirsty.

Many days passed.
I walked the streets, went into houses.
There was no food.
I chased bugs and moths and birds and mice.
I drank ugly water.
I lived on the streets.
I was young and small.

The door crashed in and people filled our house.
I was afraid.
“Oh, no”, one voice said. “The people stayed.”
“Come here, little guy”, another voice said.
Hands reached and touched me and I whimpered.
“It’s all right. You are safe now”, the voices said.

I heard them again!
I meowed as loudly as I could
I was so hungry and thirsty.
“Listen!” A voice said, “A cat.”
I heard noise in the house, and meowed again.
The door crashed in and a person came into the bathroom.
“Well, hello, pretty girl,” she said. “Come with us. You are safe now.”

I saw people!
I barked.
I had been trained to bark at people, to frighten them away.
These people did not go.
They talked to me.
“It’s all right, big guy,” they said. “You can trust us. We’re here to help you.”
I let them come close, let them touch me, let them cut the big chain and lead me away.
“You are safe now,” they said.

I heard voices and saw people.
The other cats ran.
“Look”, the people said, “a kitten.”
I let them pick me up.
“You are safe now”, they said.

I was in a cage in a car, then in a cage in a tent.
I got a bath and food and petting.
I cried out in my sleep.
I was put into a pen, near other dogs.
People walked me and talked to me.
I was put in a cage on a big bus and taken far away.
More people came and looked at me.
“What is this puppy’s story?” they asked.
“His people stayed with him and did not make it”, they were told.
“We will be his new people.”

I was put in a cage in a car and then a cage in a house.
People fed me and petted me and gave me treats.
More people came and put me in another cage and into a van and I rode a long ways.
Someone took my cage and said “You can come with me.”

I was put in a cage in a car and then a cage in a tent.
I got a bath. I never had one before.
I got petted. I never did before.
I was walked and talked to. I never was before.
I was put in a cage in a van and then in a cage in an airplane, and then a cage in a car again.
I was let out in a place with no chains.
There are trees and high mountains, and soon after I got here something cold and white and fluffy fell from the sky and covered the ground.
It did not rise as high as the water had. I ran through it and the people laughed and said “You are home now.”

I was put in a cage in a car and then a cage in a house.
I got food and water and I felt better.
I reached out to everyone who passed my cage to pet me
When they did I felt better.
I was put in another cage, in another car and rode for two days.
At the end of the ride, someone carried me into a house and said
“Now you are home.”

One year ago today the life that I knew changed forever.
My new life is good.
I miss my first people.

One year ago today the life that I knew changed forever.
My new life is good.
I miss my first people.

One year ago today the life that I knew changed forever.
My new life is good.
I never knew I could be more than just a dog.

One year ago today the life that I knew changed forever.
My new life is good.
I like it here.

One year ago today the life that I knew changed forever.
It brought this sweet animal to me.

BP, August 2006
In memory of them all

Long Distance Phone Calls

The other day I called a friend I haven’t spoken to is probably a couple of years. We email a fair amount, but haven’t actually seen each other in about 4 years and haven’t conversed in one or two years. And I said how silly that is, but it showed my generation gap, that to phone her (all the way down in New Jersey) is a long distance call. Yes, of course I have a plan that covers all my calls, and I should make more of them because the plan is geared to my spring hiring call volume that used to cost several hundred dollars a month. But to pick up the phone and call someone – nope, it’s ‘long distance’. It’s also one more thing that email has done for us, because it’s so much easier since I’m at the computer anyway, to dash off a message or forward a joke, because then the person can read and respond at their convenience.
Gee it was nice to hear her voice and visit and gossip for a while. To actually talk to her. Made me wonder why I waited so long to do it, and why I don't do it more often with more people.
I remember having a fight with my father (well, ok, I remember having several fights with my father) about a long distance call. We used to take the cows to shows, and once, I must have been about maybe 11 or 12 or so, we were not sure of the date of one. It then became my responsibility to have known the date, I’m not sure why except it was the Capital District Guernsey Show and I was the one who had the Guernsey cows in the herd (nope, not sure why that was, either). So my father told me to call another farmer who might know when it was. I looked up the number, dialed (remember dialing, not punching buttons?) and somehow got the wrong party. Who of course did not know when this show was. When I hung up, my father said ‘you wasted a call to Philmont’ – now Philmont is about two towns away and maybe the charge would have been a quarter but back then even a quarter was an amount not to waste.
So even now, 55 or so years later, I hesitate to make a long distance call. And we shouldn’t – we should hear the voices of our friends more often. So I am going to try to resolve to call people more. Let’s see what happens.
Oh, p.s., we did somehow find out when the cow show was and go to it and bring home a few ribbons. But cow shows are another story.

Make the most of it

Started this before the previous one about the reunion:
Oh, dear, been letting this go again – not ignoring you, honest, ‘loyal readers’ (presuming I have any readers, that is), just no inspirations. But I was given one the other day in an message from an ‘e-friend’. We talk online, and the end of her last message was: "by the way the gentleman I was speaking of is the one who lives in Schenectady xxxxxxxx--he is still devestated over his wifes death!! He didn't realize how much he loved her until she wasn't there any more-- sounds like we humans doesn't it!! Guess that is why I always run my hand over Bob's back when I go past him!! WE DO NOT HAVE 20 or 30 years to be together!! SOOO I try to make the most of it!!" **
Got me to thinking, how many people do we run our hand over their back when we go by them? OK, maybe not literally for all, but how many do we let know what they mean to us by a simple little gesture or word, on a regular basis? My list is pretty short. I’ll have to do something about that. And, at the risk of sounding like one of those syrupy emails you get every now and then, you should too.
Life’s short. Run your hand over somebody’s back today.
** this friend is in her later 70’s. I met her through another e-friend several years ago, and was delighted to be able to meet her in person last summer. She had been making other friends, and several male ones, online. Going on two years ago, all of a sudden there were no emails from her, which concerned me, but then we found out that instead of going to her son’s for Thanksgiving as was told, she went to North Carolina to meet one of these men – and they ‘clicked’ and the wedding was about two months later. So I say go for it – it’s never too late to find someone with a back to run your hand over.

THE CLASS OF ’59

We wore bobby sox and saddle shoes and poodle skirts and pony tails. The guys wore crew cuts and t-shirts under their usually plaid shirts; the ‘tough guys had ‘d-a’ haircuts and turned their shirt collars up. We dressed up with stockings for dances and only wore jeans when we were riding our horses and doing the farm work. Few of us had our own cars, and those who did had a job to pay for it and the gas to drive it with. No drugs, and beer at parties was unheard of.
That’s just some of the memories that the Class of 1959, Ichabod Crane Central School talked about last night at our 50 year class reunion.
We joked that how could it be 50 years when none of us have changed a bit – yeah right. Most have put on some pounds, most have grey hair, a few looked just the same as in school but there were some I would not have recognized without their name tag (complete with yearbook picture).
We talked about teachers – Miss Biser (also know as Miss Bison) who, as one grad put it was a ‘perfect 36’ – 12-12-12, a not so well liked math teacher. Our class advisor and English teacher, Mrs. Van Alstyne (sure can’t remember her maiden name which she was when teaching us), was there, with her husband, Coach Van Alstyne – he helped coach our teams to many basketball championships. There was a letter from another teacher, Miss Johnson. I think she was one of the ones who determined that we did not get a senior trip because the faculty decided none of them wanted to be responsible for what our class might do in someplace like Washington, D.C.
We caught up on what people have been doing. We didn’t formally remember those who are not with us, but I am sure everyone had their private moment of silence.
Prizes were given for who came the furthest (Sally, Florida), most grandchildren (Sandy, 9), high school sweethearts married the longest (Shirley and Chuck, John and Pam (?), 49 and 48 years), who looks the most like they did then (Wally), the person with the job we would least have thought they’d have (Karen, a minister) and so on. I was a little surprised at the number of people who have winter homes in Florida, although I probably shouldn’t have been. Quite a few still live in our area, although we rarely see each other.
Lots of pictures were taken, including the now traditional one outside by a vintage car owned by one classmate (this year’s a ’35 sedan). Lots of laughing. Some ‘we have to get together more often’ and ‘you have to come visit’.
And a lot of memories, but they have to wait because I have to go to work.
A good time was had by all.

Family History

My daughter noodles around on the computer and finds fascinating things, like a link (or whatever it is) that will shrink photos you want to send to people – so you are not sending a photo that is 6 feet tall and 17 feet wide and will take about a day and a half to download.
She also found a site that you can make up web pages on, geared to a family scrapbook sort of thing and so she went ahead and started one. We have some wonderful scrapbooks and notes from my mother, some outlining our family history and some on events that happened while my sister and I were growing up, and on through the granddaughters’ early years.
I was just looking at that (as an email from a few months ago that she sent me when she started the page, and I am just now getting around to sorting and filing that time frame of my emails). Anyway, she put a couple of pages of our family heritage on the site, and I am going to bore you with some of that today.
The Peduzzi side of it is actually fairly calm, and for all that we say we are Italian, my grandfather was actually born in Gabbio, Switzerland. His family came to America when he was a young boy, they settled in Westchester County. That’ll be another story.
The Hough side, my mother’s family, however, has several ‘claims to fame’. The first of those is that our ancestors Francis Cooke and his son John, were passengers on the Mayflower. Other ancestors Sarah Warren and Allen Breed came to this country in 1623 and 1630.
According to history books, The Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed’s Hill; no idea why the stories changed the location/name.
My grandmother on my mother’s side was named Avis, after another ancestor Avis Swift Keene (Keene was my mother’s middle name), who was the subject of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier “To Avis Keene”.
Another ancestor, Sarah Bassett, was sentenced as a witch (which may explain some of my personality although I spell it with a ‘b’) in 1692, but was freed 7 months later, happily.
Thanks to a once estranged family member who resurfaced and supplied much family history, my mother was able to trace the descendants of John Cooke to what might be our biggest ‘claim to fame’. John Cooke had three daughters. My mother’s family tree goes back to one of them. Tracing another daughter’s lineage to the same generation, we reach Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the third Cooke daughter’s progeny produced Winston Churchill. And, as my mother wrote, to make a nice tidy package of the whole thing and bring it all back to Kinderhook, Jenny Jerome, Churchill’s mother, lived at Lindenwald (the Martin Van Buren home, now a National Park) when she was a young woman.
Wonder what the Roosevelt’s and the Churchill’s would think to know they’ve got a pretty much broke relative living in a beat-up trailer home? Ah, like they say, you can’t pick your family.
The Hough/Stein (Breed/Bassett/Cooke, etc.) side of our family is having a reunion next month. The Peduzzi’s used to have reunions every year but Lynne was asking the other day and it occurred to me that the last one I recall was the year before my mother died, over 10 years ago. Gee, we should get our butts together, huh? We are down to my generation being the ‘older generation’ on both sides of the family now. I hope I can make it to the one next month, we don’t know that side of the family nearly well enough.

The Beauty and the Beast review

We are currently doing the show Beauty and the Beast. You know, the Disney movie and Broadway hit. The show for kids. Or as we say, ‘kids of all ages’.
So far two reviewers have been to it, and written their opinions. One pretty much liked the show and was complimentary. The other, well, very honestly, I (and numerous others) couldn’t figure out quite what she was saying. Now, don’t get me wrong, over the years that she’s been coming to review shows, I’ve gotten to be somewhat friendly with this woman; we share some interests such as writing and animals and I commiserated when she lost a beloved cat a few weeks ago. But sometimes I can’t quite figure out what she’s trying to say in her reviews, and naturally we don’t always share the same opinion of the show she’s seen, but I give her the right to not think as highly of each production as we do.
For this one, though, what she basically said, near as I can figure, is that if she was 6 she would have enjoyed the show but since she’s 50+ she didn’t. She took issue with the script, the way the Disney edited the original version of the story, and so on.
Now, Disney is no dope. If they edited a story in a particular way, it was for pretty much one reason – they went with the version that would sell the most tickets. Yep, Disney is in it to make money and they’ve been pretty successful at that. They went with what made the best story for what they were doing, making a movie – and video - and show -that kids would want to see again and again, and that wouldn’t drive the parents nuts seeing/hearing it again and again.
It worked for Disney, big time. I wish I could say it was working for us as big, at least in the audience numbers department, but so far it isn’t – although sales are growing. The kids and adults are loving it. It is good (if I do say so myself). It is very good. We’ve got rolling arches that light up and change colors, the signature rose in a bell jar that flies (gets lowered from the ceiling) in and magically drops its petals, an Enchantress who rises into the air as she casts her spell, costumes that rival the originals, and some damn fine singers and actors making it sound fabulous. We’ve got 30 plus people in the cast, and over half of them singing and dancing on a 14x16’ stage at one time, while dressed as human sized kitchen equipment. And if that isn’t enough to appeal to any age, I don’t know what is.
Yes, the plot’s a little hokey and predictable. But it’s also sweet, touching, funny, and exciting. And it shouldn’t be written off because it’s what Disney did primarily as entertainment for kids. Think about a lot of musicals and they can relate to this one in story line, if not actual presentation.
When I have someone who has been coming to every show for more years than I can remember, someone who I will guess has sat through the movie or show or video with his own kids or grandkids, someone who is not easy to impress but who has appreciation for what he sees on this stage, tell me he thought it is the best show we’ve ever done – I’ll take his comment and think that we’ve done a real good job.
Nope, sorry, Ms. Reviewer – you’re not too old to just take this for what it is – a show meant to do nothing but entertain people all ages old - and I feel bad that you think you are.
You know what I think? I think that no one should ever be too old to enjoy a show like this. I think we all need to keep some of our childhood wonderment, our ability to laugh, to go ‘oooh’ at unexpected special effects, to boo the villain and cheer the hero and just sit back and have a good time with something that is meant to supply only that. Because if we loose those things, we’ve got a pretty dreary future ahead. And I personally don’t want that. Being an adult is tough, dammit, and we need to escape it sometimes.
To all my friends, and any stray people who might read this blog, if you’re close enough to Chatham, come and escape at Beauty and the Beast – if you’re not close enough to come, check the web page: www.machaydntheatre for photos and film clips. It’s awesome.

Happy July 4

Happy July 4. Happy Birthday, America.
Although to be completely historically correct, the whole Declaration of Independence was not signed on the 4th, it’s as good a day as any to celebrate what those men of vision, bravery, foresight and yes, a little treason, did 233 years ago.
I cannot tell a lie (yeah, me and George Washington), a good deal of my historical perspective of this day comes from the musical 1776. It’s as good a telling of the Continental Congress and the history of our independence as any, with some speculation and fiction thrown in to make it a good musical. It is, in fact, a great musical and it’s hard to watch without getting goosebumps. It’s a good representation of those times and those people, not just the men, but their women as well, personified as Martha Jefferson and Abigail Adams. Martha, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, is brought to Philadelphia to appease Jefferson, after he tells John Adams and Benjamin Franklin that he needs what we might call some ‘R & R’ with his wife – “But I burn, Mr. A.”, he says. “So do I, Mr. J’”, Adams responds, which brings Franklin’s response “You, John?” Franklin is portrayed as the somewhat lusty codger he was, while Adams is more shown to give all his passion to the cause. (This is belied in the songs between he and Abigail, where he asks ‘is my favorite lover’s pillow still firm and fair’ – yes, folks, they were real people with real loves and desires.) But, both Franklin and Adams realize they need to fulfill Jefferson’s need to fulfill theirs and get the declaration written, and so they send for Martha. When questioned as to how Jefferson is so lucky as to have a beautiful young wife such as her (and never mind all the things that he also found aside from her), she replies with the song ‘He Plays The Violin’ – what better reason to fall in love with a man than that he will play the violin for you.
Abigail Adams seems more practical, but then again, she’s a New Englander and they tend to be. She and John have needs for their causes and sing a lively debate over whose is more: he demands that she set all the ladies to looking for saltpeter – not for what they might think but for gunpowder, while she has a more practical request – that he find them pins for their sewing – they sign off one of their series of letters in song with the words that say so much more: “Saltpeter, John” “Pins, Abigail”.
These were the people who forged and formed our country. Thank goodness there are enough of them still around to keep it going.
July 4th memories: picnics with the family, bringing in hay, riding the horse in parades, running around the lawn with sparklers. And once, at my grandparent’s in Tuckahoe, so I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 maybe, there was a community picnic I think, in the courtyard of their apartment complex, and all the kids got together and spelled out ‘Happy 4th of July’ with sparklers and then tried to light them fast enough to have it all sparking at once. I think we made it.
Today the closest I get to a holiday is – hm, well, I guess I don’t. I have heard that red, white and blue dessert is planned for supper – no picnic because we couldn’t figure out how to do it around the Saturday Elks supplied supper. And it will be Patriotic Night again in coffee house and that always makes me a little snuffly. I listen to the company sing songs from ‘You’re A Grand Old Flag’ to ‘God Bless The USA’ to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and I think look at those proud young people – there’s hope for us.
Enjoy your 4th, and have a safe one.