Skip to main content

BFF

 

It's been over 20 years since I was able to see these two play together. Elsa was our Lab/Pyre mix and McKinley was our friends' Malamute. 

He weighted 150 lbs. and she ....about 95 lbs. 
The first time they met they became instant friends, within 10 minutes they started to play and this continued until McKinley's death about 5 years later.
We made the mistake of letting them play in the house the first time, but with a combined weight of over 200 lbs. it felt like a 4.8 earth quack in our house.


Two years after his death, Elsa and I saw another malamute during our daily walk. This dog was about 50 yds. away walking towards us. When Elsa saw him she raised her head and I swear she had a smile on her face. She started to pull on the leash walking faster but when he was just a little bit closer I could see that she knew it wasn't McKinley. She lowered her head, slowed her pace, and lost all interest for the rest of our walk. Elsa died 3 years later. 
When a clap of thunder strikes during a storm and shakes our house like a 4.8 earth quake, I just smile and know they are at it again.

June 20, 1999. I still miss her.






Comments

  1. RonaldJune 27, 2021 at 8:45 AM

    Beautiful. But quit writing posts like these. I get too emotional these days. But seriously, one of your best posts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Far Side of FiftyJuly 1, 2021 at 9:12 AM

    Aww such a sweet post about your best friend. We visited Titus last night Border Collie/Prye mix...he is still growing:)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

La Caverna del oro

 One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance.  In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave. Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet!  The Cross is v...
3 comments
Read more

The Amadinda

  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple.  Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars.  Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of ...
3 comments
Read more

Camino del Diablo: The graves

This is not meant to be morbid but rather a reminder of the extremes of danger for those who traveled this desert trail.  What I saw were the historic graves, nothing from the pre-Spanish era. The Sonoran Desert has been inhabited for over 10,000 years and archaeologists have limited knowledge of the first people. What little is known consists of trails, trail shrines, petroglyphs/pictographs, mano and metate sites, sleeping circles and geoglyphs (the Blythe geoglyphs being some of the most famous). Some of these markers were names of people who may have died on their desert crossing or maybe just the fact that they were here. There is little information even for the historic markers. They are marked with rock piles in the form of a cross. Many were just rocks piled over the grave. One documented grave is that of Dave O'Neill, a prospector whose body was found along the trail in 1915.  The irony of the circumstances of his death is that his body was found face down in a puddle...
2 comments
Read more