David and I were driving home from a dog show in State College, PA. We didn't leave the show until fairly late and we had to go to work the next day. The drive should have taken about 4 hours, maybe a little longer in our Volkswagen bus. It got dark not too long after we left. The highway, I-80, was long, straight, dark, and deserted.
After we'd been driving a couple of hours, I started to feel uneasy. I couldn't explain what was wrong, but something was definitely wrong. I kept telling David something terrible was going to happen. An accident? A storm? I had no idea, but it kept getting stronger. I even thought it might be an alien sighting, it was that intense. When we were about halfway home, I made him pull into a rest stop. I was too jittery to go any further, on the verge of a panic attack. By then it was after midnight and it was obvious we weren't going to make it to work the next day.
We stayed at the rest area for about 3 hours. He kept saying, "Is it okay now?" And I kept saying, "Not yet!" Finally, around 1 a.m. or so, we decided to eat at the rest area restaurant. They had a full buffet and I had spaghetti and meatballs. It was great, especially in the middle of the night! After we had eaten, I felt better and we got back on the road.
It was a very strange and unsettling experience. The thing that I realized, though, was that if doom was going to get me, it could just as easily have happened at the rest area. When we pulled off the highway, were we avoiding it or driving to it?
It reminded me of this.
Appointment in Samarra
A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Soon afterward, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace, he was jostled by a woman whom he recognized as Death and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, the servant flees at great speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles, where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death, and asks her why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, "That was not a threatening gesture, I was just astonished to see him in Baghdad, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra".
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| Doom, waiting... |
Sense of impending doom: You feel as though something extremely bad is going to happen, but you are not sure what. You may also feel as though your world or you life is going to end.
When we lived in New York, we often took a friend with us to shows. Her name was Susan Kamen and she was an artist. She made me a t-shirt with Glider's portrait on the front that was a work of art.
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| One of Susan's paintings |
One day I was at her loft and saw a copy of the AKC Gazette lying on her table. On the cover was a Basenji. I told her how great it looked, like it was a scene for a painting. She left the room and when she came back, she was holding a painting of that very scene, the brick wall of her loft, her leather couch, the old wooden table, and the Gazette with the green trees and the Basenji.
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| "Blush" |
Susan's breed was in fact Basenjis. She had a beautiful little bitch named Bomabwa Blushing Bride, from the top Basenji breeder in the county. That little girl cleaned up the ribbons everywhere she went.
Susan was a bit of a rebel. I remember how David was shocked that she didn't shave her armpits though he found it quite a turnon. My dog Glider absolutely loved Blush. They slept together in the back of the station to and from the shows.
Susan always promised us that when Blush had puppies, Glider would be getting one.
While we lived in Iselin, Susan came through on her promise and gave us a little Basenji puppy, Apu Shimmy Like My Kate. Kate was adorable. She was great to show, she basically did it all herself. But oh my, what a voice. She would sit in the bedroom window all day and yodel. One day David came home to find the police in front of our house. Apparently the neighbor heard the yodeling and thought I was being murdered. We couldn't risk being evicted, so unfortunately, Kate went back to Susan (and got her championship in 3 shows!).
"The Basenji produces an unusual yodel-like sound commonly called a 'baroo' due to its unusually shaped larynx. This trait also gives the Basenji the nickname "soundless dog".
Oh my... Barkless, yes. Soundless, far from it.
In 1975 I bought a new car, my first. It was a Toyota station wagon, standard transmission. It was a pukey mustard color. I ordered it brand new thanks to a loan from my grandmother (with interest). The only problem was that I couldn't drive it! I actually had to get a ride to and from work every day (with a cute guy who worked at the Brown-Boveri Corporation semiconductor plant with me named Walter Witt. He had long curly hair). Finally, I decided it was ridiculous to have this brand new car sitting in the driveway.
The big day was when we went to the Baltimore Kennel Club show, which was about 175 miles from our house. We had to take the New Jersey Turnpike, which was a toll road. David said that would be good for me. He would drive until we reached the turnpike, then I would take over. That way I could get the feel of the car before I had to stop and start for the tollbooths. The fact that we had to leave in the middle of the night wasn't really the problem, it was the damned shifting. It sounded like a good plan.
Everything went smoothly until the first tollbooth. Stopping was easy. Foot on the clutch and glide in. But starting again was a little harder. Jolting jumps, grinding gears, it was pretty ugly. And the tollbooth attendant was really very nice, he hardly laughed at all. By the time we reached Baltimore it was dawn, and I was a pro.
We arrived at the showgrounds. I was still driving and doing quite well negotiating the streets and turns, even when I had to shift. We had to park in the back to unload all our equipment (crates, dolly, dogs, grooming bag, etc.) As I was pulling into a parking spot, I was distracted by an Afghan Hound walking by. I suddenly heard a yell and quickly turned back around.
To my utter shock, standing in front of me with his hands on the hood of my now stopped car was - John Boy Walton!
John Boy? What? He was standing in about one foot of space between my bumper and a van in front of me. He started waving his hands at me!
He even had that mole on his face. But it couldn't be John Boy, could it?
I leaned out the window and told him how sorry I was, was he okay, all those platitudes. But my head was spinning.
When we got all set up inside and had the dogs settled down into their crates, we went to get some coffee. While we were walking back we heard two women talking:
Did you see who's here?
No, who?
Richard Thomas, you know, John Boy on the Waltons.
What? Why is he here?
His dad is a judge, they have English Toy Spaniels.
No kidding? Let's go watch when the judging starts.
So it WAS true, it WAS him...
Like everyone else at the show, we went to ringside to watch Richard Thomas' dad (Richard Thomas) judge. As we walked up, someone wearing a plaid shirt and holding a spray bottle of water suddenly threw up his arms and said with a mock show of horror, "No no! Please don't kill me!" and made a face at me. Thank goodness he had a good sense of humor.
I'm so glad I didn't kill John Boy. It would have been the final
