The Canine Cold War 1-26-18

MORE OLD TIMEY STUFF

The Canine Cold War - Excerpt from my Book 1-26-18

The story of the 'Crazy Christmas Tree' drew me back to memories on the old farm, but here in Portsmouth the Russian U-Boat scare and such was over. We had moved just out of town before that and the Goats happened, and so were no longer living in that Tenement we were in with the 'Crazy Christmas Tree'.

Here in Portsmouth my Stepfather did odd jobs. He was good working with wood, but for the first time he was faced with not having a High School education, something that had never bothered him before. My mother went out and did housework for people and she often brought laundry home to wash and would iron things late into the night.

My bedroom here was off of the kitchen and I would hear her singing church songs and ironing late into the night, or she would be listening to the "Grand 'ol Oprey" on WWVA Wheeling West Virginia, and I would fall asleep with Hank Williams ringing in my head.

It was at this time I started playing an old Roy Rogers flat top guitar someone had given me. When I started playing in church I sanded off the Roy Rogers picture on it and stained it plain wood.. it would be worth a fortune today if I hadn't ruined it. It was here in Portsmouth I met Pokey's family but I really missed my old friends Peter and Skinny Jimmy from the farm. Here in town I was a misfit and all the things I remembered were a bittersweet memory that mocked me now. Bingo came with us but Old Sam had gone to live on Peters farm and I know my friends would treat him as I had.. still spoiling him with apples and carrots. Bingo became a house dog, but he was subdued. The back yard was not like the freedom of 100 plus acres to run on and he was not the only one, I felt it too.

I found my freedom here on the sea. I sailed Portsmouth harbor every day and at 11 and 12, I became very good at it. I more or less became the 'Skipper' of our Scout Dory. The sea called to me and I sailed farther than we had in the past.. taking the group and the dory as far as five miles out at times. We were still on the buddy system and never sailed with fewer than 3 of us aboard. We had a few mishaps and overturned two or three times, always righting the boat and bailing it out and crawling back in to row all the way home like wet rats. When the boat would turn over the rocks fell out and without ballast we could not use the sail so it was "Row row row the boat home".

At ten I started to learn to play the Pie-ano, something else that also stayed with me all of my life to this day. I learned to play on the black keys first in "all flats or G flat" and later I learned to play in C, so by the age of 11 I was playing in church and we sang everything in either of those two keys. My mother also still played the piano in one key of A flat and then I would play the guitar and my stepfather played his violin. Playing in flats is hard on the guitar so I would tune it flat to compensate. No one ever knew the difference.

Our Scout troop had its own lobster traps and every day we checked them and sold lobsters on the pier to make money for scouts. I took up a paper route selling the popular rural paper called "The GRIT" a weekly and at first I walked the route, and later bought my first bicycle ever with money I had earned. I was gradually learning city-games and we had a sandlot where we all played ball after school and on Saturdays. I started wearing glasses when I was 11 and I never could hit a ball or catch one worth a hoot.

I took Bingo with me a lot to places and he had to learn to walk on a leash and be tied. He was not amused. I would tie him to the fence at the sandlot while we plated and he would bay because he could not chase that ball. At first I took him walking with me on the paper route but left him home after I got the bicycle. He was still my "Bed Puppy" and slept with me every night as happily as before.

My mother brought home a Cat and that was something he had never seen before. Bingo approached that black cat in a friendly way but the cat stood up on hind feet and lashed out with 'cat karate chops' with sharp claws on the front feet. He backed off and bayed, coon dog like, at the cat and barked at it, but the cat ignored him. That cat was pushy and when Bingo was eating the cat would come over and want to get in his dish and sometimes force him aside until I intervened. I could see cat and dog storm clouds arising.

Now Bingo was not a stranger to cats. He had faced wild bobcats, three times the size of this cat, on two occasions before. He had just never had to live with one and the with constant commands from all of us to "Leave That Cat Alone!". Finally one day Bingo had had enough.

The Cat came up to Bingo's dish and hissed at him threateningly like always with one Cat Karate Hand raised and Bingo looked up. He wasn't baying or barking now. His lip was rolled up and his fur was on end and he was growling menacingly. "Bingo" I said "Leave That Cat Alone!" Yeah right...

Bingo Growled and lunged at that cat who now realized it was 'no more mister nice guy' and as the cat fled, Bingo took up the chase... all through the house. Across the room, and from room to room, over furniture, and even the table, upsetting things and knocking things down.. he was in full Bobcat mode now. Time to teach that darn cat who's boss!

"Bingo, Leave That Cat Alone!... Bingo Come Here!... Bingoooooo!..." Yeah right.

He had it treed, sort of, on top of Mother's china cabinet in the corner of the dining room, baying like a coon hound now. I got him by the collar and shut him in my bedroom. The cat, now twice its size with fur on end, stayed on the china cabinet and none of us wanted to try and grab it. The next day was the beginning of "The Canine Cold War". Bingo left the cat alone and the cat stayed far away from him from then on, which continued, until mid winter.

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We had a wood and coal furnace in the cellar but we often used only the wood stoves upstairs in the living room and kitchen to save money. We got up one morning to find the outdoor temperature 40 below and it was not much warmer inside.. well so it seemed. Bingo made his outside duties quick and inside curled up on the couch while my Step father went down to light a fire in the furnace. Amazingly enough the cat investigated and decided warmth was better than a 'cold war' and got on the couch with Bingo who stared with one eye but said nothing.

They had made their peace and got along fine after that and we would often see them sleeping together, sometimes even on the foot of my bed.

Now Charlie Wilson from Scouts became my friend. It was he who had flagged the SOS from our boat about the U-Boat. A little fat he was friendly enough and a good Scout so we worked on earning merit badges together. He was a great swimmer and he said 'fat made him float good' and we laughed but in the water he was like a fish. Pokey, really Theodore, was still my friend and to all of us he was... well just Pokey. He always would say to me "You is da funniest white boy I eva did see!" and laugh.

There was trouble brewing in the south, racist things in the news, and it even reared its head as far north as Portsmouth and it wasn't just about Blacks or Chinese. A group of NINA people had banded together and were making a fuss. You would see NINA on things and on papers and I asked my Stepfather what it meant.

"It means No Irish Need Apply", he said sullenly. "Some folks don't like people who are different than themselves. Maybe color or religion or politics.. it is just prejudice".

So Robert O'Dónall became my friend too along with Pokey and Charlie, as we were all misfits, Charlie because he was fat, and Pokey cause he was black, and Robbie cause he was Irish. I was learning the truth that the world is not 'all that nice of a place'.

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Robbie had a funny accent and his father was with the Fire Department, but that is not what he was known for. He played the Bagpipes and would wear a plaid dress and march back and forth on the firehouse roof and play with a sound that would send all the seagulls to the air. He said in the old country they would play while marching to battle and it would make the enemy flee.  I didn't doubt it, it had that effect on us!   Years later he played Amazing Grace at Pokey's funereal and we all wept at how beautiful and mournful it was. I learned all kinds of music could come out of that thing.

So I had friends again, me and Charley, and Pokey and Robbie made four now. All Scouts, all sailors, all full of mischief and all ready for anything.

Look Out Portsmouth!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit\_(newspaper)

© Copyright 2018 by Daniel Blankley. All rights reserved.

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