Dogfight!

My life is never dull.  Yesterday is a prime example....

I was working on a project in Drexel, Missouri.  If you don't know where that is, it's about eighteen miles east of Osawatomie, Kansas.  I was on Elm street, across from the Casey's, when I heard a dogfight start up down the street.  In a few seconds, I heard a someone start screaming and hollering "Get off! Ouch! Ouch! Get off of him! Help! Help! Somebody help me!"  I start walking up that way, since it sounded like the dogs may have had a human down and see a young boy on a back porch in complete hysterics.  So I puts my GPS pole down and run up on the porch!

This is the situation...A big dog (looks like part Pit Bull) has a smaller dog by the throat...the young boy (eleven-twelve years old, no shirt, no shoes), has the big dog by the collar, trying to pull it off the smaller dog and is crying and hollering to beat the band..."He's killing my dog! He's killing my dog!"  He's pounding the big dog on the head and picking both dogs up by the one collar and throwing them against the porch rail!  Well...I figure it's a "free for all" so I give the big dog a few kicks myself!  The big dog will not let loose!!!

In a little bit the little boy runs in the house, screaming and crying...which give me full access to the big dog (whose name is "Angel", by the way...)  I figure... "In for a penny...In for a pound" so I just haul off and kick the snot out of the big dog!  The first kick with my size twelve doesn't do it so I takes aim and gives him another one!

If there hadn't been a rail on the porch I would have kicked him clear out in the yard!  As it was I almost kicked him over the porch rail!  He let loose!!!

"Angel" took off and low and behold "little dog" took off after him!  I loved it!  I hollered at the little boy to get his little dog in the house, so he did.  "Angel" came back, peeking around the corner of the house and when he saw me, he took off like a "bat out of Joplin"!**  The last I saw him, he was a block east on Elm street and a "Makin' Tracks"!  In just a few minutes the young boy was on his bike, peddling up Elm, calling for "Angel".  I guess all was forgiven!

I will leave you now with a couple of "Dog" quotes...

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money."
—Joe Weinstein (comedian)

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."
—Harry S. Truman

and of course...

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."  Mark Twain

**My old friend, Ruth Charles, used to say this.  She said Joplin and "the other place" were basically the same.

 

The Barber And The Stranger

 Ed Cannon was a farmer in the community of Crider where my Mom grew up.  Actually, I really don't know how much farming he accomplished. All the stories my Mom told about him were of his practical jokes and trying to get one over on somebody.  He lived across the road, down a lane from Grandpa Fox's house with his wife "Chick" (Ida).  As far as I know, they didn't have children, which may have been a blessing, considering the shenanigans that Ed pulled! Just consider the following story.....

Ed was just loafing around West Plains and as always, looking for somebody's "leg to pull".  He struck up a conversation with a stranger uptown and found out that the stranger was needing a haircut.  Ed commenced to explain that there was a barber down by the stockyards that he could highly recommend.  Ed went on and on about the barber's haircutting abilities and then said "There's just one problem...He's deaf as a post".  "When you go in his shop, you just hafta holler at him so he can hear you."  The stranger thanked Ed, told him he had some other business to conduct uptown and after that the would go get his haircut.

In the meanwhile, Ed hightailed it down to the stockyards and sauntered into the barber shop he had so highly recommended.  They swapped greetings and small talk for a few minutes and then Ed, (as if he just remembered) said "Say, I just met a feller uptown that needed a haircut".  (I hope by now you've figgered out that the barber ain't deaf...)  Ed went on to say he had recommended the barber to the stranger, described how he was dressed and then said "There's just one problem with this feller...He's deaf as a post."  "So...When he comes in you'll just hafta to holler at him so he can hear you."  Ed explained that he just wanted to give the barber a heads-up, that he had business elsewhere and then skedaddled out.

In a little while, the stranger walks into the barber shop.....  The barber recognizes him from Ed's description and immediately starts hollering out his "GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS"!  And...the stranger replies in kind... hollering out his "HOWDY'S"!  It is soon apparent that neither one is deaf and that Ed has pulled off another good joke!

My Grandpa Fox

Memorial weekend always takes me back down "Memory Lane."  I've written about my Grandpa Riggs but as yet, haven't put the "pen to the paper" about my Grandpa Fox.  Well...Today's the day! (As I was typing and going back and forth from webpage to webpage, I discovered that Grandpa Fox passed away 44 years ago today.  Is that coincidence, providence or what?)

Joel Vest Fox was born on September 1, 1893.  If you want to read some of his ancestry, you can find it here.  I was six years old when he passed so I don't have a lot of memories, but those I do have are very precious.  My earliest recollection was of a tall, skinny, old man in Hickory Stripe overalls, with a watch chain drooping out of the bib pocket.  In the picture below he is the one in the coat with his brother, Uncle Grover Fox on his left.  If you zoom in on the picture you can see the watch chain.

He also used a watch fob.  A watch fob is a short leather strap that attaches to the pocket watch and the other end has a small, flat decorative ornament of some sort.  You slip the watch in the watch pocket in the bib or in the little pocket beside the right pocket on your jeans (A lot of you didn't know what that little pocket was for didja?!) When you needed to check the time you just hauled the watch out using the "fob" or "chain" (depending on what you were wearing.)  Grandma Fox gave me one of Grandpa's watch fobs and it is one of my prize possessions.

What I really remember most about Grandpa Fox was that he smoked.  Not the ready roll type but the roll-your-own type.  I can see him reach into the bib of his overalls, take out a little package of cigarette papers, carefully take out one of the thin little papers and then put the papers back in his bib.  He would then reach into the same bib and take out old "Prince Albert" in a can!

 

He would open the flip lid of the can, shake out a certain amount of tobacco into the paper, close the lid on the can, and (while carefully holding the paper with the tobacco) put the can back in his bib.  He would "cradle" the paper and tobacco in the fingers of one hand and with a finger spread the tobacco evenly in the paper.  Then he would carefully roll the paper, lick along the edge of the paper to make it stick, smooth it out a couple of times and twist one end to keep the tobacco from spilling out.  He would put the cigarette in his mouth, light it with a kitchen match or from a book of matches and puff away!  He would hold the cigarette by squeezing a little piece of the cigarette paper between his thumb and forefinger and hold his other hand under the tip to catch the ash.  Every now and then he would give a little "spit" to spit out the tobacco that got in his mouth from the "drawing" end of the cigarette.  Forty years down the road, I can still see all of this in my minds eye.  His thumb and forefinger were stained yellow from the years of smoking and he always had that certain tobacco smell about him.

When I was growing up, there was not the stigma attached to smoking that there is today.  When Grandpa Fox or the Uncles that smoked came to our house, we accommodated them.  Not only did they smoke in the house but we even had a special ash tray for them!

  

For those of you that read my blog, that know me; I am not advocating the use of tobacco.  I am totally against it.  I must be honest though and tell you that when I smell someone smoking loose leaf tobacco or pipe tobacco, it takes me way back in time.

One of the few times I saw Grandpa Fox in anything but overalls...His 50th Anniversary Celebration!

The one memory I cherish of Grandpa Fox was when he would sing to me.  As far as I know, it was the only song he sung.  It went like this:

Ev'ry time I go to town
Somebody's kickin' my dawg aroun';
Makes no diff'rence if he is a houn', 
You better stop kickin' my dawg aroun'. 


Old Lem Briggs an' old Bill Brown
Took a load of corn to town;
Old Jim dawg, that onery cuss,
He just naturally follered us. 

As we driv past the Johnson's store
A passel of gents come out the door; 
Old Jim stopped to sniff at'a box 
They paced at him a bunch of rocks.
(Then Grandpa would say "Get outa there Jim!")
 

They tied a can to old Jim's tail
An' run him past the county jail;
That just naturally made us sore,
Lem, he cussed an' Bill he swore

Ev'ry time I go to town
Somebody's kickin' my dawg aroun';
Makes no diff'rence if he is a houn', 
You better stop kickin' my dawg aroun'.

I have an old reel-to-reel recording of Grandpa Fox singing this and at the end of it he says "How'ed ya like that Ray?!"

I drove by the old home place at Crider today....nobody else heard it.... but I think I may have just caught a few notes of "Old Jim Dog" as we drove past......

Grandpa Fox with his Dad, Joe Fox