Random picture of the week
Christmas 1965, I think. The first Christmas after Dad was shot down. Mimi, my mother's mother, was there - to offer moral support, I'm sure. Those are her feet on the right. I'm proudly holding aloft
the white mouse Jimmy gave to Michael and me for Christmas. That's mom's hand coming in from the left, probably trying to snatch away the rodent-gift. I remember being thrilled to "get" it but don't remember actually "having" it. Animals enjoyed a shorter than normal life span on Watergate Lane. Jimmy also brought home a dog from college and gave it to me. Pretty shepherd mix of some sort with blue eyes. Didn't stay around long. Later, he brought home a wonderful dog, Steele, (my paternal grandmother's name and Jim's middle name. Who names their dog after themselves?) that Michael cared for tirelessly until Jim reclaimed him. Ok, let's talk about pets! Now that I think of it, some of them deserve recognition. Jerry had a big hound dog on Cheltingham, in King's Grant (our house the first time we lived in Virginia Beach. About 1961) that laid in the middle of the street, making cars go around and gave the family a bad name because of other unmentionable things he did. Probably a good possum trapping companion which was Jerry's favorite pasttime. (He was so weird.) Maybe Jerry would like to post the story of the foxes he caught and the graves he found in the woods and the way Mom loved to open the freezer to find tiny little frozen possum faces staring out, wedged between the Morton's chicken pot pies and lima beans. Or Jim could delight us with the tale of Precious Kitty, Mary's pretty little cat that he found encased in ice when sliding on the frozen lake behind our house. I had a big gold cat that the Kirkpatrick kids liked. One night when they were over at our house, we decided to trade and they took the cat and I got their white toy poodle puppy named Beauregard (I bet Mom named that one, what with her fascination with anything French) who didn't make it a year. Poor dog died after eating dead fish from the lake. Every few years there would be a fish kill and hundreds of fish would die and float on the top of the lake. Something to do with algae eating up all the oxygen, I was told, but maybe it was just Denton animal luck spreading to the wildlife. The most memorable time this occured was when Don and Branwen got married. They and their friends came down from Bryn Mawr and Haverford, long-hair, no bras, VW bus, smoking pot and making me feel really cool by saying things like "what a drag" in conversations with me. Pre-A/C, on a sweltering day, the reception at the house was enhanced by our cat's death on the front lawn. Not to mention how the aroma of dead fish permeating the neighborhood lent a festive "air" to the nuptials. Writing this, I realize for the first time, that it would be odd for a pet cat and a poodle to eat smelly dead fish out of the lake. What really killed them? Then, there was the black cat that the surly 14 year old Madeleine named Satan and whom she has always believed ran away because Branwen didn't like him and repeatedly threw him out of the house, none too gently. No offense to Branwen whom I truly love to this day - maybe because she tells me it was she who talked my mother out of sending said surly teenager away to boarding school. Also, Jim found a crow on Little Neck Road and named him, guess what, Little Neck. That bird rode around on his handle bars and came when he called. Honest. Jimmy will have to post a comment describing that because I don't remember as well as he does. Maybe because instead of riding around with a crow on my handlebars, Michael and I, and the rest of the younger kids in the neighborhood, spent many of our bike riding hours following the Mosquito Man truck as closely as possible because it was fun to ride in the plume of poison. Probably why my memory isn't what it should be. Next time, I'll tell you about Morgan, Michael's block cocker spaniel who starred in the TV coverage of Dad coming back to Watergate Lane after being "in jail", as he refers to it. At the end of the joyous scene, after the camera records our reunion (with me, shamelessly self-promoting, front and center, always around when the camera lights came on), we all troop into the house, the front door shuts, and a moment later, opens again and Mike leans out and calls the dog. Gave it a nice familial touch, I thought. 
the white mouse Jimmy gave to Michael and me for Christmas. That's mom's hand coming in from the left, probably trying to snatch away the rodent-gift. I remember being thrilled to "get" it but don't remember actually "having" it. Animals enjoyed a shorter than normal life span on Watergate Lane. Jimmy also brought home a dog from college and gave it to me. Pretty shepherd mix of some sort with blue eyes. Didn't stay around long. Later, he brought home a wonderful dog, Steele, (my paternal grandmother's name and Jim's middle name. Who names their dog after themselves?) that Michael cared for tirelessly until Jim reclaimed him. Ok, let's talk about pets! Now that I think of it, some of them deserve recognition. Jerry had a big hound dog on Cheltingham, in King's Grant (our house the first time we lived in Virginia Beach. About 1961) that laid in the middle of the street, making cars go around and gave the family a bad name because of other unmentionable things he did. Probably a good possum trapping companion which was Jerry's favorite pasttime. (He was so weird.) Maybe Jerry would like to post the story of the foxes he caught and the graves he found in the woods and the way Mom loved to open the freezer to find tiny little frozen possum faces staring out, wedged between the Morton's chicken pot pies and lima beans. Or Jim could delight us with the tale of Precious Kitty, Mary's pretty little cat that he found encased in ice when sliding on the frozen lake behind our house. I had a big gold cat that the Kirkpatrick kids liked. One night when they were over at our house, we decided to trade and they took the cat and I got their white toy poodle puppy named Beauregard (I bet Mom named that one, what with her fascination with anything French) who didn't make it a year. Poor dog died after eating dead fish from the lake. Every few years there would be a fish kill and hundreds of fish would die and float on the top of the lake. Something to do with algae eating up all the oxygen, I was told, but maybe it was just Denton animal luck spreading to the wildlife. The most memorable time this occured was when Don and Branwen got married. They and their friends came down from Bryn Mawr and Haverford, long-hair, no bras, VW bus, smoking pot and making me feel really cool by saying things like "what a drag" in conversations with me. Pre-A/C, on a sweltering day, the reception at the house was enhanced by our cat's death on the front lawn. Not to mention how the aroma of dead fish permeating the neighborhood lent a festive "air" to the nuptials. Writing this, I realize for the first time, that it would be odd for a pet cat and a poodle to eat smelly dead fish out of the lake. What really killed them? Then, there was the black cat that the surly 14 year old Madeleine named Satan and whom she has always believed ran away because Branwen didn't like him and repeatedly threw him out of the house, none too gently. No offense to Branwen whom I truly love to this day - maybe because she tells me it was she who talked my mother out of sending said surly teenager away to boarding school. Also, Jim found a crow on Little Neck Road and named him, guess what, Little Neck. That bird rode around on his handle bars and came when he called. Honest. Jimmy will have to post a comment describing that because I don't remember as well as he does. Maybe because instead of riding around with a crow on my handlebars, Michael and I, and the rest of the younger kids in the neighborhood, spent many of our bike riding hours following the Mosquito Man truck as closely as possible because it was fun to ride in the plume of poison. Probably why my memory isn't what it should be. Next time, I'll tell you about Morgan, Michael's block cocker spaniel who starred in the TV coverage of Dad coming back to Watergate Lane after being "in jail", as he refers to it. At the end of the joyous scene, after the camera records our reunion (with me, shamelessly self-promoting, front and center, always around when the camera lights came on), we all troop into the house, the front door shuts, and a moment later, opens again and Mike leans out and calls the dog. Gave it a nice familial touch, I thought. 
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