Posted on 10/04/2006 2:26:34 PM PDT by HOTTIEBOY
As long as I've been alive, my dad has always had two things--a good truck and a good truck dog. Over the years, the trucks have gotten nicer and the dogs have gotten smaller, but the concept is unchanging. He is just a dog person.
I'm not saying he doesn't like people, but I will say I've been on rides with him, sitting in the back seat, with a grinning dog looking back at me from the front seat.
In the early days, the dogs made practical sense. Pop worked construction and drove around in an old pickup truck full of tools. Great Danes named Botch, Zeus, and Stump kept hammers and saws from "walking off" better than any car alarm ever has.
He hasn't carried tools around, though, in 20 years -- yet the dogs remain. Now he drives SUVs and has little, "yapping" dogs. They like to take trips out West together. Some of his favorite stories center around the road houses out there.
"You walk in, and there's a pile of dogs hanging out near the fireplace. You send your dog off to join them, sit down, have a steak and a margarita," he's told me. It's a nostalgic and important part of his life, having a constant and faithful, four-legged companion.
So, I told him about DogBarNoDa. I figured it would be right down his alley. I was right.
"What street did you say that was on?" he asked. "Maybe you'd like to go, huh, Blue?" he quizzed a 3-pound ankle terrorist.
"Reminds me of a trip I took with my dog Checkers out West," he began. And with that, I was once again a kid looking up at a grinning dog in the front seat--a dog in long line of happy dogs that have been lucky enough to be one of my dad's good truck dogs.
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