Skipping Rocks and Puppy Dog Tales

Today is my cousin Don's birthday. I will always remember the summer he went on the road with my family, and we had our birthdays in Del Norte, Colorado. First there was my birthday, when Billy gave me a sparkly elephant pin that I treasured for years. The next day the puppies were born, and then the next day was Don's birthday. He was 16 and I was 11.

There were five of us kids that summer. It could've been the best summer, had I not been the youngest and smallest, and still a child. The others were all teenagers and found it both necessary and convenient to lord it over me most of the time. Billy was 13 and very tall and good-looking. He had been my friend the summer before, when there was no Patty or Don, and my older sister kept strictly to herself and her teen magazines and nail polish. This year Patty, 14 going on 20, was traveling with her aunt, who was somehow related to the show's owner. And Don had come with us. The four older kids formed a close-knit group, exploring the towns and hanging out during the daytime hours, shooting the bull and listening to Billy's large and complete collection of Elvis records before the show opened in the late afternoon. I was forced into the unhappy position of a tag-along little sister, and they never let me forget it.

Thankfully, I had Susie, a little reddish-brown dachshund who had joined our family in Lovington at the end of May. Daddy had parked the trailer in an actual trailer park for the week, and we had hot and cold running water and a small grassy front yard just as if we actually lived there. I had been playing with the little dog all afternoon and was already calling her Susie, when Daddy came home from a long, hard day of setting up the rides.

"Hello there, Susie!" he greeted her, his eyes sparkling and his face crinkling in a smile as he leaned down to pet her. He looked so happy, I recall, realizing now what a special treat it must have been for him to have his family with him for the summer now, after a long spring, during which we would arrive Friday night to work the weekend and leave Sunday evening to be home for school on Monday morning. When Daddy opened the screen door, Susie hopped right into the trailer, the first jump onto the floor and the second jump onto the couch, where she settled happily as if she belonged there.

I played with the little dog every day. Surprisingly, my mother encouraged it. Leave that stray alone, and whatever you do, don't feed it, or you'll never get rid of it, was a lesson already ingrained in me for life. She had observed what I didn't: when I was otherwise occupied, Susie roamed the neighborhood begging for food and affection. Children abused her, holding her upside down and beating her with a stick. On tear-down day, when Mama had finished cleaning the concession trailer and house trailer and all was packed for the move, she suggested we take a walk. We walked around the block with Susie, and Mama spoke to people out in their yards, and even knocked on a couple of doors. No one could say for sure, but everyone believed the dog had belonged to some folks who left her behind when they moved out of the trailer park.

When we left, Susie went with us.

In Roswell, the rides were set up on a busy parking lot beside the main thoroughfare, and it was dangerous for a little dog to run loose. Daddy told Susie and me to come with him, and we carried her right into Sears, where he bought her a nice leather harness and leash. She stepped along at the end of that leash like a show animal, head and tail held high; she was a little princess of a dog, and everyone who saw her smiled.

After Roswell, we traveled north to join the big carnival Daddy had booked us on for the summer. The weeks went by as we moved from town to town, and it became apparent to my parents why someone had abandoned such a fine little dog. Susie's middle grew until she became a big round ball with a head and tail and little short legs, and she had to be lifted into the trailer and up onto the couch. She gave birth there on a old folded blanket, and my sister and I watched and encouraged her. "You can do it, Susie!"

("How do people have babies?" I asked Mama. "The same way," she replied, matter-of-factly.)

Daddy had to help the last one out, which was breech and stillborn.

Since she was my dog, I named her puppies: Sweetie Pie, Sugar Plum, and Honey Bunch were pretty reddish-brown pups like their mother; the others, who were different shades of tan with brown markings, I called Billy, Patty, and Ringo.

In just a few weeks, we were back home for school to start. For the first time in four years, my best friend and I were in the same class, where we made two new close friends, and were all cheerleaders for one of the sixth grade football teams. In the afternoons when I walked home, I was met by six excited, wiggling puppies! Life was good.

Sugar Plum and Honey Bunch were given to good homes. Billy and Patty went with some people visiting our neighbor, and we long enjoyed reports of their wonderful lives on a farm in Arkansas. Susie and the last pretty little girl puppy, Sweetie Pie, just disappeared one day. We never knew for sure what had happened to them, but neighbors had seen the city dogcatcher's truck skulking about. For many years after that, the dogcatcher and families all up and down the street where he lived had pretty little dachshunds in their yards, and my mother muttered almost under her breath yet still in her deep, angry voice, "...them pretty little dogs...that thievin' SOB...!"

Ringo, the one puppy who was not especially pretty, was the only puppy left, and went on to live his own life stories.

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I'd like to go back and visit Del Norte, where so many memories began. The Rio Grande was just outside of the town, within easy walking distance of the lot, and Daddy took me there and taught me to skip rocks across it. Sometimes during the week when the teenagers were being mean, I walked to the river alone and skipped rocks while daydreaming and thinking faraway thoughts. I had never thought of the Rio Grande being anywhere but in New Mexico while on its way to become the border line between Texas and Old Mexico, far south of where I lived. It was a surprisingly big river in Colorado, unlike what I was used to seeing in Albuquerque and further south where river water was diverted for irrigation and other purposes.

Forty years later I taught the oldest and youngest of my daughters to skip rocks across the Rio Grande on the edge of Texas in Big Bend National Park.