Thanks to fellow blogger BeetleyPete for inspiring this series with one of his own that he posted in December of last year in which he writes about his life, using consecutive letters of the alphabet.
When I was a freshman in high school in 1977, my family here in Sheridan, Wyoming, acquired an Irish setter puppy. I remember when my mother and I visited a lady who was trying to sell a litter of Irish setter puppies. They were all in a big box and all whining and restlessly moving around, all except one. Mother picked up the quiet one, and he lay, unmoving, in her arms while I stroked his red fur and scratched behind his ears. I knew this was the puppy we should have, and Mother agreed.
But when Mother and my brother Andy, seven years younger, brought him home a week or so later, he was a totally different dog. He scampered around the yard and wouldn’t stay still long enough for any of us to hold or pet him. Dad insisted on calling him Chem Shenanigan Clancy Leroy, but we just called him Clancy.
We soon learned that Irish setters only please their owners if it pleases them. Mother tried enrolling Clancy in an obedience class, but he only wanted to play with the other puppies. Andy wanted Clancy to be his dog, but Clancy eventually became Dad’s companion, accompanying him daily to his coin-operated machine business and on service calls. On the rare occasions Dad couldn’t take Clancy, he said, “Not you.” Clancy gazed longingly after him, as he walked out the door.
But I loved Clancy just as much as Dad did. On cold winter mornings, Dad often drove me to school with Clancy perched on the back seat of the station wagon. Clancy often licked my ears, and I turned in my seat to admire what I called his “lovely Irish setter face,” stroke his head, and scratch behind his ears. On warmer days when Clancy rode in the car with us, he loved sticking his head out the window and “eating air” as Dad called it. Dad often let Clancy out of the car, and the dog ran alongside us, as we drove. We also enjoyed walking with Clancy along the creek, where he jumped in and swam for a bit, then got out and shook himself all over us, getting us wet.
Clancy had a nasty habit of lying either in the middle of the landing between the first and second floors of our house or in the middle of the carpet somewhere. For someone like me with low vision, this was dangerous. But after I tripped over him and stepped on a paw a few times, he learned to thump his tale against the floor when I approached to let me know he was there.
In the summer of 1985 when Dad was hospitalized for a heart attack, Clancy followed Mother around, thinking that if he were good enough, she’d bring him back. Well, she did bring Dad home from the hospital about a week after his heart attack, and Clancy was overjoyed.
A few years later, Clancy passed unexpectedly. By this time, Mother and Dad were separated but still friends. It was an extremely hot summer. Dad’s house had no air conditioning. At two in the morning, Dad let Clancy out, and the dog wandered off, apparently in search of a cool place. The police found his body on a creek bank the next day.
Several years later, while I was living on my own and working as a registered music therapist with nursing home residents, Dad acquired another Irish setter, a female he named Maud. She was about a year old when Dad got her, and according to her previous owner, she was born on the Fourth of July and was originally called Old Glory.
Something tremendous must have happened at the time of Maud’s birth because she was terrified of fireworks and other sudden loud noises. Since Dad’s house was next to the county line, a lot of fireworks were shot on and around the Fourth of July. She often hid in Dad’s bathtub when they were going off.
By this time, Mother was living in Story, about a twenty-mile drive north of Sheridan, in the foothills below the Bighorn Mountains. One summer day, while Dad, Maud, and I were driving in Dad’s pick-up truck to Story to meet Mother and enjoy a town festival, as we entered the city limits and were cruising past a restaurant, a man on the porch was shooting off a pistol in celebration. Maud, who was in the back of the pick-up, leaped into the cab through the open window, landing on my lap. As she shivered uncontrollably with fear, and I tried to hold and comfort her, she sank to the floor at my feet and lay there, shaking, until we got where we were going.
Like Clancy, Maud enjoyed riding in the back of Dad’s station wagon with us, licking my ears and sticking her head out the window. When I wasn’t with Dad, she often jumped into the front passenger seat next to him. When Mother came to town, people joked to her that her ex was seen riding with another woman.
In the summer of 1999, Mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Dad moved to Story to care for her until she passed in December of that year. A month later, Maud was diagnosed with cancer. The vet said she could be treated with chemotherapy but there was no guarantee she would survive or have a good quality of life. Since Dad didn’t want to go through that again, he decided to have her put down.
Dad never got another dog after that. In August of 2013, he passed unexpectedly and peacefully. Now, I can only hope that he and Mother are reunited with Clancy and Maud and others who went before them.
Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography
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Copyright 2021 by Abbie Johnson Taylor.
Independently published with the help of DLD Books.
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Two Pentacles Publishing.
Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.
After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.
Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.
Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?
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