John Rodgers, the superintendent at 600 Bay Street, headquarters of Our Toronto , tells a fetching story he heard about two grandchildren and a German Shepherd. The twin grandchildren, born premature, were tiny toddlers when they one day wandered out onto the street. Frantic parents and neighbours began a desperate search as the day was bitterly cold.
"The children were found huddling together on a neighbourhood sidewalk where they had been kept warm by a huge dog. The German Shepherd found them, warmed them, and once he thought they would be okay, he took himself off to a nearby neighbour's house where he kept barking until someone came out. The dog then led the neighbour back to the children,” he recalls in a charming Irish brogue.
To me, salt-of-the-earth John, age 69, is a living example of the "little people" who make life worthwhile. He's there with a cheery greeting for everyone as he takes them up to the office floors in the building's quaint freight elevator, which is the only alternative to the deep stairwell. On cheerful duty during cold winter months, he departs come May for his trailer up north. Laden with the common sense of most little folk, John is the daily inspiration of the Sarika building, on the corner of Bay and Dundas. Dead of winter or high summer, 600 Bay is always a little colder without him.
On the day of our elevator discussion about intelligence and loyalty of the four-legged kind, including that of Our Toronto's own little mascot, Kiko, I was telling John about my lifelong intrigue with 'Greyfriars Bobby'.
In younger days, my friends teased me that Bobby was merely a figment of the imagination of Walt Disney, who was only popularizing a bit of folklore in a movie. My inspiration for Bobby was made all the more enduring when a particular friend returned from Scotland with a small packet of soil taken from the gravesite of the real Greyfriars Bobby.
Life is full of strange, and sometimes poignant coincidences. For years, being busy with a newspaper kept be from a serious search for the original Walt Disney movie. Yet, on the very evening of my discussion with John, I returned home to catch the tail end of the movie's re-run on the Family Channel.
The morning after, the Internet provided 'Strange Tales of Scotland', published by Lang Syne Publisher's Ltd., 1980.'
The tale of Greyfriars Bobby is as heart-warming today as it was in the 1850s...."Outside the Greyfriars Bobby Inn on Candlemakers Row in Edinburgh, stands a statue of a little skye terrier shepherd dog.
"During the 1850s, the Inn was Traills Coffee House in an open-air market in the Scotish capital.
"Everyday at 1 o'clock, a kindly shepherd named Jock Gray made his way in from the meadows with his dog, Bobby and would eat his lunch as Bobby laid at his feet chewing a bone, tucked under paw.
"The daily tradition went on for many years, but ended one day when Jack collapsed and died. He was buried in the Greyfriar Kirkyard.
"A few days after the funeral, the proprietor of Traills was surprised when the little terrier shepherd showed up at 1 o'clock, asking for a bone. The same thing happened the following day and the next, and the next.
"On the fourth day, when Bobby finished his bone, the owner followed the little shepherd dog. Bobby led him through the town to Greyfriars Kirkyard. There Bobby laid down at the tombstone where old Jock was buried, and there he kept his vigil for the next 14 years until he died in 1872."
The Traills Coffee House still stands in Edinburgh and is known as the Greyfriar's Bobby's Inn.
Thank God for man's best friend and the everyday little people of life.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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