If you'd noticed we're doing things a little bit different here in Miz Judi's Kitchen. They call it "different formatting," whatever that is, but I believe that's just a milder way of sayin, "Dub...you talkin too dern much!"
Whichever the case, Deb and I, and the subject matter we're speakin of has been broken down into several different topic groups. I guess it's called, "progress?" This bein fine with me as long as those three little letters, I, V, and certainly E, don't end up behind the word progress. Catch my drift?
All that bein said, I'd like to invite each and every one of ya'll back into, Miz Judi's Kitchen! Come on in!
This story today is about a small boy and his dog... me and Tubby!
Before I bail off into this let me say to all you pet owners out there: If you truly love your pet, and I'm sure you all do, I hope my story endears you, because the love you receive from your pet is not just a bond, but in reality unconditional love and it is truly just that!
Don't hold it against me people, as the number and types of pets you can have are endless, but me...I've always been a dog man!
I've had a number of them through the years and I've loved ever one of em, but a few have been really special. For example, Cheyenne, or "baby girl," our current, well in all honesty, baby girl, is truly special to Deb and I both.
If we go to town without her, which happens frequently, she'll look at us with those sad eyes and I gotta tell ya', I hate doin' it.
But the flip side of that coin is when we get back home, man it's as if we'd been gone months! She greets us at the door, with her whole "rear-end" shakin as if it'd fall off, eyes kinda slanted, and walkin' circles around us both, letting us pet her all over the whole time!
Deb and I have both commented that it's a wonder she don't throw a hip outta joint! But there you go...
unconditional love, and believe you me, Deb and I love her back just the same!
Me, Ole Tubby and the Conducts
Tubby was a big ole "yeller dog," and if ya'll a seen the movie "Old Yeller," there is a distinct similarity in the two.
Now the times I'm talkin' on this morning was way back there. Heck I was all of 4-5 years old. Man, it sure don't seem like 50 years ago, but it has been. Where's the time gone?
Anyway, even in my farthest back recollections, ole Tubby was there. Dad had got him as a puppy, and I imagine it had to have been right before or right after I was born.
The point bein', is basically I grew up with Tubby. As that dog got older it was like he took me under his wing. Where I went, Tubby followed, and where Tubby went, if I couldn't follow him off it wasn't from lack a tryin'! We were in many cases almost as if we were joined at the hip!
I promise ya, if somebody a tried to haul me off, ole Tubby would a "nailed em!" No doubt! I loved him, and he loved me back in return, once again, unconditionally! But it wasn't just me, he loved my Momma and Daddy too!
Matter of fact he kept a man from comin' in our house one night, though I was too young to remember it and had to be told about it.
My Dad worked at night a lot back then, so many times, me and Momma'd be at the house by ourselves. Remember Tubby probably was pushin' near a hunnerd pounds or so. He was a big ole thing.
Anyway Momma heard a racket at the back door one night, and there was a man tryin' to get in. By the time Momma got to the back door, he'd not got the door open yet, Tubby was down there, and Momma said Tubby was just a carryin' on, barkin', growlin', snarlin ‘and showin' them teeth! Momma said once ole Tubby got "fired off," that man was a beggin' her not to open the door!
Long story short, I think Momma and that man came to a mutual understandin'. I believe the understandin' they come to was something to the effect, that she'd not let Tubby out the door, if that man in turn would, "Git the h... off her porch," as she says today. But if it weren't for Tubby, who knows what might a happened?
Well, one morning me and Momma had to go into town. We lived in Kissimmee, and back then Kissimmee was a small little town. This was way before "the Mouse," as we call it, moved in, but I guess most a ya'll know it as Disney World! Since then, Kissimmee has gone crazy population and development wise. Our quaint little town is but a distant memory.
Either we was comin', or we was goin' from town, I saw some prisoners in uniform workin' along the roadway and I not having any idea who or what they were asked Momma about them. She explained they were
convicts, men who had done something that was wrong and were working along the road because they had to. She said I'd asked if they were "bad men," and she replied, "I guess to an extent they are."
Well, bein' 4-5 years old, it was very clear to me I had no business associatin' with anybody of that nature and had no desire to do so.
After getting back home, Tubby and I did whatever it was we did back then to pass the day, but 90% of the time it involved me a strappin' on my six shooters. I'm sure we shot up a few Indians, captured a cattle rustler or two, might even a saved some helpless girl bein' kidnapped by an outlaw, or snagged her off a run-away stage. I promise ya though,
the hat on top a my head was a white un, which of course the hat color alone designating me as bein' a good guy!
About this time me an Tubby heard a truck come to a stop and it sounded like it was right out front of our house. Then we heard doors shuttin', and naturally we had to go see what was up...it was our duty, ya see, to keep a close eye out on whatever was takin' place on our range!
Lordy, was I shocked when we reached the corner of our house a lookin' out across the front yard. We had an ole drainage ditch that ran in front of our house and they was 4-5 men in that ditch with shovels in hand, cleaning that ditch out.
Now they weren't exactly the same, but these men had on uniforms kinda like was on them convicts me and Momma had seen that very morning! I didn't know what to do right off, but the longer me and Tubby watched, it soon became pretty apparent they was payin' us no mind, heck, they ain't even looked over in our direction, but they was steady shovelin' dirt outta that ditch.
After a little while, the child in me came to the top. I just couldn't stand it any longer, I had to go over and see what this was all about. Well, we started up there to em, and what looked like the man in charge, glanced over at us. We kept comin'.
As we came closer he looked up again, and remember, Tubby was a big ole dog, and that man told us we was close enough. Tubby evidently took offense at the man's tone and started growlin' real low. We eased up a little closer and he told us once more that was close enough, this time a little more menacin'.
That's all it took, cause ole Tubby really started growlin' and showin' his teeth. What happened next I'll never forget in my whole life! That dern man reached down in his pocket and pulled out the biggest pocket knife I'd ever seen, heck Daddy and Grand-Daddy carried one all the time, but nothing like this one!
Tubby was on the edge of chargin' him, I was too scared to move, just a holdin' onto Tubby for dear life and that man said, "Ya'll come any closer and I'll cut that Da.., dog's throat!!"
Man, I grabbed Tubby and took off for the house just a hollerin'. Momma heard the commotion and come runnin' outside, hollerin' "What's wrong? " I run up to her and almost too scared to talk, I was tellin' her
"Them CONDUCTS (not convicts), told me an Tubby we come any closer and they'd cut our Da.. throats!!"
I told her three or four times, back to back, I was scared to death!
Momma looked out to the ditch and just busted out laughin'. They wasn't conducts (convicts) at all...they were in uniform cause they worked for the county, heck, she knew ever one of them by name! She went out there talkin' to em, tellin' what I'd thought, and shoot, in just a minute the whole bunch of em was laughin' like there'd be no tomorrow, I mean in stitches.
At the time though, Tubby and I weren't seein' the humor in any of it, we was just wonderin' why Momma thought me and Tubby getting our throats slit could be so dern funny!
Momma laughs about that to this day... Me, Tubby and the Conducts!
My ole Tubby died just a few years later, and I cried and cried. Tubby you see, wasn't my pet...he was my friend! I loved him and he loved me, and that was what mattered most to me. The love Tubby and I had for each other...was unconditional! I still miss him to this day!
God Bless you all!
Dub
