The Collie's Comeuppance

The collie had been herding the rancher’s sheep on a little spread in Texas for most of his seven years. He was proud of his job and took it seriously. He was also brash, arrogant, and unlikable. If even one sheep looked like it was about to stray, the collie was on it in a flash, nipping at the sheep’s legs. All the sheep on the ranch bore nasty scars on their ankles, and they resented the collie and his guilty-until-forced-to-be-innocent approach to herding.

Image by Teece Aronin

“Y'all get back to the pack!” the collie would arrogantly command. “Get back to the pack!” He was frequently heard chanting this phrase as he trotted about the pastures, looking for any excuse to nip a sheep. 

“Back to the pack, my rack,” grumbled Mr. Ram at the barnyard’s summer flock party. "And besides, no sheep would be caught dead runnin' with a pack." He and his wife, Mrs. Ram were chatting with their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Goose, Mr. and Mrs. Bull, and Miss Pig.

“I feel so sorry for you poor sheep,” said Mrs. Bull. “Your little legs must be worn to the bone with that awful collie nippin' away at them!”

“I was just thinkin' the same thing,” said Miss Pig, gazing at Mr. Ram's scarred and spindly legs. “Those legs don't have a scrap of fat to spare, poor things.”

“And the way he pokes that big honker of his between your feet to trip y'all on purpose,” said Mrs. Goose. “That's just bullying! Oh, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Bull! I meant that’s just mean.”

Mrs. Bull had always complained to her husband that Mrs. Goose was just as mean as that old collie but that at least the collie wasn't sneaky. Here was another example, taking a poke at them and pretending it was a mistake. 

“I know what I’d do if I was you sheep,” said Mr. Goose.

“What?” asked Mr. Ram.

“I’d beat him at his own game, and those guys are the ones I'd get to help me." He nodded toward the barn cats. There were four of them, lined up against a fence, one of them lazily picking his teeth with a splinter. They were known for being lean and mean and fast. Meanwhile, on a gate nearby lounged the ranch dogs - two terrier mixes, a bloodhound, a beagle, and the collie. The dogs and the cats always called a truce during flock parties, but never would they mix. 

Mr. Goose looked over at the collie. “Someday that dog is gonna get his.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” said Mrs. Bull, smiling when she saw that she had infuriated Mrs. Goose.

"Oops, I'm sorry," said Mrs. Bull. "I forgot - y'all don't have lips - or ears either!"  

As the flock party was breaking up, Mr. Goose could be seen chatting quietly with Mr. Ram, his wing draped over the ram's shoulder. Mr. Ram was nodding, looking grave. Then Mr. Goose waved the barn cats over. After a few more minutes of quiet talk, the group burst out laughing. 

The next night at midnight, Mr. Ram, Mr. Goose, and the cats met up behind some hay bales. 

"Did you bring the stuff?" Mr. Goose asked the ram. 

"Yeah. Got the net wrapped up in the blanket." 

"Do you think your wife'll miss it?"

"What, the blanket?"

"Yeah."

"Nah, it's wool - we've got dozens of 'em."

"Okay," said Mr. Goose. "Hey, cats, gather 'round." The cats leaned in, listened attentively, and grinned.  

Within seconds, two of the cats had climbed a tree near the barn and jumped onto the roof. Then they unrolled more than 30 feet of netting and dangled it between them. The other cats eased the barn door open then slipped into the shadows. Mr. Ram stood about 50 feet from the doorway, spread his hind legs wide, and planted his feet in the dirt. Screwing up his courage, he cupped his hooves around his mouth and yelled.

"Hey, Ankle Biter! Your mama was Chewbacca, and your daddy was Big Bird!"

The collie sat bolt upright, blinking and trying to get his bearings. The sheep yelled again.

"Hey - Pencil Puss!"

The collie got a bead on the sheep and shot from his bed like a rocket. As soon as he crossed the barn's threshold, the cats dropped the net and the collie was trapped, kicking and snapping at the rope. The cats who had been waiting near the doorway, sprang into action, rolling the collie over a few times to ensure he was wrapped up tight. Then they threw the blanket over the portion of netting that covered his head to make sure he couldn't bite.

"We got him!" they yelled.

At that point, all the animals gathered around and took turns nipping at the collie's legs while he barked and growled, immobilized. But he did shake the blanket off long enough to shout at the other dogs. 

"Don't just stand there!" 

The dogs rushed over and nipped at him too."

"No!" the collie bellowed. "I meant do somethin' to help me!" At that point, the dogs just stepped back to stare at him stupidly.

When everyone who wanted a nip had gotten one, the cats rolled the collie roughly out of the net, dumping him at the feet of the other dogs.

The collie spent the next week propped up in the barn, his legs wrapped in gauze and a cone circling his head. The perplexed rancher could only scratch his head wondering what had happened.

And whenever they knew the rancher wouldn’t hear, the happy animals chorused these words: "Back to the pack!"

As for his part, the collie learned that arrogance and bullying were no way to herd sheep, and he began asking them politely to move this way and that whenever he tended them. And he couldn't be sure, but he was pretty well convinced that the sheep appreciated the way he treated them these days. 

But just in case, he started sleeping on top of the net.   

When Robin Flew Away: The Death of Robin Williams

Updated on February 16, 2024

On my personal scale of the sad and unthinkable, Robin Williams' suicide is off the scale. In fact, on its way to being off the scale, it flattened the scale, smashed the scale, and obliterated the scale under morbid, coarse, repugnant tonnage. 

Image source: stockadobe.com

I say all that as a lowly fan, a woman whose existence was unknown to him, a woman who imagined that he was, in some way, ethereal. 

My favorite Williams film, and one of my favorite movies ever, is The Fisher King. In it, Williams plays Parry, a homeless man with mental illness who lies on his back in Central Park, nude, watching the clouds. 

I saw The Fisher King only once because I was so emotionally wrung out by it that I never quite had it in me to watch it again. Just thinking about Parry, so vulnerable, an innocent among monsters, nearly makes me sob again all these many years later. And it seemed to me then as it seems to me now, that there was a lot of Williams in Parry - or maybe it's the other way around.

When he died, people said they were shocked but not surprised, that there often seemed to be "something about him." My inept description of that "something" is wistful melancholy, a look I liked to think meant that he knew more than all of us mere mortals combined, and that the knowledge weighed heavy. Sometimes that look came with a faint smile, a barely perceptible upward curve of the lips, a smile that belied resignation. 

At other times, he was the impish, pesky child you couldn't bring yourself to punish, and, when the role warranted it, he looked absolutely chilling. All of which unearths a question: When Williams looked in the mirror, which Williams looked back?

When Robin Williams was on, he was very, very on, as though God had strapped an Acme rocket to his backside and lit the fuse Himself. How his mouth kept up with his mind is beyond me, as is any grasp of how he improvised so brilliantly.

At first, I had a romanticized notion of William's death, that he had figured out the meaning of life, identified what lies beyond our universe, and, unlike Parry, grew weary of clouds. I told myself that after analyzing the sad reality of this situation, Williams concluded that it was time for him to go. 

I know now that Lewy body dementia, was revealed via autopsy. I know now that he was very ill in his body and his mind, and I know now that that was what led to his death and not some cosmic, dark, angelic, insight beyond the grasp of Earthbound brains. Any way you look at it, Robin Williams cashed in his millions in chips and left the rest of us flat broke. 

Some talking-head pundit asked what Williams' suicide would mean to his legacy. I once thought that question was ridiculous. William's death was a separate issue, and his body of work would always stand. 

Until, for me, it didn't. 

Because I soon realized that I could no longer watch Robin Williams movies and that I could barely tolerate even brief clips. Almost 10 years later, I still can't, and trying to just feels too damn sad. Maybe that's a different kind of legacy, and if so, it too feels too damn sad. 

I wish Robin Williams could come back healthy, happy, and adlibbing an Elizabethan blue streak, but he can't. As for me, I have children to praise, bad poetry to write, and a million other things that tether me soundly and happily to life. It seems I like having an Earthbound brain. 

Besides, he took Parry with him, and someone has to watch the clouds. 

  

Tales of the Unexpected

Sometimes a snappy retort is welcomed and sometimes, not so much. Sometimes what comes from a loved one's mouth in our time of need is not what we expected to hear, and sometimes what comes out of our mouths is not what our loved ones expect either. 

Syd and Jon at that retort-ish stage.
Photo by Teece Aronin, all rights reserved. 

A few winters ago, during one of the worst winters on record, as huge swaths of the U.S. suffered through a polar vortex, I left work at 4 p.m. to take my son, Jon for an allergy shot. Then we hit the post office, tried to find our way back to an ice cream shop we like (I have no sane reason for that in the midst of a polar vortex), got lost, gave up on the ice cream shop, picked up my daughter, Syd, went to the store, then pulled into our apartment house parking lot four hours later. Everyone was a little on edge because the weather was truly awful. We sat in the car, dreaded getting out, and then I snapped.

"Great! We've been driving around for hours and now the whole evening is shot!" Jon looked over and said, "Mom, it's just one night out of thousands in your life. It's okay." I complimented Jon on being so wise. When we got out of the car, the wind hit us smack in the face. It felt like fistfuls of razor blades hurled by an unseen sadist.

"Oh, maaan!" Jon wailed. "I forgot I have to walk the stupid dog!" Watching him hustle up the walk, miserable from the cold, I called after him, "Jon! It’s just one night out of thousands in your life!" He flat-out ignored me and kept walking. I apologized later because using a child’s words of comfort against him is a low thing to do, but I was exhausted, cranky, and after all, it was a polar vortex.

One day, after I got rear-ended and my back was killing me, I asked Syd to bring me a glass of ice water and some ibuprofen. I was still a little loopy from a pain pill I'd had earlier, so as she handed the pills to me, I said, "Oh, thank you. Having you was such a good idea. Now I'm extra glad I did."

Syd smiled placidly and replied, "I'm not sure if you getting high on pain meds is a good idea. Kind of scared of what you'll say next.”

If I had thought she would say, "Aw, Mom, I love you," I was mistaken. 

This same kid sat in a high school classroom one first day of school as a girl came in, crying. Syd didn't know her, but she got up from her desk, walked to the girl and asked what happened. The girl explained that she'd just been bullied. "Do you need a hug?" Syd asked. The girl said she did, so Syd hugged her then stepped back and quipped, "Who do you want me to beat up?" I expect that show of support to her classmate will get her off the hook with the Universe for what she said when she handed me my pain pill.

Being a later life parent has its challenges but rarely do you expect them to come in the form of age-related sarcasm from your own kids. I was crossing the room one day when Jon, lying on the floor watching TV, reached out and wrapped his arms around my ankles. I smiled down at him, expecting an affectionate remark. What I didn't expect was, "I got your legs! Well, not exactly - maybe in another 40 years!"

Jon was an experienced quipster by that time, having tried out his early material on his grandmother when he was three. He was sick and I left him in the car with my mother while I ran into the pharmacy to pick up his prescription.

"Grandma," he said, "I'm gonna throw up."

"Just a minute, Jon," my mother said, scrambling around and searching for something he could vomit into. It took a minute, but she came up with an empty fast food bag, got out of the car using her cane, opened his door, leaned in and heard, "But not today."

Could there ever come a time when thinking of those moments with my kids won't make me smile? Maybe.

"But not today."

Certainly not today.

Lasts

When my Aunt Izzy was very old, she and my Uncle Mel had to replace their refrigerator. They were people of deep religious faith, and in Aunt Izzy's case, that faith was coupled with a wide stripe of pragmatism.

Image, copyright Teece Aronin

"Mel, just think," she announced, clapping tiny, arthritic hands together, "this should be the last refrigerator we'll ever buy." I never heard whether my uncle embraced her realization as enthusiastically since she might as well have told him that the grim reaper was holding the refrigerator warranty and an extended warranty was not available. 

No doubt her enthusiasm had a lot to do with a conviction that something more rewarding than major appliance-shopping awaited her after death. Years later she put her faith where her mouth was by proving herself fearless of death. As she lay dying, she looked around her room at all the family bustling in and out, sobbing and waiting on her and sighed, "Oh, I'm having the most wonderful death!"

In 2014, four years before he died, Philip Roth, the last of a human chain of brilliant American writers which included John Updike, Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Bernard Malamud and a doll's handful of others, made this pronouncement: "I can guarantee you that this is my last appearance ever on television . . . absolutely my last appearance on any stage anywhere."

He got around that by granting interviews via email and in his home. But still, that appearance may well have been the last - of a kind. Being one of your country's most treasured novelists, can make it hard to sever all ties to the limelight. 

I say all that to say this: Lasts are interesting things. Whether it's your last refrigerator or your last television appearance, the last anything is a small death. 

All the Petty Horses

A couple of weeks ago, on a walk with my daughter, Sydney, I asked, “What are you doing when you’re most happy?” Without pause, she said, “Horseback riding.”

Copyright, Teece Aronin

Syd has taken riding lessons off and on for about four years. Miraculously, she has yet to fall off or be bucked by a horse. I think this might have something to do with the fact that the horses instructors usually pair people up with have more in common with leaky old pleasure boats than with Triple Crown winners - and I mean leaky literally. Still, my daughter sits a horse like a pro even if the horse looks like an amateur.

One thing I've learned about horses is that they have personalities - interesting personalities - as often as not, more like Mr. Ed's than Silver's or Trigger's. Mr. Ed, by the way, was the slow-talking, trouble-making Palomino from the 1960's sitcom bearing his name. In one episode, he provokes his human, Wilbur until Wilbur blows his stack, after which Ed gently scolds in motherly tones: “Wilbur, you yelled at your little horsey.”

One day, a picture I was taking of Syd with a horse, turned into a step-by-step tutorial for horses on how to photo bomb. It began with the horse standing placidly alongside my daughter and progressed with it systematically pushing her out of sight with its head. I remember Syd trying to mount that horse one day. It waited till she was about to put her foot in the stirrup before stepping forward two steps. When Syd adjusted her position and attempted the mount again, the horse took two steps back. This went on until the horse grew weary of the game and allowed Syd to mount. The horse, however, had made its point.

My grandfather broke horses for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He said that when saddling horses, he’d resort to kneeing them sharply in the belly, forcing them to expel the air they’d pumped up with to keep the saddle from getting sinched too tight. I can't say I blame horses for that, but when my son was little, he nearly fell under the galloping hooves of a horse who had managed to get away with that trick.

Now that we've established the sneakiness of some horses, let's consider those who take attitude to a whole new level. For instance, this is a made-up story, but not by much because you can't tell me something just like this hasn't happened: 

Say there's this horse named Bucky. No one at the farm likes Bucky because he didn't come by his name without cause. Bucky is just plain nasty, and if he can throw you, he is filled with pride. If he can throw you and then step on you, he's thrilled.

A new farmhand comes on board. He is cocky and boastful. He claims he can ride Bucky without being thrown. The farmhand mounts Bucky, and Bucky takes off like a shot, disappearing over a nearby hill, rider barely attached. When Bucky reappears, zooming up the rise of the next hill, it is with an empty saddle.

I love horses, I really do, and used to ride from time to time. The squeak and the scent of saddle leather, the rolling movements of the horse beneath you, the sound of clopping hooves - all those things are like nothing else, and I can see why Syd loves horses too.

I just pray she'll know a Bucky when she sees one.

What's New, Silas?

Our cat, Silas is a brat - a big, orange-furred, basketball-esque brat. Silas operates under the conviction that everyone who sees him, loves him and that his charm will get him out of every scrape. 

Silas used to be right.

Kitty in a Nightcap. Image by Teece Aronin.

There are a lot of things Silas used to be - a baffled, innocent wisp of buff fluff, nestled in my cupped palms, for instance. As he grew older, he grew bolder and oranger, throwing his weight around with an "I've-been-on-the-planet-for-under-a-year-and-already-you're wrapped-around-my-little-polydactyl-thumb" kind of attitude. 

Silas didn't only grow older, bolder, and oranger; he grew bigger. His head outweighs most cats. He enjoys waiting until I've climbed into the shower to start pounding at the bathroom door. Because he's huge, I can't tell if he's clawing the door, battering the door with his head, or swinging a mallet at the door, because with Silas, all of those things would sound the same.

At the end of the day, he climbs into bed with me then jumps down a minute later. Then he’s back up, and then he jumps down. This happens half a dozen times while in between, I stroke his face and coo to him to lie down.

Once, by some miracle, I'm sleeping, and Silas is satisfied that I'm deep into the REM stage, he pussyfoots across the top of my pillow, stepping on my hair and pulling it hard until he reaches the nightstand. The nightstand is where my lip balm, ibuprofen, earrings, and water glass beckon to him like sirens on a tabletop shore.

"No, Silas," I mutter. "No, honey. Come here. Come here, Silas. Silas, leave those alone. Would you cut that OUT?  Silas, don't make me come over there. Silas, please! Silas, I mean it!" Ten minutes later, he's at it again, this time pausing to chew on the tag I'm afraid to cut off my pillow for fear of arrest. 

In the morning, I wake, exhausted. Silas is next to me, sleeping sprawled on his back. I dress for work. On my way out the door, I start the song "What's New, Pussycat" by Tom Jones with the CD player set to REPEAT TRACK. I wave toodles at him and slip out the door.  

I plan to work late that night.

We'll talk it over at bedtime.

To Kill a Mocking Watchman

Go Set a Watchman, the prequel/sequel/whatever-the hell to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has been around for nearly three years (if you don't count the decades it lay in hiding), but millions of Lee fans are still hoarse from screaming out shock and dismay when it was finally released.

Image by Teece Aronin

If you've been curled up in a porch swing with Boo Radley and not getting out much, here's what happened: After insisting for more than five decades that her first first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, would also be her last, Lee released Go Set a Watchman after what was likely a lot of encouragement from her lawyer, Tonja Carter. 

Watchman started life as the manuscript Lee first presented to her editor when she was a bright and shiny new novelist. The editor advised her to rework it and build on the book's flashbacks. The result was To Kill a Mockingbird, about middle-aged Atticus Finch, an attorney, who, in Depression-era Alabama and at the height of Jim Crow, defends a black man wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman. The book made an instant literary giant out of Lee who was struck virtually mute by the hoopla and clung tightly to her privacy forever after.  

Lee did reveal, however, that Atticus Finch was modeled after her father. In 1963, To Kill a Mockingbird became a masterpiece of moviemaking, and the film earned Gregory Peck a best actor Academy Award® for his portrayal of Atticus. Generations of predominantly white people revered Atticus, many naming babies after him and patterning their parenting styles after his. But in Watchman, Atticus, now in his seventies, is easily identifiable as racist.

“How could this happen?” people cried, again mostly white people. Many of us had deified Atticus, or at least made him as godlike as a fictional character can be. After all, Atticus Finch sat up all night outside a jail, armed with nothing but a floor lamp and his own shining goodness to defend an innocent black man from vigilantes. He defied all of Maycomb and then some to defend this man in court. How dare Harper Lee take all that away from us? WTH? (Whites Thinking Hopelessly).  

Watchman's release made me wonder if Gregory Peck went spinning in his grave, screaming about his legacy. I also wondered what the conversation might have been like had he visited Lee on the eve of Watchman's release. What might such an encounter have been like? Imagine with me, if you will:

. . . a stormy evening in Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee's hometown and inspiration for the fictional Maycomb where To Kill a Mockingbird is set. Eighty-nine-year-old Harper Lee tugs the vinyl cover over her old Olivetti typewriter. It’s time to call it a day. For all practical purposes she is blind and deaf but one needs no eyesight nor any hearing to find one’s way around a typewriter, especially when one has been typing for nearly 70 years. 

Lee smiles to herself. She's been secretly writing novels since Mockingbird was released, and they'll all sell like hotcakes when she's gone. The one she's working on now is her 112th. "Steven King, you're a hack," she chuckles. On top of the typewriter, she plops a stack of typed papers designed to throw off her “bloodhound of a lawyer” and those “snoopy publisher people.”

Atticus/Schmatticus, Atticus/Schmatticus, Atticus/Schmatticus reads the type.   

“Atticus/Schmatticus, Atticus/Schmatticus, Atticus/Schmatticus,” chortles Ms. Lee.

Typing gibberish is how she gets to keep a typewriter without arousing suspicion. If people think she’s a trifle demented, let them; it's a brilliant ruse. Still, she’s miffed at herself for allowing the bloodhound and the publishing people to talk her into publishing the book due out tomorrow. Maybe she was demented after all. No, not demented - curious. If she hadn’t been so curious about what would happen when all those Atticus groupies got their boats rocked, she could’ve gone to her grave with her legacy intact and they could have published the book posthumously if they took a mind to. 

By the time the grits hit the fan she’d have been settled in Heaven with her harp and her halo and wouldn’t care a bit. In the event there is no afterlife, her light would have blinked sweetly out like that of a Maycomb firefly, and she wouldn’t know what people were saying about her. She pads on blue-veined feet to the bathroom, grateful that she needs little assistance from the young, strong staff whose hands work her over like a swarm of locusts whenever they bathe her. She lifts her nightie with one hand and grasps a grab bar with the other. She eases herself onto the toilet. 

"Har-PER?" booms what Lee first fears is the voice of God but seconds later, recognizes as Gregory Peck's. She's not totally surprised. She's often wondered what Peck would think of the new-old book or the old-new book; even Lee isn't sure which it is. Not appreciating his tone, she meets fire with fire: 

"Wait until I'm off the damned crapper!"

Peck, ever the gentleman, falls silent while Lee is in the bathroom.

"Could you think of no one but yourself?" he chastises as soon as she returns. 

"Nope!" she replies, not even pretending to attempt eye contact since there is no body in the room besides hers. She sits on the bed and attempts to swing her legs in without giving Peck's ghost an eyeful. 

"Harper, you're making me look bad! You're sullying my image!" intones Peck.

"Really!" barks Lee. "You didn't do that yourself when you played that whale-happy Captain Ahab? And I suppose Josef Mengele, was a kindly old doctor who retired in Brazil so he could save the rain forests! Honestly, Greg, you actors really fry my soup!" 

There is a lengthy silence before the once booming voice mutters, "My apologies, ma'am."

"That's better!" Lee barks, hiking her blankets up to her neck and turning her back on Peck's ghost.