This Week in Substitute Teaching 1/16/23

In a 6th grade English class this week the teacher showed a slide of two men. She wanted the students to tell her what they observed in the photo. One boy said that one man was wearing "old man shoes". I had to say something given that I was older than any six of these kids put together. So I yelled out "I take exception to that." And, at about that time I lifted my leg to show the entire class the shoes I was wearing that day. As they all gazed at the end of my leg, the entire class laughed. Pointedly, the boy responded with something like "I rest my case."

Trouble on Concourse B

On our way to our gate in the Denver International Airport on Tuesday, Robin and I created a bit of a mess. As my friends all know, I suffer from peripheral neuropathy, so I trip over my feet easily, and my sense of balance is all but gone. So, to be safe from falling, we took the “people mover” at the airport. But I made the mistake of putting my luggage in front of me instead of behind me and when we got to the end of the mover, you know, where you gracefully step off the damn thing, my suitcase stopped abruptly with part of it still on the mover, but I kept moving. I tripped on the luggage and immediately fell to the floor. Robin was behind me, and so she tripped over me, and she fell also, which resulted in a huge pile of two senior citizens, two suitcases, a backpack, and another carry-on in a jumbled pile on the floor of Concourse B.

Within two seconds we were surrounded by a dozen people who helped us to recover our composure. One young woman wrapped her arms around my middle, face to face, and hoisted me to my feet in what was the most intimate embrace I have had from a woman other than my wife since 1965. At the same time, another woman put her finger through the belt loop at the back of my pants and lifted. At that point I remember feeling like a dead deer being scooped off the highway to reduce interference with oncoming traffic. One man helped Robin get up. The kindness and caring of all these bystanders were truly amazing.

Neither of us was hurt seriously, but the entire incident was incredibly embarrassing. So, I ripped off my NK95 mask and snapped loudly “If you enjoyed that, please come to our Friday afternoon performance. You won’t believe what we can do on that other “people mover” to your left.” Everyone laughed, and I am sure that if I had placed a large hat on the floor at my feet, it would have been filled with dollar bills.

When we finally got to a seat at our gate, I was still upset with the poor agility I now possess. I was angry about the state of my legs and feet and tibial nerve and aging. I muttered to Robin that I am never traveling again, which made her incredibly frustrated, and we argued. But then I broke the tension by saying “I should have gotten the number of that young woman who hugged me.”

Within a few hours we were home again. I sat brooding on our deck with a scotch and a cigar that evening, and I contemplated whether I should ever leave my home in the woods again.

I lost a friend today

His name was Zeus, and he was a black lab.  He turned 15 on Valentine’s Day.  In his last year, he suffered a degenerative hip, atrophied muscles of his hindquarters, a tumor on his left flank the size of a softball, and probably cancer.  He was deaf and nearly blind.  If he laid down on a hardwood or linoleum floor, we had to lift him so he could regain his footing.  My heart broke every time I watched the old guy hobble to his food or water bowls, and I winced each time he moaned or cried.  So it was time to end it, and today was that day.

With help from my son, we lifted him into the back of the car, and I drove to the vets alone.  My wife offered to come, but I knew she really couldn’t bear it, and it would be better for me if I didn’t have to watch her suffer on the trip home.  I learned long ago that I prefer to grieve alone, although when I returned home, my wife and I had our sorrowful moments over Zeus.

Soon after Zeus and I entered the patient room, a tech came in with paper work and said cheerily: “So, this is Stormy?”  I told her no, this is Zeus.  “Oh.  Sorry”.  Geesh lady, let’s not put Stormy down and then return to clip Zeus’s nails.  After the vet administered the drug, he was gone in 10 seconds.  He was lying on the floor and he put his head slowly down as the drug coursed through his body, and he then looked exactly like he did when he was sleeping on the floor at home.  Quiet, peaceful, uneventful.  They left me alone with him for a few minutes while I said my feeble goodbye to a dog who couldn’t even hear me when he was alive.  But I had to say something.  I guess we all do.

I have thought a lot about dogs over the past few years.  To be honest, most of the time I secretly object to the entire phenomenon of dogs and cats as pets (see my earlier blog about cats as killers of wildlife).  The way most people pamper their pets actually disgusts me.  In decades past, when I was a child, dogs were rarely kept in their owners’ houses; they were considered too dirty.  We kept them in dog houses outside.  Remember those?  For better or worse, we have come a long way.  And then there is this.  In 2016, Americans spent $62 billion on these family pets!  $62 billion to purchase them, and for food, toys, collars, leashes, grooming, flea and tick medicine, occasional kenneling and, of course, the never-ending vet bills.  As I write this, teachers in West Virginia are on strike for higher pay and better benefits, but they are meeting voluntarily every day to pack lunches for their poor, hungry students who are now missing that essential meal because their school is closed.  What a pathetic state of affairs.  No civilized country should be able to report such a fact.  So I think of what $62 billion could do to address both of those problems, and I lament.  But, of course, money is never fungible in that way.

We all love our pets, and I loved Zeus.  On the other hand, I was often impatient with him and angry when he relieved himself in the house, or woke us up in the middle of the night, or had to be let out AGAIN, or wouldn’t come when I called to him, or when I tripped over him lying on the floor when I made that important first cup of morning Joe, or when my wife and I decided not to travel because of “the dog”.  And the hair.  Blackish hair—everywhere, all the time. 

But now, I already miss hearing his toe nails clicking down the hallway, the feel of his velvet ears, and the look of those eyes, which were huge for a lab, when he tried to make sense of my human gibberish.  One minute I loved him, and the next minute his existence irritated me. What a confounded and complicated set of emotions come with pet territory.  I have concluded that I love dogs, but dislike being a dog owner.

Will I ever get another dog?  No.  I’ve had dogs since I was about five years old, probably eight or nine.  I’ve done my time.  I don’t want another dog for all the reasons of inconvenience and financial costs that I’ve mentioned already.  But the main reason I will never have another dog is that I can not bear to lose a friend after they have gotten into your heart and become a part of your soul.  Why invite that kind of sadness voluntarily into our lives when there is sadness in abundance already?  I simply can’t do it again.   

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