Sunday, I decided, the 26th of October, was a day worth celebrating. Sure, I revel in the pleasures of every day I’m fortunate to live and breathe and walk the good Earth, but I resolved to make this one special.
I’m living my best life in a wonderful place. I’ve got good neighbors, great friends and a dog who loves me. And, in the eyes of the law, as of yesterday afternoon I’d been divorced exactly a month.
I took an extra-long shower. I put on my favorite blue jeans. I built a crackling fire in the woodstove and had a hot breakfast.
Venturing outdoors, I checked the rain gauge — two days had brought over four inches to The Mountain. The air was heavy and dense, thick clouds descending to envelop the landscape.
There was work to be done, which is (for me) its own kind of celebration. I pulled the truck down next to the wood yard and loaded it with firewood for the cabin.
One row behind the tailgate, I calculated, stacked to the bedrails, would be just enough to fill the indoor rack.
For this job, I chose the truck over the Ranger for a few reasons. First, convenience — it was parked right outside my front door. Second, capacity — I’d have to hitch the utility cart to the Ranger to haul as much as I wanted.
And third, the Silverado has been giving me trouble. I haven’t yet been able to find the parasitic electrical drain on the battery, so after sitting for a couple of days it doesn’t want to turn over. Using it to bring up firewood simply was an excuse to start it and let it run awhile.
I parked the loaded truck outside the cabin’s north door and transferred the wood inside. It took me about a dozen trips with the log carrier to get it done.
My formula worked to perfection. The rack on the cabin hearth is full again.
You may have noticed in a couple of those pictures a (camo) tarp in the bed with the cordwood. That’s because it was pouring rain while I worked. By the time I finished, I was soaked to the skin.
I didn’t mind at all. In fact, even though it was a cold rain, it felt glorious.
As for the wood itself, I kept it covered as much as I could. I mean, I was pulling bone-dry, seasoned wood from tarped stacks, and I didn’t want it to get rained on any more than necessary.
But the truth is that it doesn’t much matter. A little rain can’t undo almost two years of seasoning. Once in the rack, four feet from a running woodstove, that surface moisture evaporated by the end of the day.
Today I bid a fond farewell to yet another essential, irreplaceable persona from my all-American childhood — on Thursday, at the age of 100, June Lockhart passed away.
Now, if you’ll indulge me, I have a June Lockhart story. It’ll test my long-term memory, but I’ll tell it the best I can.
My father was a veterinarian, and my family always had collies. And yes, one of them was named “Lassie.” She, along with “Laddie,” filled my days with affection and laid the foundation for my love of canine companionship.
One evening in the late ’60s or early ’70s, after my father finished office hours in the clinic adjoining our house, my parents sat down at the kitchen table for their traditional bowls of ice cream before bed. They were interrupted by the chime of the doorbell at the clinic — someone had arrived after hours.
My father started to get up from the table, but my mother said no, she’d go over answer the door.
She opened it to find an unusual scene on this rainy night. Standing in front of her was a finely dressed woman — fur coat, sparkling jewelry, the works. Behind the classy lady stood a man wearing a uniform typical of a chauffeur. In the otherwise empty parking lot was a black Cadillac.
The driver cradled an injured dog in his arms, wrapped in a blanket. The woman greeted my mother.
“Hello, my name’s June Lockhart.”
This is where I get to invoke a word I seldom use — “nonplussed.” See, my mother was perhaps more detached from pop culture than any American outside of a nunnery. She didn’t watch TV. She had no grasp of fads and trends and celebrities.
So when she came face-to-face with a TV star — Lassie’s mom, for cryin’ out loud — my mother was nonplussed.
By that time, my father had looked out the window, saw the Cadillac and, curious, came over to see what was up. He recognized June Lockhart immediately, inviting her and the driver inside.
I seem to recall that she was in the area for an appearance at a local playhouse. While traveling to her next engagement, she’d spotted the injured animal and instructed her chauffeur to turn around and pick it up. Placing a couple of phone calls led them to my father’s vet clinic.
She stayed while the dog was examined — it had a broken leg, I think. She asked my father to treat it and find it a loving home, and she left more than enough money to cover the cost.
And that’s my June Lockhart story.
At least two of the collies my family had when I was a kid, including the aforementioned Laddie, were what my father referred to as “Scotch Collies.” Naturally, then, that’s what I always called them, too.
I remember the first time I told that to my ex-wife (the first one). Show-ring elitist that she was, she gave me no end of shit about it.
“No such thing! No such breed!”
According to the AKC, she spoke gospel truth — of the 200 or so breeds the club recognizes, “Scotch Collie” isn’t among them. I decided that the point wasn’t worth debating with a snob.
The Scotch Collie — also known as “Old-Time Scotch Collie,” “Scottish Highland Collie” and “Old-Time Farm Shepherd” — is quite real, a foundational, ancestral breed to latter-day rough collies and smooth collies. Scotch Collies developed naturally over time, and that genetic diversity makes them stronger, healthier, more resilient and longer-lived. They’re athletic herders, bred for work.
AKC collies, by contrast, have been engineered to a conformation standard — they are, quite literally, bred for show.
It’s said that only a few hundred Scotch Collies remain. Of those, it’s difficult to say how many were extracted (reverse-bred) from today’s show stock.
Now here’s a coincidental twist. In the 1840s, an Aussie by the name of Thomas Hall began breeding imported Scotch Collies with the native dingo. The result came to be known as the Hall’s Heeler — herding instincts from the collie, stamina and versatility from the wild dingo.
It was the foundation of what would become the Australian Cattle Dog, or Heeler. So there’s an ancestral smidgen of Scotch Collie in Miss Smudge.
I think that’s pretty damned cool.
Supper yesterday was easy — just heat’n’eat. But I used the range, not the microwave or even the gas oven, because brisket chili from Carolyn’s deserves low and slow.
See, I got two orders of chili and cornbread on Friday and put one back for Sunday. Yeah, I planned this out days in advance.
Every celebration needs a toast, and after putting the day’s last logs on the fire I raised a glass. North Fork Rye Whiskey from Glacier Distilling, of course.
I toasted these, the best days of my life. It’s great to be here.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable