Shane was one that lived his life to the fullest. He loved the life of the open road. He was one that did not understand fences. When you turned your back or the action became mundane, he was apt to get a running start and leap over a fence to be gone in a flash. He was a smart dog. After being scolded for his latest escape, he would simply wait until you went inside the house, then prance up to the fence and begin to climb. Mr. Horne, my childhood neighbor, often said Shane must have a girl on every street for he was always on the go. Shane could not, would not, bring himself to be fenced in. If Shane could have spoken, he might have said, “There’s no moss on a rolling stone.” Shane was definitely an outdoor dog. Being frugal, my father made a dog house. Timber was used from previously left over projects. The house was tall and wide with a skinny door. A kid could turn himself on his side and wiggle into Shane’s house to be able to sit inside without being seen. It was very dark on the inside. There was a bent nail on the inside at the top just right for hanging a flashlight. Just as Shane could disappear, sometimes a kid would feel the need to make himself a bit scarce. This mostly happened after raiding my family’s garden to have a tomato fight. The neighbor kids would go home but Shane’s dog house made the perfect sanctuary for me. Imagine my father’s surprise to look outside one evening about 11 pm and see a light coming from inside Shane’s house from the flashlight I forgot to turn off. 22 26
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Shane’s favorite time of the year was late summer and into fall. He was a great opportunist. When the scuppernongs had ripened, he would eat them right off the vine, knowing just the right ones that would be the sweetest. He would pick up pecans and crunch them whole between his teeth, never minding the bitter. He must have been able to separate it out with his tongue. He seemed to excite in the delight of the crunch of the pecan shells and in the denial of the sweet scuppernongs that my father longed to pick. This was also the time of year when the children returned to school. I often saw Shane at the elementary school accepting handouts from the students. He wore an experienced coat and had a set of deep brown, soulful doe eyes that just beckoned for a morsel of food. He thought nothing of standing on his hind legs and looking into open classroom windows when the teacher’s back was turned. It brought pleasure to the school kids to secretly flip a snack to Shane. Shane hated loud noises. I often took him to the farm for a bit of rabbit hunting. He had a mind that could think like a rabbit. It was as if he could look at an area and know that there was a rabbit in his midst and know just the right direction to go. Everything would be fine until the first gunshot. Then Shane could have been a challenger to Jesse Owens. Just like lightening, he would be gone in a flash. I often wondered why he acted so. Had someone taken a shot at Shane as a pup? At the end of the hunt, I would find Shane sitting on the hood of the
car and looking at me wondering, “What took you so long?” Chasing rabbits and scaling fences were not Shane’s only talents. The neighborhood kids often tried to play ball with him. But Shane had his own beliefs about the rules of the game. Once Shane had the ball, the game became “Catch Me If You Can.” I think Shane knew that if the ball were to get back to me, it would simply be thrown again and retrieval would be an awful waste of his energy. Maybe he did not like playing ball at all, or maybe it was his own way of becoming the center of attention. At any rate, one throw was about the most you could count on. Shane had a long life. He passed away while I was in college one fall. He was one of those souls that at times had been an irritation to the neighborhood in his nightly wanderings. Now the rattle of trash can lids at midnight could no longer be attributed to him. People would be forced to rise from their warm beds to check out the incursions. Just as Shane had tried to live his life without much pomp and circumstance, he was buried with a simple service reminiscent of the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby.” But his final resting place is in a spot he was happy to call home, under the scuppernong bush, between the pecan trees, beside his dog house. I miss my childhood friend, but remember him when the pecans begin to fall and the succulent smell of ripe scuppernongs fill the air, and a ball goes missing.