My father, who had grown up in the slums of Baltimore, then after fighting in the South Pacific in WWII, took advantage of the G.I. Bill and earned a BS degreee. He then went to work in an executive position in the aerospace industry. He became worried that his growing brood was getting spoiled and too soft in the post-war middle class culture of affluence and, in order to teach us the value of hard work, leased a small ranch and gave us all animals to take care of. My mom’s favorite book at the time was The Egg and I. My dad’s was Cheaper by the Dozen.
I was three when we arrived. Gradually, my portion of this experiment was to raise a pig, some chickens, a milk cow, and a dog, with my dad’s assistance an advice, who didn’t know the first thing about any of this. Luckily, my mother spent her early life on her father’s farm in Texas.
The old man was a strange guy sometimes. All my animals were black. Even my tennis shoes were black. My big brother was given a similar menagerie, only his animals were all white. Even his tennis shoes. (My big sister, the oldest child, was given a pony, enrolled in 4-H and an English riding school, and expected to study the equestrian arts.) We boys were told not to give our animals names as they were to be raised for food. This, of course, didn’t register with either of us. They were pets, no matter what dad said to us otherwise. Anyway, you can probably guess the outcome.
My brother was especially traumatized when the van showed up one day to shoot his pig and carry it away only to be returned soon after in little white paper packages. I’m not sure I made the connection right away, but I remember my brother refusing to eat certain meals. My mom eventually put a stop to it and there were no replacements brought in. Except for the chickens. Although my big, black rooster was spared and so was my brother’s big, fat, white laying hen, there were regular beheadings of their descendants in the barnyard.
Truthfully, I don’t remember being especially upset as I didn’t see my animals slaughtered, but I missed them dearly when they mysteriously disappeared. I was seven when we moved to the nearby suburbs and I would forever afterwards have to be satisfied with having just one dog. We had a big, fat, white house cat named snowball who lived forever and my brother had a dog, too. My dad boarded my sister’s horse back at the old ranch and became quite a good horsewoman in her teens. At different times, my brother and I had rabbit hutches in the back yard with dreams of moving up to chinchillas, but nothing came of it.
Whenever I’ve lived on land and not upon the sea, I’ve usually kept either a dog or a cat. Today I have an extremely smart and hardworking border collie named Sam and few days ago I accepted another border collie pup named Dave. I also have a fine, smart horse named Cheyenne. These are amazing animals, I love them very much, and the four of us take care of and protect some sheep, a constantly delinquent burro named Betsy, and some chickens.
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