Chapter 5

The story so far:

James Dunning worked for the Record for more than 20 years. When his job was eliminated, he and his wife were forced to move in with her mother, who is allergic to dogs. James had no choice but to leave his mostly blind lhasa apso, Zoe, at the pound. He brought Zoe there before dawn and tied her to the entry gate. As the sun began to come up, a strange dog approached and freed Zoe from her leash. The two have set off toward adventures.

By Carrie Jacobson

Zoe. Original oil painting by Carrie Jacobson

The big dog starts down the road. Zoe can hear the dogs in the pound barking and baying and whining, and something in her wants to bring all of them along. But the big  dog – her name is Kaja – knows that it would be too hard.

The road here is mostly dirt, with bushes along the edges, and deep green woods beyond. In the thin morning light, the two trot slowly down the middle of the road. Zoe sniffs the air. There are new smells – animals, a muddy river – and the scents of pine and dirt and the woods, scents she knows.

She follows the big dog mostly by scent. The dog has an unusual smell, and it is enough for Zoe. She doesn’t need to see well, as long as she can smell the big dog. They walk along, and the day grows warmer and brighter, and then, the big dog stops.

She listens hard, and then nudges Zoe toward the side of the road. They walk into the bushes along the edge of the road. The ground is wet and cool beneath their feet, and the shadows swallow them.

In a moment, a car goes by. The big dog waits until it’s gone, and its sound is far away, and nudges Zoe up and into the road again.

This time, they only get about half as far before Kaja cocks her head and turns toward the bushes.

The next time, they don’t even cover half that distance.

Dawn is turning into day, and if they want to remain unseen, they’ll have to take to the woods. Kaja knows what will happen if someone sees them.

Deep in her heart, deep in her memory, she has a sense of her mother and her littermates. It’s like a shadow, like the scent of a room just after someone has left. It’s  something she can reach for but not grasp.

What she does remember is the pound. She remembers the cold floor, that it was always wet. She remembers curling in a heap with her brothers and her sisters, licking their faces and their ears, and playing. Milky smells, and soft warmth, and sharp teeth, she remembers all this. And she remembers being picked up, again and again and again, and then, one day, being torn from everyone she knows, and brought to a family’s home.

At first, it was good. It was great. She had a soft bed and the people paid attention to her, all the time. But one day, everything changed. The mother and father fought, all the time. They yelled and threw things at each other. They broke things against the walls. They paid no attention to her or to their children, and those children made Kaja’s life horrible. They yelled and threw things at her. They pulled her hair.

And so she left. It was the only home she’d ever known, the only home she could remember, but all she wanted was to leave. Somewhere, deep in her soul, she knew that humans could be kind. Humans could treasure her and love her. But not these humans.

So one night, they let her out to pee and she took off. She trotted into the shadows at the back of the yard and she kept going.

Humans drive in cars, she knows. And that means the two of them will have to cut through the woods. Kaja knows that there are creatures in the woods, creatures who could harm Zoe, but they have no choice. Kaja nuzzles the smaller dog and learns her scent, and in one moment, she feels the flash of memory – soft warmth, sharp teeth – and knows she will protect this little dog, no matter what.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

It is an unwritten law of the universe that when the going gets tough, the tough build community. We all have experienced acts of kindness and generosity that have brought us to tears. These sometimes-small acts give us hope that helps us face even the darkest days. All of us have friends and family members who have lost their jobs or livelihoods during the current economic downturn. Building community is one way of making sure that these loved ones do not lose their dignity and slip through the tears in our social fabric.

Host a local-foods potluck dinner, and suggest these budget-stretching ideas to your friends and family:

• Create “work parties.” Partygoers would meet each week for an afternoon of work at a different participant’s house. Work crews could tackle costly chores — such as splitting firewood, painting the house, caulking and weatherproofing the house — that the hosting participant otherwise would have to pay for. Attendance is mandatory to ensure that all involved give and receive their fair share. Tasks are completed more quickly, are more fun, and are far less costly than they would be if you hired the work out.

• Pool your resources. By sharing things such as tools, lawn mowers, pools, carpet cleaners and other costly items, it eliminates the need for each household in your community to purchase these things. Rules can be attached to the use of each item. For example, “You must clean the pool after each use.” “Chain saw must be returned sharpened, oiled and gassed.” A community tool chest can be set up online, with a calendar attached for accountability.

• If you have small children, host a play date party, and ask the mothers to bring bags of too-small clothes to swap. Why spend the family money on children’s clothes, which will be outgrown before their useful lives are over? The same works for adult clothes. Leftover clothes can be donated to immigrant worker services, foster homes or any of the charities that now accept used clothes.

• As the summer harvest starts to roll in, host a canning party. Purchase bushels of fresh tomatoes, and spend the day in the kitchen with your closest friends making sauce, canning and enjoying one another’s friendship. The same can be done with cornhusking and making pickles, salsa and jams. Each friend brings a box of clean jars and goes home with a share of the goodies. This helps to feed your family well over the winter and positively impacts local farmers economically, guaranteeing food security.

If you already have a well-established network of like-minded people, you can make a big difference in your community by:

• Creating a local investment club in which each pool has a certain amount of money. This money can be lent to local entrepreneurs wishing to start new businesses, farmers wishing to convert to organic or cooperatives, or even to save beloved local restaurants on the edge of bankruptcy. Most banks won’t make microloans to community members when they need them. Because friends and family would be involved in your club, it may be possible to arrange for farmers to repay the loans with shares of their harvests or for restaurants to repay investors with dinner out once a month. Imagine how that would help your local community. In my community, I am investigating the possibility of a community-owned hydroelectric power plant.

• Establishing a green-energy task force that combines a local certified energy auditor with a local banker and local certified contractors who do weatherization and insulation. This “green team” can help homeowners and small businesses reduce their electric and heating bills substantially and take advantage of recent incentives through state and national sources. The rising costs of energy guarantee that people who take advantage of energy efficiency will save more money on their electric bills than they spend on the efficiency improvements. By setting up a green team, you are simplifying the process and generating local economic impact. This may save jobs and livelihoods in your community, as well as keep more money in local pockets.

• Starting a “think local first” campaign in your area to create more local jobs, strengthen local businesses, and generate stronger local economies. For more information, see the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies Web site, at http://www.LivingEconomies.org.

shawn@zestoforange.com

Photography by Rich Gigli

Stairway To The Stars - Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By Michael Kaufman

The following stories are true. Even the names have not been changed to protect the innocent. They are selected short news articles that appeared over the years in the pages of the New York Post or the Daily News. I clipped and saved them just knowing they would come in handy some day. Here they are, with their original headlines. Enjoy!

TURKS SEE A SPECTRE

Ankara – The public prosecutor here is investigating a complaint that a map of North America shown on Turkish television looks so much like a profile of Lenin that it constitutes illegal Communist propaganda.

Map of North America in Turkey

Officials of the state-owned Turkish Radio and Television said a Turk, whom they did not identify, made the complaint to the prosecutor and an official inquiry was in progress. TRT was sending photographs of the map – used as part of a backdrop for newscasts – to the prosecutor.

Communist propaganda is illegal in Turkey.

THE BALLOT OF MICKEY MOUSE

New Braunfels, Tex. (AP) – Election officials have gone to court to stop a recount of the write-in votes for Mickey Mouse in a race for county judge. Incombent Comal County Judge Max Womack was the only candidate on the ballot in the recent general election.

Mickey Mouse was deemed unfit to hold office in Texas

Joseph Shields, editor of a Canyon Lake Weekly newspaper, has said he will file an affidavit asking for a recount, but he has not done so. Officials did not bother to count Mouse’s vote in the canvas, which Shields says they should have done.

Election officials, seeking a temporary injunction, said in their application a recount would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money. Their petition also states, “Mickey Mouse is not and has not been a resident of Comal County for six months as required by law” and that “said Mickey Mouse is an idiot, lunatic and minor and very possibly an unpardoned felon and is, therefore, according to the laws of the State of Texas, ineligible to hold office.”

BETTER TO GIVE THAN DECEIVE

Tulsa, Okla (UPI) – Goodwill Industries says that some of its Christmas donations are causing more confusion than good. Executive Director Russle Brami said that collection boxes recently produced two hand grenades, two goats, five live ducks, grass cuttings, World War II K rations, marriage licenses, camel saddles, and an assortment of live snakes and lizards.

AMIN’S MINISTER OF LOVE

KAMPALA–President Idi Amin of Uganda has fired foreign minister,

Fired frisky foreign minister

Elizabetr Bagaya, accusing her of unbecoming behavior during a trip abroad.                                  Gen. Amin was particularly annoyed to learn that Ms. Bagaya made love to an unknown European  in a bathroom at a Paris airport on her way home after representing Uganda at the UN recently, according to Radio Uganda.

PICKS OUT CASKETS, KILLS KIN & SELF

Laurium, Mich. (Knight-Ridder)–A funeral director described by a friend as “an exacting sort of fellow” shot and killed his wife and grandson before taking his own life yesterday in the family’s apartment above the funeral home.

Maynard Hulburt, 64, filled out three death certificates, picked out three caskets, and left three sets of clothing hanging in a bedroom for the victims before the killings, the police said.

TOILET FIRMS CALLED FLUSH

Washington (UPI) – A federal grand jury indicted four manufacturing companies and three of their executives today on charges of violating anti-trust laws by conspiring to fix prices of wooden toilet seats.

Michael can be reached a michael@zestoforange.com