First posted 2010
1962: We were living next to my Grandmother Hix on what is now Pine Shadows Drive. Back then, it was just a dirt road and we lived on Route 2. And all my daddy’s brothers, including Albert, were hunters. And they had the Beagles, Hounds, and bird dogs to prove it.
When Albert lived in our house*, he’d built a really nice dog pen for his bird dogs. And bird dogs are expensive! Especially if they are well trained. *Daddy, Albert and Robert swapped houses one weekend.
It was summer. My big sister, Deborah, was in the house watching tv – as usual. (She was kinda prissy and never came out to play with me and David unless it was to make fun of us.) David was most likely in the woods with his little red cowboy hat on and his BB gun. And I, being the ever-loving animal lover that I’ve always been, kept passing by the dog pen. Every time I walked by, they would go crazy!
Jumping on the wire, whining, barking, their whole bodies in action from wagging their tails so hard. I knew better than to try and get in the pen with them because I would have been scratched and pounded to death. But still… They looked so sad all locked up and no way to run around the yard.
I decided it wouldn’t hurt to let them out for just a minute. After all, my Uncle Lyndon’s Hounds stayed out of the pen all the time. What would it hurt if Uncle Albert’s dogs got to run around the yard a bit?
Couldn’t have been more wrong! The second that door came open, those dogs were nothing but a dust streak when they took off down the road and out of sight (well, except for the dust still lingering). I just stood there, mouth open, terrified because it was at that moment that I remember Uncle Albert’s stern warning to us kids, “Do NOT let the dogs out.“
I ran screaming in the house, crying, shaking and scared to death. After Deborah realized I hadn’t cut my arm off or some other catastrophe, she – in her big sister fashion – realized a great opportunity to “get me” and get me good!
David ran in the house, too, hearing the dogs’ barking and getting further away from the house and yelled, “What happened to Uncle Albert’s dogs????”
Deborah very calmly took me by the hand and pulled me down on the sofa. She told David to be quiet because I was having a nervous breakdown.
Well, that scared me even more, and even though I didn’t know what a nervous breakdown was, it sounded awful, and I knew people that it was whispered that they had “bad nerves.” I did NOT want to get shock treatments like Deborah said would get me back on the road to recovery.
I stopped screaming to pretend that I was NOT having a nervous breakdown, but stuffing my sniffles nearly choked me, so when Deborah started stroking my forehead and saying really “calming” things like, “It’s okay. Just lie still. You’re having a nervous breakdown but you’ll be all right…. AFTER the shock treatments.” So, my screaming resumed and the last I remember her saying something about Milledgeville.
Deborah was having a hard time keeping a straight face, and I swear I blacked out from fear, Uncle Albert’s voice booming in my ears to make sure we didn’t let his dogs out.
I don’t remember what happened next, but I do remember the next time I saw Uncle Albert, he had a little fun of his own when knowing that I was truly repentant and he’d gotten the dogs back somehow. (I’ll have to ask him if he remembers that and how DID he get the dogs back?”)
I was a little sheepish around him but it was always fun at Grandmother’s house when we were all together. Uncle Albert came in, saw me and bellowed, “WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?“
