dodger

Since everyone 'seems' to be keeping up with my morning ride, and the dog posse therein, it'll be easy to play this story. Before I go further I need to trundle back to Omaha, circa mid-70s. I used to hang around Rockbrook Pool up 'round 108th and West Center Road...the real edge of the city back then. (Go to Omaha now and we'll drive out 300th St.-way and see how it's exploded.) We WERE the suburbs and our community pool was the cool place to be for a ten-year old. I used to ride my classic Schwinn Stingray (no gears/bendix brakes) to the pool everyday in the summer so I could check out the hot fifth-grade girls (does Kim Oberkrom ring a bell? thought so...). One afternoon I was riding my bike home with our neighbor, Brock, on the back of the banana seat when the Burns' dog, Duke, decided to chase a car (or me). There was nowhere to go so the 'Ray runned right over that damn beagle's back (picture a cartoon with a dog being almost busted in half...) and we ended up over the handlebars and across the pavement. Didn't seem like much (kids are resilient) but when I looked down I had a lovely gash on my inner left elbow that ran to the bone....then we panic. Wrapped the towel around my arm and made it the remaining few blocks home. In my defense, there was no choice but the chlorine soaked towel since the only other possible cloth was my beloved stars-and-stripes Speedo...address all smartass comments elsewhere. Damn if I didn't hate that dog, but it WASN'T intentional. From that to this...

On the ride to work a few weeks back (dark morning) I was challenged by a huge white dog that I hadn't seen in a good, long time. I vaguely remember this massive tuft of fur during the dark of some long ago Winter morning but it's been months since he's shown up on the road. He was back, or awake...take your pick. You now know I have dog-bike experience (see above), hospital experience (stitches...see above), but it does no good in the end. I immediately thought about trying the NASCAR tactic of steering straight at that clump of fur, assuming he wouldn't be there by the time our paths intersect, dogs don't do geometry. You've got to figure that a dog this big can't stop and hold ground once it's got a head of steam. As bad as the driving at a wreck idea seems to be, I think it's good advice...and normally it works out just fine. So here comes 'Saurus (now named) at an aggressive lope across my bow and I immediately....decide to wait and see just how agile this lug can be. Holding the straight line like Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars...stay on target, stay on target. But no, I've found the one dog over seventy pounds that has ANY agility; he pauses, makes another move, and bounces back to center road. What? I make a very quick adjustment (based on my Formula Ford training) and narrowly escape death. Experience counts...not sure how, but it does.

Hey, there's a beagle in that picture...and the dreamy Speedo
love to all