PAUL NEWMAN DIED...

THE DAY PAUL NEWMAN DIED

As most of you know, veteran stage and screen star (and notable racecar driver) Paul Newman passed away. His life and times were well reported, as they should have been. By all accounts Mr. Newman was a good man, husband and citizen. He stayed out of trouble, stayed married to the same woman and created charities that bear his name. Something else happened that day...I just thought it was important that you know...

You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. It's November-14-1965, LZ Xray, Vietnam .

Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 to 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in . You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out.

Your family is half-way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear the sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey.

But it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses...and he kept coming back.

13 more times. He took about 30 of you and your buddies out, guys who would never have gotten out. Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died on a Wednesday, at the age of 80, in Boise, ID. (Oh ya, Paul Newman died that day too. I guess you knew that. He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman.)

With everything that is happening in the world, and the superficial nature of our news media, I just wanted a few more people to know about the Ed Freemans of the world...

Tassel and Morterboard

Great news...our little Lola is smart! (that may be tha last time you ever read those words).


Lola graduated from Gestapo School.


Sit. Stay. Heel. Leave it! Good girl.


It looks like Lola will be going on to intermediate obedience. We would like to get her the Canine Good Citizen confirmation. Who knows, maybe she can become our second "working" dog. Lola is affectionate and very "kissy". She seems to love strangers and certainly likes being the center-of-attention.


First things first, she needs to pass second grade. Then I guess we'll see how she does. We don't want to force her into any situation she isn't ready for. If she ends up just hanging around the house making goober bombs, that's OK with us. Every house needs a 100 pound lapdog, or not.


Thanks to Barb at Happy Tails, Lola is a more confident, better socialized and hopefully happier pup. Lola is smart...who knew?

The loss of a friend...

Feel free to skip this one if you want. There is pain here. Chances are you've felt it. Knife to the belly pain. Can't breath pain. Curl-up in a little ball pain. I hate this part.

We lost Cocoa. Cancer took her. Rotten son-of-a-bitch. I hate that word. Cancer.

Why do we feel this much pain for a dog? Seriously. It's a dog. Four legs, a bottomless pit for a stomach. Slobber. With Bullys, lots of slobber. Think of the expense. We pay to get them. We pay to feed them. Vet bills. Chew toys. Crates. Blankets. Leashes. Every year another licence. What do we get? What do they give us?

Everything.

Everything they've got. The food, the toys, the walks...it's all gravy to them. They get us. It's all they want. They get food, toys and walks. We get everything they have. That's why it hurts. That's the knife in the gut. That's why it hurts. Everything...man.

My brother once told me..." better to take them one day too early than one day too late".

Intellectually I understood what it meant. One day early means no suffering. One day late...

Intellectual understanding does not mean emotional rationality. We waited a day too long with Mags. She was our first loss. We didn't KNOW. She was hurting and she needed us to make it stop. Sorry Mags. We didn't know. It kills me to say this, but I waited one day too long with Rylee as well. Not because I didn't care. I couldn't separate myself. It was my call and I blew it. Rylee was so full of love I know she forgave me. I didn't deserve it.

Hopefully we got it right with Cocoa. Letting her go was our last act of love. She was a really sweet and gentle dog. She deserved to go out with dignety. I hope we gave her that. If ever a dog deserved a graceful exit, it was Cocoa. Goodbye Cokie.

Owning a pet is a responsibility unlike anything I have done before. We aren't parents, so these really are our "kids". They live such relatively short lives that it is important that we get it all right. Cradle to grave. Their end should be just as important to us as the beginning and the middle. I'm not preaching, honest. Imploring is more like it. It was a hard lesson to learn. Dear friends suffered. Not because we didn't care, but because we did. We will lose other canine friends. I hope we can give them all the exit they deserve.

Did we do Ok, Cocoa? I hope so...