THE FIRST DOG IN OUR MARRIAGE

By Rodger Minatra

I must start this story by making a small observation about dogs. When I was growing up there were two types of dogs. You had purebred dogs and you had mongrels, or as some would say, “Heinz 57 variety.”  At that time, you would pay a premium price for a purebred dog, the mongrels or mutts would be free or very cheap, most people were just trying to find them a good home or just get rid of them. Often the pups were the result of some male jumping the fence. Today, people are paying big dollars for what my dad would have called a mistake.

According to Brownsburg Animal Clinic, some of the more expensive cross breed dogs include Cockapoo ($800 to $3,200), Labradoodle ($151 to $2,000), Goldendoodle ($750 to $2,900), Shepadoodle ($350 to $3,000. ), and the Puggle ($250 to $3,665). The name explains the breeds. I always thought it would be interesting to cross a Dachshund with a Weimaraner and get a Wieneraner. So much for the introduction.

About two years ago I paid $1100 for a dachshund puppy which I had to drive 4 hours roundtrip to get. Although it really doesn’t matter now, I would never want my dad to know that. He would honestly drop his head in shame that his oldest son would pay so much for a dog. “Never carry the money for a dog in your pocket” he would say (I believe he was quoting his dad). It meant that you should never pay for a dog. The only time I can remember that he came close to that was when he traded a dishwasher for two Toy Manchester Terriers that were raised with two Arizona Javelina pigs, a story for a later time. I’m sure he was being influenced by my mom who loved animals.

Dogs have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can still remember the dog we had in the early part of my childhood in northern New Mexico, Lulu. She was a black and white terrier, possibly rat terrier, I think a popular breed at that time. There were other dogs during my growing up days and a lot more after Sue and I married. We are in our 70s and we now have a miniature dachshund named Ginger. This story is about the first dog in our marriage.

Maggie was a border collie. I purchased her with what little money I had after making a trip to Houston, Texas looking for a job with Brown and Root Industries, which I didn’t get. I was within a couple weeks of turning 22 and enjoying the freedom of bachelorhood. I purchased her in a small town not too far from Sweetwater, Texas where I met my wife, Sue. I had planned to take her home (Maggie, not Sue) with me to Arizona. Before going to Arizona, I decided to stop in Sweetwater to see my grandma and Uncle Willard. Grandma and my Uncle Willard (who never left home, except for one time when he went to check the mail and ended up walking to California and back, so I’m told) lived in the first apartment on the bottom floor of an old two-story apartment building. Grandma was around 88 at the time and was managing the old apartment building, which was owned by my aunt, dad's only sister, a twin to dad’s other brother. My Pawpaw (dad's dad) died when I was four and my grandma never remarried. Interesting enough, my grandfather (mom's side) died when my mother was only one year old, and Grandmother never remarried either.

There were about six or eight other women in their 80s living in that apartment building and two young women about my age. One was a teacher named Sue. Sue was teaching in Colorado City, Texas where my grandmother had taught for 32 years. As it turned out, my aunt needed some repairs done to the apartment, something my uncle and I could do together, so I stayed to make the repairs. I slept in the living room of my grandma’s apartment on a fold out couch. My new puppy could not stay in the apartment, so it stayed tied up on the porch, right by the window where I slept. In the mornings I would get up early and walk my dog down the main road that led to Colorado City. I would see Sue almost every weekday driving her new VW Bug to school. I would say that I was not interested, but that could not be true. I’m sure I fell for her the first time I saw her; I just didn’t think there was any way this young woman would have anything to do with me.

The first time Sue and I met was when she was coming back to her apartment after spending Memorial Day weekend in Brownwood, driving the golf cart for her dad, a retired Air Force Officer. I was on a ladder painting the porch overhang at the entrance of the apartments. As she walked by, I said, “Hi.” She stopped, lowered her sunglasses, gave me a solemn look, and said, “Hello,” then walked in the door and up the stairs to her apartment.

I was probably a little unconventional from my beginning. I often said it would be just fine for me to spend the rest of my life “going down that long lonesome highway”, like Jim Bronson in the 1969 TV series Then Came Bronson. I didn’t have a motorcycle, but I did have a sleeping bag and a 1971 Dotson pickup that was even better. It ran like a top, had a nice rake, baby moons, chrome wheels, straight twin pipes with Glasspack mufflers, and a homemade bed cover that provided good sleeping quarters when I was traveling. On the back of that cover, I stenciled in the words “I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you.” And gas was about 30 cents a gallon. However, I don’t know that Jim Bronson would be carrying a sourdough bread starter with him. It was a traveling gift from one of my younger sisters and was also the starter for a long romance.

All my sisters are good cooks, and I’m not too shabby a cook either. It was something my mother instilled in us kids, probably because she didn’t really learn how to cook until after she married my dad, so he said. If you are familiar with sourdough starter, you know that you must use it every so often to keep it going. I started making sourdough bread for my grandma and uncle, but it was almost always too much for the three of us. I had just finished making two loaves when my grandma said, “Why don’t you take some up to that pretty little schoolteacher.” To make a long story short, I did.

As it turned out, I took Maggie and Sue to Arizona. I left Maggie with my parents and brought Sue back to Texas with me. We were married in December, 48 years ago. My parents kept the dog on their 10-acre desert home for as long as she lived. And I kept the girl,…for as long as we both shall live.