Raincoats on Dogs

Growing up in rural Georgia in the 1960s, folks were too poor for a lot of things. I daresay that if any of us had seen a raincoat on a dog—we would have laughed. Where we lived, people could not afford raincoats even for themselves.

Many pet owners never took their animals to the vet. They couldn’t afford that either. Our 4-H Club sponsored a rabies clinic once a year so folks could get their animals vaccinated. For a lot of dogs it was the only time in their lives that they saw a vet.

It probably stems from the “Lassie” TV series we watched as kids, but I have a lifelong love for collies. As a child, the closest I ever came to owning a collie was a neighbor’s black and white border collie that kept following me home until the owners finally let me keep it.

Then there was Prince, a part-collie stray dog that showed up at our house and stayed. He saved my life when the Hester’s horned cow cornered me against the side of the barn and charged. Prince leaped between us with ferocious growls and frenzied barking and bit the cow on her nose.

Along with “Kicker,” the killer cow, the Hesters were given a gorgeous tri-colored collie. I was jealous. I had wanted a collie dog like “Big Boy” for as long as I could remember. Somehow, Big Boy got hit by a car. He survived, but with a limping gait and an ugly cut across the end of his nose. Big Boy wasn’t my dog, but I loved him. He was a collie. I knew he needed veterinary attention, but the Hesters didn’t have money for that. In fact, in all the years I knew them none of the Hesters went to a doctor either. Their solution for injured animals was to spit tobacco juice on the wound or cover it with purple horse liniment. I begged my parents to let me take Big Boy to the vet since the Hesters couldn’t afford it. But my parents couldn’t afford it either.

People wearing ruined blue jeans that they purchased that way new confounds me. In my 1960s rural Georgia, we wore jeans like that because we couldn’t afford anything else. We wore our clothes until the holes would no longer hold a patch. I often went to school wearing tennis shoes that were held together with the thick rubber bands off the Sunday newspaper. It wasn’t “cool” or fashionable to wear jeans with holes in them—we were embarrassed—but we wore them anyway because it was all we could afford.

How times change. Nowadays, folks choose to wear ruined clothes—and pay big bucks for them—and dogs wear raincoats.

It is comforting to know that not everything changes. “For I am the LORD, I do not change.” Malachi 3:6.

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update

“Always the Moon” – even at Christmas

Usually I write at least one column every year bashing “Santa.” This because how can we trick our children into believing in the “jolly red elf,” then expect them to believe us about God after they find out we’ve lied to them about Santa?

However, this Christmas I want to write about my hero. Her dream since childhood was to become a writer. She survived a horrific childhood that included repeated, brutal rapes. One of them put her in intensive care for a week because she nearly bled to death. The only way to stop the bleeding was a transfusion and she was a rare blood type. Unforgivably, no one asked questions and the rapes continued. At one point, she was held captive on a boat with an armed felon who had drowned his own son so that she would not flee or tell anyone about the abuse. She escaped and married a Mexican National. They lived across the border in a one-room shack and shared a communal outhouse with ten other families. She worked on the U.S. side of the border and walked the four miles across the bridge to and from work every day.

They rented a house on the U.S. side of the border for themselves and their three children, a one-bedroom, three-room house with a bathroom and shower attached outside the house. Her husband was critically injured at his road job across the border. It took years for his head and leg injuries to heal enough that he could return to work. Meanwhile, she discovered questionable procedures at her job and was fired and blacklisted for vocalizing her concerns. By this time they had a fourth child. They were so broke that they sent their baby across the border to live with grandparents temporarily. She worked her way through university graduating with honors. Through all this…she never stopped writing. She never let go of her dream to be a successful author. Now, just in time for Christmas, she has released a poetry book of intense, moving brilliant poetry, “Always the Moon.”

Oh, and did I mention her other books, A Love Beyond, His Temporary Wife, Wildflower Redemption, Take Me Out, Unattainable http://www.crimsonromance.com/
La Llorona (The Wailing Woman), and inclusion in two internationally best selling cowboy anthologies?

My hero sister, Leslie P. Garcia.

http://www.amazon.com/Always-Moon-Leslie-P-Garcia-ebook/dp/B0196OK5AK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450026769&sr=1-1&keywords=always+the+moon+leslie+garcia

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