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As Published in Thanks for the Memories
Like many who are born on the wrong side of the tracks, he had an attitude. Sickly from birth, he carried a chip on his shoulder and was driven to prove that he was as good as the next. Raised on a campus, in a labratory environment, he was named for an element, for in scientific theory, the third quark is called strange.
At an early age he learned that larceny and pilfering were a way of life. I first saw him when he was ransacking my van, looking for valuables. I yelled, he ran, escaping into the crowd. Later that day, after climbing the mountain for the second time, we met again.
What started as a joke, over time, progressed into reality. He came to live with me, and during that 74 day period, became my companion, training partner and resident purloiner. Together we wrote a book, trained relentlessly and were banished from a stuffy e-mail list. Along the way he stole a ham, terrorized my dogs with his antics and took over my son’s bed.
Like the third quark, he was to be my third VST dog. We tried on three separate occasions to climb the mountain. Repressed each time. Once by untrained judges, once by the sight of a family member and in our final quest, by his advancing illness and craving for food, only a few short yards from our goal.
A scientist once told me that one of the reasons that quarks are so hard to control is that they cannot exist in free state for any length of time. As soon as they are created, they start to decay. Fitting that description, he was ill most of his life, and like his namesake, he gave everything he had in brief bursts of energy.
He stole, cheated, cut corners, manipulated and did things that many had never done before. But, perhaps most of all, he made me believe in the impossible, proved my theories and taught me to trust in myself and my companions.
A day after I climbed that mountain for the third time, I went to see him and tell him goodbye. He had aged and was frail, yet that gleem was still in his eye. It took a moment for his drug ravenged body to recognise me, but a slight twitch of his crudely docked tail and a lick on the hand told me he knew that The Cookie Man had come to see him again. With tears running down my face, I left him standing in the room and fled into the cold, snowy evening with only my memories of him working his heart out to guide me back home.
Yes, he was a thief ... he stole my heart, and I’ll miss him.
U-CDX Strange Quark,UD,TD,OA,NAJ,CGC
1992 - 2000
© 2003-1996 - Ed Presnall - All Rights Reserved