A Tribute to Puddie
Contributed by Jerome Lawrence Castle
Well, my name is not Dorothy, and I don't live in Kansas, and we do not experience cyclones in Boca Raton, Florida, except the time when Puddie stormed in eight
years ago.
Puddie (short for Yorkshire Pudding) arrived like an unruly, aging hurricane. Tough as a coil spring but sometimes gentle as day dissolving into night. She had a
willowy figure (for a dog), with a mane of darkish blond hair. A vision of elegance, softened only by two giant brown eyes. She could just stare at you forever,
those eyes sparkling like two diamonds in a pail of rhinestones. Until she became blind, and then deaf, and then thin and gaunt, till she left one day without so
much as a kiss goodbye (we called them her kisses Wet Willys).
Our stab at happiness was over. Puddie was no floozy and I was no gigolo, but we had developed that wonderful sense of trust that animals and people rarely share in
this phony mixed-up world.
All that's left now is a little snapshot, and her nameplate: Puddie 1990- 2008.
|