...but back on April 9, 1981, my then girlfriend, in El Centro & Calexico, CA, gave me a copy of the Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (one of my favorite authors and the creator of the modern detective story, long before and better than Sherlock Holmes stories). I remember the date inside the cover because she inscribed the front cover with it and a brief message. Well, it was not in the greatest shape, the binding was cracked and torn, the dust cover missing but it was a book that I loved. You probably have noticed I am writing about it in the past tense. That is because today while I was out, my 6+- month old puppy Knucklehead decided to destroy it.
I came back from shopping to find it in several pieces on the floor. He evidently did not touch one other book, except maybe to sniff some, in the bookcase. Of course, the one he had his fun with just had to be one of my all time favorites that I treasured. To think, I took this pooch in because he was a lonely and unhappy looking stray in need of a meal and a friend or two - my other pooch Skye and I have been giving him all of that and more for a month as of tomorrow; all that plus lots of expensive vet care - all while never intending to keep him. Now that I have probably unwisely decided to keep him - I sometimes think of changing his name to Bullethead, that would be right before I place the headstone on his grave far out in the woods somewhere.😏
Oh well, the book is replaceable as a reader; the gift is lost forever but not the spirit of it. Its spirit will live among fond memories of good times when I was a young Border Patrol Agent, who had great vision, did lots of reading and who had a girlfriend who sometimes gave me nice things that I treasured. Sadly that was the last remaining one of them. Damn, 43 years gone just like that at the whim of a mongrel.
All the best,
Glenn B
