Fido

By Hoot Bagilli

Fido is a story about life as seen through the eyes of a young child growing up and, as time passes, as an adult. It tells of adventures, experiences, perceptions, love, and heartaches—some of which might sound like a fantasy or a novel but all of which are true. It will bring some frequent belly laughs and, quite possibly, the occasional tear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638853787

Book preview

1

In the Beginning

Why Fido? That is easy. When I think back to the earliest years of my memories, Fido is firmly planted in them. But more about that later.

My earliest recollections go back to being very young and living in the back of a dry cleaning shop in a very small town in Southwest Virginia. Somewhere in there, there is also a small wedge of memory of living in what had to be an apartment and playing in the restaurant that my parents had tried to make a success. There, I can remember things like standing in the big stainless steel sink and helping wash dishes. I can also remember a few things about playing out on the sidewalk and getting a spanking for playing in the street (near the curb, not out in the street). Anyway, I vaguely remember being moved a couple of times from the dry cleaners to the restaurant and back to the dry cleaners. I also remember that it was a long car ride from one place to the other and that all the roads were what we would now call country roads. There were not any highways yet.

The town where the restaurant was located is Bluefield. In Bluefield, it is sometimes hard to know what state you are actually in because the state line runs somewhat through both Bluefield, Virginia, and Bluefield, West Virginia. I do remember that the restaurant was in West Virginia, but we lived in Virginia.

The town where the dry cleaner’s was, and where I spent most of my early years, is in Glade Spring Virginia. The name of the cleaner’s was Spotless Cleaners. Many years later, I would learn that this name came from the fact that my Papaw was somewhat of an expert at getting spots and stains out of clothes. He was also an expert (in my mind) at several other things.

When I think of the town and life there, I remember things like the coal pile out back that was used to feed the fire in the boiler, which ran the steam supply, hot water, and so on for the cleaning process. It was also a great place to play if you needed your own mountain and did not care about getting dirty. There was a drugstore/fountain where I could listen to Eddy Arnold and get a Dr Pepper or an RC for a nickel at the far end of town. (There was only a main street to the town. It was too small to have more.) I also remember cutting through a vacant field behind the cleaners to reach the main street. This brought me out right by the train station, where I was always on time to see the one train that stopped at Glade Spring all of three times a week. (What I have never figured out is how I even knew the time. My guess is Fido knew and got me there when we were supposed to be.) These trains were pulled by the old steam engines, and I was very intrigued by them. I always wanted to ride on one—in the cab, not in one of the passenger cars. Of course, the caboose equally fascinated me. I think if I could afford it, I would still like to have a caboose in the backyard as an office (more likely, as a place to escape reality of one sort or another or to live in one of my fantasies, as the case may be). That is another subject too. Maybe I will get into to that as this goes on. Maybe I won’t.

There was also (in later years) a repair shop at the back of my field. I was equally fascinated by the tubes and wiring I would find in their trash bin. It turns out that this was a radio—and later, a TV—repair shop. I didn’t care. What I knew was that if I was very, very careful, I could disassemble the tubes I found and slowly remove the extremely rare and (I was sure) valuable wafers of what I just knew was mica. I also knew that, somewhere, this mother lode of mica was worth a fortune. As you might guess, I never did locate a market for my stash.

Days were often spent observing the dry cleaning business. I did my best to learn and help even though I was considerably too short to be of any real help. My grandparents, however, did have the wisdom to make me think I was contributing. They were assisted in their efforts by my uncle, their son, who also worked at the cleaners. They would have me use one of the steam presses to press handkerchiefs, for example. I had to stand on a stool, and I had to be very careful to keep my small hands out of the hot steam and, of course, the pressing mechanism itself. Then I would have to get off the stool (carefully) so that I could step on the foot pedal to drive the steam.

I was also very good at watching my uncle Bill or Granny write the tickets for the incoming clothes. I am convinced that without my help, most of those tickets would have been messed up—even though I couldn’t read.

Another important job was sorting the clothes out by load. Quite often, the adults would just throw stuff into bins and go on their way. I was able to improve on their quality by very carefully building huge mountains of clothes. These could then be used to dive into for closer examination. Fido and I could then sort them properly—until we were caught and shooed out the back.

On an almost regular basis, Fido and I would take extended adventures and explorations. Since we never really knew where our travels would lead or how long we might be gone, it was imperative that we take provisions. Water was never a problem. Fido knew all the best spots for getting a drink. Food was another story. We finally learned that by simply taking a loaf of bread with us, we would survive until we found our next meal. To this day, I still prefer bread (or rolls) to sweets or desserts. This habit was to create problems down the road though. I will talk about that later too. The downside of this method of provisioning ourselves was that my Granny could never find the bread when she needed it (after all, you did have to take the whole loaf). I suspect that Papaw knew though. The bread kept disappearing out of my wagon.

I also remember that there was a big white house directly across the road from the cleaners. I do not know who lived there, but my uncle Bill would park his car there (to leave space in front of the cleaners). It wasn’t in their driveway or anything. There was plenty of room on the shoulder of the road to park without being on their grass. Sometimes, especially if it was raining, I would just go over and stay in his car and play by myself for a couple of hours. (Uncle Bill would always watch so I could cross the road safely, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of traffic.) I remember that the car had window shades in the back and a glass partition separating the front seat from the back. Years later, I would find out that it was an old Packard touring car. No wonder I liked it.

There was also, what might be considered by some, a garage out behind the cleaners. It was really just a wooden structure that looked like it was ready to fall down at any minute, but it is where the old panel truck that my grandfather had for the cleaners was kept. This same panel truck would be the means of several adventures with my favorite aunt. It was primarily used for pickup and delivery of customers’ clothes for cleaning, but it was also used as my private spaceship, racecar, or airplane. This, of course, was while it was parked and not needed by anyone else.

The first friend in my life turned out to be a boy who moved into the house next door to the cleaners. When I say next door, I mean literally. His house was attached to (part of) the same building the cleaners was in. His name was RD. That is it. To this day, I do not have a clue what RD stood for. We were lifelong friends though—for all of three years. We would spend hours in a large empty box (our fort) or playing in the creek (trying to catch the big ones) and climbing trees. He shared my love for trains and taught me to put peanuts in my RC. I still like that. Today, I cannot even put a face with the memory, but RD and I were tight.

I still remember my Papaw taking us out at night if it had rained. We would have a flashlight and a couple of old empty cans and go in search of night crawlers. He taught us to tickle them so they would come all the way up and out of their holes without breaking in half, which would happen if you just pulled on them. As any fisherman knows, a whole night crawler is the best bait. Pieces of them just don’t work as well. These nocturnal outings were always followed by a trip to the river the next morning. For some strange reason, Papaw had the knack of knowing it was going to rain and planned his fishing expeditions accordingly. I was almost an adult before I learned that you did not have to stand in the rain to catch fish.

Papaw was not only a fisherman and an expert with stains, but he was also an ordained minister. Unfortunately, his church could not support him, thus the dry cleaning business. I was to find out much later in life that he was basically taken advantage of his entire life with regard to his serving in the Church of God. They set the rules. He followed them. His gift seemed to be taking a struggling, or dying, church and turning it around. When he went to these various congregations, they were poor and usually located in the middle of nowhere. Once they started to grow and could finally support someone, he would be pulled out by the powers that be and sent to another location to do it all over again. I do not ever remember hearing him complain about it though. Neither did Granny—at least not to me. This pattern went on right up until the time of his death. In the years that followed Glade Spring, the cleaning business was given up for other ventures in other small towns. My memory of my grandparents is one of numerous moves, a whole lot of love, continual struggle, and them doing without. Call it what you will, but I was taken in by them (with my mother) when they were assigned to a church near Bluefield, and the last place my grandfather preached before his death many years later was in another church near Bluefield. The circle was complete.

I jump ahead though. The point being I had to spend a lot of time in church. Don’t ask me what the sermons were about. Being a pagan, I did not pay much attention. Besides, at my age, who could concentrate on such issues when I just knew that RD and Fido were up to something? (RD’s parents were obviously pagans as well. He never had to go to church.)

I think Granny appreciated that I would rather be with my dog, especially in the evening services. She would sit farther back than normal and keep me entertained so I wouldn’t disturb anyone who might be paying attention, or at least doing a good job of looking like they were. One of my favorite memories of her is when she would make a mouse out of her handkerchief and keep me enthralled by how it could jump all around on her arm. I never did learn how she made it or what she did to make it move. Life seemed to get too serious for such questions later, and by the time I wanted to ask, she was gone.

As an adult looking back, I have to question the methods Papaw used in his services, but at the time, I did not know any better, so…

In an earlier life, my mom tells me, Papaw played honky-tonk piano in the bars.