A War, a Book, Two Dogs, and an Ending

By Fran Lindsley

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT DOGS. TRUMAN AND WYATT ARE RESCUES. BUT IT IS ALSO ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND HER HUMAN FAMILY, THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, AND NEWS EVENTS FROM EARLY 2021 TO MID-2022 THAT ELICITED THE AUTHOR'S OR HER HUMAN FAMILY'S COMMENTS. 

 

1/9/22 Sun 4:35 p.m.  

ME: I picked up the dead mouse with a long-handled dustpan and a small garden rake, and put it in layered plastic grocery bags

5/1/21 Sat 10:01 a.m.

STACY (MY DAUGHTER): So today is the "May the 4th be with you" Star Wars event at LEGO.

10/28/21 Thu 7:40 a.m.  

DELON (MY SON): Why would you otherwise keep a dead mouse?

6/20/22 Mon 3:46 p.m. 

ME: There was Truman standing in front of me with squirming legs and a white, powderpuff tail sticking out of his mouth!

8/12/21 Thu 11:02 a.m.  

ME: I sprinkled baking soda on Truman. Then I wiped them both down several times with a frothy mix of hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and baking soda.

9/9/21 Thu 6:21 a.m.  

STACY: Oh wow! It's now officially in print!!

3/1/22 Tue 12:21 p.m.

ME: That huge tank plus convoy from Russia has stalled. They have run out of gas … again!

8/12/21 Thu 5:54 p.m.  

DELON: Safety tip … don't wear a nose ring when soldering.

 

As we got out of the car at the rescue the following week, Truman and two large dogs in outdoor pens nearby barked uncontrollably at each other. That was not a good start. Looking around, I noticed that Willie, soon to be renamed Wyatt, had been put into a large pen on the other side of the parking area so we could meet him. 

 

Truman and I walked toward Willie and away from the barking dogs. Truman settled down. As we approached Willie, neither Truman nor Willie barked! I was surprised. Truman and Willie quietly observed each other. When we got to Willie's pen, the two dogs sniffed each other. All they did was sniff!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fran Lindsley
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201270322

Book preview

PREFACE

My first book Living with Two (Smart) Rescue Dogs During the Time of COVID-19: A Memoir, ended with a text sent on March 29th, 2021. It was a Monday and the text was sent at 1 p.m. Vaccines against COVID had been developed, and President Biden hoped to have seventy percent of adults in the US vaccinated by July 4, 2021.¹ That didn’t happen. On March 29th I thought we were on the far side of the COVID-19 mountain. We weren’t. We hadn’t even reached the summit! Although this book, like the first, tracks the continuing COVID pandemic, it is about my two smart dogs. They live with me in northern Texas. This book covers the eventful and newsworthy months from March 29th, 2021 through the end of summer 2022. During that time, my dogs and I were getting to know each other.

If you haven’t read my prior book, the following information from it will be helpful when reading this one:

In the Fall of 2016, I moved to Texas from the East Coast to be closer to family.

My Texas family is my son Delon, my granddaughter Maddie, and my daughter-in-law, Anni. Anni’s brother Jonathan is living with them.

My daughter Stacy lives near Chicago with her husband John, and my grandsons Conner and Owen. My granddaughter Grace also lives near Chicago with her partner Carter and their infant daughter Rukia.

When my much-loved thirteen-year-old dog Trixie, an Airedale, passed away in the Fall of 2018, I adopted Truman, originally Teddy.

I adopted Wyatt, originally Willie, after my beloved 17-year-old whippet Molly passed away early in 2020.

COVID-19 appeared in the U.S. early in 2020.

My two adopted dogs are rescue dogs. They are both the inspiration for and the subjects of my two books. Their names are Truman and Wyatt. When I adopted Truman, I was told he was probably part English and part German pointer. He is a medium-sized dog and about forty-eight pounds. His eyes are light. His back, ears, and head are medium toffee brown with white spots. His legs and neck are the reverse. They are white with brown spots. When she met him, my then seven-year-old Texas granddaughter Maddie pointed out the three larger white spots on his back resemble hearts. They do. I adopted Truman in the fall of 2018. I adopted Wyatt early in 2020, just as COVID-19 was beginning to appear in the U. S. Wyatt looks like he is mostly Queensland blue heeler or Australian stumpy tail cattle dog. He is covered with white and black spots, some larger, some smaller. I can’t tell if the spots are white on a black coat or black on a white coat. There are areas of black on Wyatt’s face, ears, back, and side. His eyes are dark. Wyatt is about forty pounds. He has a puffy, hair stump instead of a tail.

I do not know Wyatt’s story before I met him, only that he was rescued from somewhere near the Texas-Mexican border and he came to me afraid of flyswatters. However, I do know Truman’s story. He was one of 150 neglected dogs rescued from a hoarder in south Texas. The dogs were discovered and rescued when a fire broke out on the hoarder’s property. At that time, Truman was about six months old. I adopted him shortly after he was rescued. Wyatt joined our family a year and a half later. He was about nine months old. In our family, Truman is the play boy and Wyatt is the policeman.

This my second epistolic memoir for the twenty-first century is made up of phone texts that continue to tell the story of my rescue dogs, our family, COVID-19, and some concurrent news events. The news events are reported through my lens, though I have no credentials for it other than I am a news junkie and I decided to comment on some in a few of my texts. Most of the texts were exchanged between my daughter Stacy and me, my son Delon and me, or the three of us as a group. A few texts from friends are included, as well as a few of my observations that were not sent as a text. Images of documents are included in Chapter 8. Pictures of Truman, Wyatt, and several other dogs mentioned are in Chapter 18. After Chapter 18, Endnotes lead to explanatory or interesting, relevant information, mostly about news events. I find the endnotes in the e-book particularly fascinating because if an endnote is clicked, the internet article it refers to automatically appears!

Another interest of mine might have influenced the writing of both my books. I’ve always wondered about the regular people during times of massive disruption like during the French or American Revolutions, or difficult times like the Great Depression and the 1918 Flu Pandemic. It now seems to me that in those times, like in these times, life continues the best it can.

Since adopting them, I have enjoyed getting to know Truman and Wyatt and I would like to share some of that experience with you.

CHAPTER 1:

IS IT AN AVATAR IN A MASK?²

(Daily Trends in Number of COVID-19 New Cases in The US Reported to CDC:

1/7/21 new cases: 280,334;

3/29/21 new cases: 44,515)³

4/2/21 Fri 6:58 a.m. (D; M)

ME: How is Maddie?

DELON: Good. Why do you ask?

ME: Worried about the COVID-19 virus. New strains are quite severe and spreading in TX.⁴

DELON: No symptoms.

DELON: So, for Easter … 8 a.m. for egg hunt and crepes (first time in a while) then dinner at 5:30?

ME: Sure. Thanks. What can I bring? Is the egg hunt in your yard?

DELON: Or in the house. Yes.

DELON: Maybe flowers for the table?

ME: Will do.

DELON: And then Maddie’s day could be Saturday or Monday since Maddie has off. Monday might be better.

ME: Monday works.

(A Maddie day is usually on Sunday and usually goes like this: I pick Maddie up at her house and we have lunch together. In the earliest Maddie days, we would have a very simple lunch at my house. She particularly liked peanut butter on apple slices. Then later in the afternoon, she would have canned mandarin orange segments as a snack. At some point, we started going to Sonic for lunch. Now we usually go to Sonic. On rare occasions, she’ll ask to go to another fast-food restaurant. That might be McDonalds or Raising Cane’s. Sometimes if a Maddie day is not on a Sunday, we might go to Chick-Fil-A. But Sonic is her favorite.

After lunch, a Maddie day might involve watching a children’s TV show together, or Maddie might want to work in the art room with or without me. Several years ago, when she started kindergarten, we often played school. Maddie always wanted to be the teacher; I was always the child. Maddie would create a project that I needed to replicate. After she entered first grade, sometimes Maddie wanted to be the principal rather than the teacher, though I always remained the child. When she didn’t want to play school, I would suggest an art project, or we would go to Michael’s to find one. As she got older, we stopped playing school. Now she likes to go into the guest room where she can play games with her friends on her iPad.

At times, Maddie days have included walking around a lake in my development, examining a veteran’s memorial, walking around the neighborhood with my friend Ann, going to a nearby splash park, collecting flowers from the backyard for potions, baking cookies, releasing ladybugs, or a Grandparent’s Week movie. Before COVID-19, we went to several children’s workshops at the Nasher Sculpture Center. We went to a couple of other art museums, an outdoor nature center, a science, and a history museum. Those trips usually happened on a Saturday, and sometimes one or two of my friends would go with us. But since COVID-19, we pretty much stay at my house after lunch.  Another near constant for a Maddie day was dinner at her house with her immediate family. Typically, after finishing dinner, Delon would pack up delicious leftovers for me to take home.)

4/3/21 Sat 8:25 a.m.

ME: Did you hear … in England thieves broke into a warehouse … all they stole were … LEGOs … The street value of their heist is half a million dollars⁵ …

DELON: Stacy where were you guys yesterday?

(Stacy has an online business that specializes in selling LEGO parts.)

3:19 p.m.

STACY: Where were we yesterday? Home probably.

STACY: Oh duh…

STACY: Looool

STACY: LEGO? I don’t see any LEGO.

DELON: Mmmhmm…

STACY: Haha!

4/4/21 Sun 3:08 p.m. (S; M)

STACY: You sent an Easter card with doves, blooming trees, and Easter eggs falling from the sky!!

STACY: Thank you. (emoji chick in half eggshell)

ME: Hope you are having a good Easter.

STACY: I worked until I got muscle aches and chills. Then I huddled under my blankets.

STACY: I’m better now!

STACY: Not sure if it was a delayed vaccine reaction or what.

3:12 p.m.

DELON: Happy Easter! (emoji chick coming out of an egg)

STACY: Thanks, you too! Did the Easter Bunny poop out treats?

DELON: As usual.

4/5/21 Mon 7:54 a.m.

(This morning it was obvious. Wyatt is a helpful policeman. When I called the dogs, Wyatt came in but Truman was nowhere to be seen. I gave Wyatt his treat and then he wanted to go back outside. Truman was just approaching the back door. Wyatt went out, circled around Truman and the two started walking into the house. Truman was in front; Wyatt was following very closely. Wyatt was shepherding him into the house. Truman does need the guidance of a helpful policeman sometimes. Recently four hibiscus plants survived of the seven I originally planted in my garden. Those four were growing nicely. Then one morning Truman dug up three of the four survivors! I covered the roots still left in the ground hoping they’d live. But I was angry at Truman. Too bad policeman Wyatt couldn’t protect those hibiscuses.)

4/6/21 Tue 6:56 a.m.

ME: Well, I moved the computer back into my study and so far, it’s working fine … knock on wood. Got my old computer out. Set it up in the art room. Finally found the password. It is working there. Earlier this morning watched a video of the workshop on my phone. Oh, the choices!!!

(I enjoy creating things and during the COVID lockdown I discovered that numerous art workshops were being offered on the internet. One that I signed up for was a Tiny Tattered House Workshop offered by a multi-media artist. In it we learned how to alter papers and use them to make tiny tattered house pictures.)

ME:  By the way, I think the instructor said 6000 people around the world signed up for the tiny house workshop. At $15.00 a piece that’s $90,000!!!!

ME: Also, thank you both for your help in my moments of total frustration with my computer.

12:40 p.m.

ME: Just finished doing some of my workshop homework for tonight. Made nine altered papers for my tiny house collage. Will go back and make a few more in a little while.

2:26 p.m.

ME: After all these years I just discovered my printer can resize things …

7:49 p.m.

ME: Well, another frustrating evening, though I didn’t reach the end of my rope like I did yesterday. I decided to watch the workshop in the art room so my supplies would be nearby in case I decided to participate … but I planned just to watch. Well, the picture kept freezing. The instructor would do a few things and then it froze. I watched for an hour and it was frozen about half the time.  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to go into the study to see if I could get the workshop on my new computer and see if it would or would not freeze. I was able to sign in to the workshop. It did not freeze!!! Such a relief!

4/9/21 Fri 4:49 p.m. (S; M)

ME: The boys know they still need to be careful after they get the vaccine, don’t they?

(The boys are my two twenty-something grandsons who live around 800 miles from me. The oldest is Conner and the younger one is Owen. They still live at home with their parents Stacy and her husband John.)

ME: It takes 2 weeks to start being effective and then two weeks after the second shot.

6:13 p.m. (S; M)

4/10/21 Sat 3:04 p.m.

ME: Just sent the latest revision of my dog book. Stacy, I made the changes to the Introduction you suggested. Please read and make suggestions for the rest of the narrative sections … thanks if you can.

4/11/21 Sun 5:50 a.m.

(54,418 new cases of COVID in the US were reported to the CDC⁶)

ME: STOP… Don’t bother reading it at this point. I’m still making changes to the written parts!

3:47 p.m. (D; M)

DELON: This is your formal invitation to dinner: sea bass, green beans, dirty rice.

4/12/21 Mon 12:36 p.m.

ME: I think I’m beginning to hate gardening. Truman and/or Wyatt pulled out the two tiny rose bushes I planted in pots on the patio. So, I ordered another rose bush. It came today. I started digging in the rose garden and … something moved. Looking carefully, I saw a huge TOAD covered with dirt! I gave up! I’m terrified it might hop toward me, or I might cut it in half with my shovel …

1:40 p.m.

ME: Well, I think I have smart toads in addition to smart dogs.  After seeing that huge toad, I freaked out, dropped my gardening tools, and went inside. Then, after talking with you Stacy, I calmed down and went back outside. I didn’t see the toad! So, I quickly planted the new rose bush in the hole I had dug and went back inside.

4/13/21 Tue 3:16 p.m.

STACY: You know that toad just reburrowed. (smiley emoji)

4:41 p.m.

STACY: (photo of a painting I made of her dog, Wocket)

STACY: So great mom!! It’s right near my window. (heart emoji)

(Wocket is a whippet who races and shows. He is one of four dogs in her family. Stacy’s other dogs are Durant and Dobbs, both rescue greyhounds. Owen’s dog, Grendel, is a yellow lab. Conner has a Bengal cat named Bombadil.)

8:13 pm

STACY: So, we nicknamed Owen Dr. Disaster when he was little. Throughout the years there has been proof now and then that he still is. In the few weeks in welding school, he burned himself a few times, singed his shirt, jeans, and shoes, burned the rubber sole of a boot, got multiple cuts, etc. Today he pushed on some steel and it sprung up at his chest. He now has a hole in his shirt and a 5-inch scratch across his nipple. (crazy emoji)

DELON: Girls like scars.

STACY: LOL! I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay!

DELON: LOL

DELON: How are welding classes going?

STACY: Owen is enthusiastic about them. He likes welding, especially the tig method.

4/14/21 Wed 6:01 a.m.

ME: OMG … some toads in Texas are up to 9 inches long and lethal to dogs. I couldn’t get my two dogs in for about 40 minutes this morning. They were hunting in the backyard. I’m sure Truman was hunting that toad that lives in the flower garden next to my house …

4/16/21 Fri 3:13 p.m.

ME: I heard some old Pokémon cards are VERY valuable.

ME: In case any of you happen to have some.

(My children missed the Pokémon craze, but my granddaughter Grace was very much a fan. I thought her mother might know if Grace had collected the cards and if there were any remaining. But since her mother did not respond to my text, I assumed they had none.  But Grace did love Pokémon. I remember once when Grace visited me, we went to the Seaside Heights boardwalk on the Jersey shore. As a memento I got her the large stuffed Pokémon she wanted. However, when she was getting ready to fly back home to Illinois, we found out it wouldn’t fit into her suitcase. So, she left it at my house. Later I wrapped it up and mailed it to her. Now I’m sorry I didn’t get her Pokémon cards!)

3:24 p.m. (D; M)

DELON: Did Anni invite you to dinner?

ME: No.

DELON: Huh? Maybe she thought I was. We’re just going to order something.

DELON: Anni went with Maddie somewhere but when they get back, I’ll let you know.

DELON: Probably just having dinner around 6.

DELON: Be nice if you can make it.

ME: Sure.

DELON: Great!

ME: (thumbs up emoji)

4:31 p.m. (D; M)

DELON: How about 5:30?

DELON: If you want, look at the Cheesecake Factory menu and we can order ahead.

DELON: (Cheesecake Factory website URL)

ME: Vegan Cobb Salad … thank you.

4/17/21 Sat 11:52 a.m. (D; M)

MADDIE: Hi grandma. (waving avatar) This is Maddie. (smiley emoji)

ME: (heart emoji) Hi.

MADDIE: How are you? (thoughtful emoji)

ME: Good. Thank you. How are you? (smiley emoji)

MADDIE: Good. (demure emoji)

ME: (unicorn with balloons) This is fun.

MADDIE: (strange image)

ME: Wow! What is that?

MADDIE: Koala. (koala picture)

ME: Oh yes.

ME: Fun!

MADDIE: I made this.

ME: The Koala?

MADDIE: (thinking girl avatar)

ME: Love it!

MADDIE: You can make stuff like it.

ME: How?

MADDIE: (recording of Maddie describing how to create an avatar)

ME: Can you show me tomorrow? But I don’t have Instagram.

MADDIE: (recording of Maddie describing the location to make an avatar)

ME: I find pictures. (image of books, teddy bear, chair, key)

MADDIE: (recording of Maddie laughing and redirecting me to the correct place)

……. CONTINUED…

CHAPTER 2:

THE RADISHES AREN’T READY.

4/18/21 Sun 9:40 (D; M)

ME: What is happening today?

DELON: I’m feeling a bit nauseous, unfortunately. I’m not sure if I ate too fast or what. Would you like to do a pickup of Maddie?

ME: Sorry you don’t feel well. Do you have Tums or Pepcid AC? Sure … at 11?

DELON: Have Tums … I’ll take some. 11 is good.

ME: (thumbs up emoji)

4/19/21 Mon 9:23 a.m.

STACY: 2nd vaccine done! Now the other three get their second and done!

11:40 a.m.

ME: (thumbs up emoji) (smiley emoji)

(Daily Trends in Number of COVID-19 Deaths in The US Reported to CDC:  4/19/21  489 new deaths)⁷

4/21/21 Wed 1:34 p.m.

ME: Sent the manuscript to you. When you get a chance, I would appreciate it, if you could look at the script writing. That is what I wrote. Especially look at the last chapter and if you have time, the long paragraphs of script.  As you suggested Stacy, I’ll include illustrations. I sent some sample illustrations via a separate email. Thanks for whatever either of you can do.

ME: By the way, it is much easier to read printed out though I guess it would take a lot of paper and ink to print the whole thing.

1:53 p.m. (S; M)

ME: I used many of your suggestions for the beginning of my book. Now I’d like someone to look at the ending.

4/22/21 Thu 5:05 a.m. (D; M)

(Delon and his wife Anni are expecting their second child, a boy. They are planning to call him Jackson.)

ME: Wondering if Jackson’s nickname is going to be Jax?

6:44 a.m. (D; M)

DELON: Yes.

4:22 p.m. (D; M)

ME: Is his name going to be spelled Jaxon or Jaxxon, Jackson, or another way?

DELON: It will be Jackson and Jax for short.

5:33 p.m.

ME: Truman is