The Bonnie and Clyde Files 1

Meet my new canine friends, Bonnie and Clyde! Bonnie is the black female. Clyde is the brown male. They’re a friendly pair of old dogs who have been together a long, long time. They have perfect outlaw names. They have perfect hitches in their giddy-up that go along with my existential one. We are our own little gimp outlaw gang!

Welcome to an account of our regular adventures alongside the Lewis and Clark River. Welcome to my meditations associated with our adventures as I write from a camp stool facing the river with a TV tray as my desk. Read the flowing emanations via pen, pencil or 20-year old Alphasmart word processor. There might be dithyrambs on dogs. There might be diatribes on clearcuts. I might throw in disquisitions on beavers. I might write a Western. Who knows where the flow will lead. Who cares? Release the hounds!

Bonnie and Clyde are residents of Angels for Sara Sanctuary in rural Astoria. The sanctuary is relatively new and takes in older dogs whose elderly owners passed away or can’t care for them anymore. There are 8-10 dogs in the residence of J., the saint who operates the sanctuary. It is an honor to assist her.

I started volunteering at Angels for Sara because it is the only volunteering I am allowed to do (no humans) and I was going out of my mind not being able to serve my community in some capacity. So old dogs it is, three mornings a week.

My primary job is to walk Bonnie and Clyde a short distance down the river, hang out for as long as the mood strikes, and then return to the sanctuary. We have our special resting spot at the end of the outward leg, where the bank levels with the river. There, I set up a portable writing studio and write while the dogs mosey around, take a dip in the water, and pester me for the treats they know I have stashed in the pockets of my corduroys. They don’t even mind me declaim passages from Leaves of Grass or Siddhartha. These old dogs love LITERATURE!

I really don’t have the words to convey what being with these dogs in this location has done for me. I may have to invent a phrase to describe the extraordinarily good feelings that overcome me with Bonnie and Clyde as we share our time together upon the river.

Let the adventures begin!