Raining Dogs and Bonnie and Clyde

(Friends: this week marks the launch for the sale of my forthcoming book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Saved a Middle Aged Man. Only 300 copies will be sold and it won’t be available in book stores. For more information and how to order, got to nestuccaspitpress.com or order here from the blog. Half of the profits are earmarked for the Angels for Sara Sanctuary to continue their excellent work. Please support me in this new editorial endeavor as I get back in the game of life, literature and service.)

Dogs keep raining. I write for dogs. I write about dogs. I walk dogs. I talk about dogs. I eat with dogs. I play with dogs. I read about dogs. I will hold a dog book launch at the dog sanctuary with only dogs in attendance. A gig with dogs. Dig it. I’ll bring steaks for Bonnie and Clyde and smoked salmon jerky for myself.

Still, I wonder if I will ever have another dog of my own. Maybe helping out with other people’s dogs or shelter dogs or providing hospice care for dogs are the ways for me to serve best.

I do, however, dream of running wild down a beach with my beach dog. There will be no one there but us and the old sound of the ocean. We’ll run until we drop. Then we’ll dive into the waves. We’ll surface together and wrestle.

I sent the notice of the Bonnie and Clyde Files book to a few people who have disappeared or rebuffed me. They can think about it. That’s all you can ask.

It occurs to me that everyone without a dog who spends time on social media should delete their accounts and adopt a shelter dog. If a million Americans did this in a week’s time, the country would change overnight. Think about that. The awesome power people have to make change if they get up and move, move away from the computer, phone and tablet. To touch the earth, as Jim Morrison sang.

And finally on these dog thoughts: One brief scene in the 1973 film The Three Musketeers, surely must rate as the most visually arresting and bizarre use of dogs in the history of cinema. In the scene, the French king is playing chess on an outdoor chessboard in a luxurious garden. The chess pieces are dogs, dogs of various breeds, in costume to indicate their identities on the board: pawns, knights, bishops, etc. A white great Dane is one king, a black great Dane the other. Tiny monkeys sit atop their backs. When the king and the opposing players call out a move, a dog moves to that position on the board and sits or stands there. At some point, a commotion ensues and all hell breaks loose with the dogs. Game over.