Bob’s Out Of Tune

Daybreak’s coming. Haltingly.

On the patio, steam from the big coffee cup swirls skyward to blend with a soundless, dampening mist. It blankets and ghosts through the gloom, beautiful in its own way, teasingly hiding the promise of the day.

Tiny fits of breeze laugh trails through surrounding treetops, but honoring the dawn, even they move in uncharacteristic muteness, disturbing nothing.

Big water’s out there, flashing specks of silver in the darkness. A hundred or so feet past the trees, it laps against west Georgia’s last dirt; Alabama, and a soon-bustling golf course, is on the far bank.

Nothing for me there.

As I sit here alone, as if in a cocoon, my mind is groping for something.

I’ve been told on countless occasions by folks close to me that I notice things they would never have picked up on, about people and about things. That something is part of it; I’m one with every aspect of these surroundings, quite possibly from a veritable lifetime of hunting and fishing and attempting to pick up on every falling leaf, footstep and merest gurgle of water.

But what am I missing?

A thought presents itself: when keyboard time comes, and you sit down to craft a composition, this is exactly where you need to be.

Why? Tranquillity. Yeah, that’s it. It’s not that I’m missing something; it’s that I’ve stumbled upon an item so rare and mesmerizing that it’s too-easily overlooked.

There is a near-complete absence of sound in this place. This is the day that God hath made, and it’s as if nothing—or no one—wishes to in any way disturb the process.

Let’s all the world simply sit back in awe and wonder at it all.

OK, so am I getting too deep for you all the way back here at the end of the magazine? Tough. No apologies. This is the way it was.

A key point is that this patio is one of many along a dirt road that loses itself in Lake Eufaula. There may be a hundred folks within a couple hundred yards sitting just like me right now.

In their own private, enclosed world.

I hope you can understand. Deer hunters get it, maybe; this oneness with a new day. But they’re not up a neighborhood hardwood! I muse onward, to my usual writing site, back home…

There is a very special breed of dog kenneled on my block. Neighbors have worked fanatically for years perfecting it. Westminster Kennel Club will probably be showing up any day now. I call the breed Bob for short.

As in Barker.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking; but no, you DON’T know just how it is. I told you: this is a special breed.

Down the street a ways is a backyard chainlink pen that imprisons a Bob Barbershop Quartet—quintet, sixtet, septet, octtet, (are those even words?)—that practices without ceasing. I’m not at all sure  how many members there are, because I’ve never been in that yard.

(And it’s too far to hurl a grenade.)

I DO know that any time a fire truck, ambulance or police car siren sounds, the tuning begins. There’s a D Minor, a G Major, a Q Sharp an X Screecher, and I can only hope they’ll all B Flat one of these days.

The worst part? I have never seen those dogs allowed outside that pen; would drive me to howl, too.

OK, lemme provide a little insight into how I write. (Yeah, you’ve been waiting for this for years…)

Something strikes a spark (think patio) in my brainbox, and the flow begins. I hunker down in my office—ALONE, if you please—and develop that thought. It takes time. Quiet time. To write. To edit. To talk myself out of mass-murdering the Bob Quartet mid-concerto. To edit some more…

Which is along about when Boss Bob, the progenitor of the clan, takes center stage.

You can not doubt, from my writings over several decades, that I know a thing or two about dogs. From a beagle to a Boykin to a bulldog to a plott to a Llewellin to a mix of most of the above, I’ve chased behind them all my life.

But I have never—and this is the unvarnished truth—seen one that could stand in an open yard and bark north, south, east and west from 7:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. without even a honey squirt for his throat as he trilled the scales.

Owner around? Who knows…

My mind flits to an opening day 30 years ago when every critter in his kennels were so excited they were fair blowing the leaves off the trees. Jackie Carter stalked onto his back porch and sent a couple of slightly rude comments in their direction.

In three seconds you could hear mosquitos whine…

Some dog owners just don’t need dogs. Some dogs don’t need their owners. And any dog needs to know who the alpha male in the pack is. And that he or she ain’t it.

Back to the patio…

From what I’ve seen in this enclave, there must be at least a cadre of canines close at hand. I have heard a grand total of none. The chair groans a mite as I shift a leg, and even that pip of sound seems obnoxious.

I discover with something of a start that I’ve been submerged in these surroundings, on a plane seldom settled upon in these days of rampaging deadlines. My fishing buddy Eddie has come upon me in this transfixed state, coffee cup in hand and as quietly as the mist. He understands. And I suddenly remember: we’re here on a fishing trip. Sort of…