Dog Days
We were "dog people" for more than 30 years. During that period we met a plethora of fascinating real "dog people" and more importantly, even more fascinating dogs: Dachshunds, Boxers, Dobermans, Min Pins, Schipperkes, Labrador Retrievers, and many, especially our final favorite, Hungarian Viszlas. We did not have a dog when we moved to College Station in, 1946. We moved into a furnished room in a lovely home owned by a Mrs. Blumberg, the aunt of a classmate of mine, Kent, while waiting to move into college housing provided to World War II veterans. However, shortly after we moved into a Quonset hut apartment in "Veterans Village" we kept a pair of dachshunds, Fritz and Trudy, for a couple while they went on vacation. The DeVolds were instructors, or perhaps professors, of language at Texas A&M, he in German and she in French. A few months after they returned from vacation, Fritz produced a litter of puppies. We got "pick of the litter" for $50.00 and took him home a couple of weeks early because we could wait no longer. Our Donner was a lovely puppy and we loved him dearly. We came home at lunch time each day to take him for a walk. That was a couple of miles round trip and was in addition to walking to work or class in the morning and back home in the afternoon. Suffice it to say, neither of us had weight problems in those days
We made fudge one night when Donner was about 12 weeks old; it "surgared" and we dumped the entire batch into the garbage can. We must have overslept the next morning for we forgot, for the first time, to put the garbage out of the dog's reach. When we arrived home that noon he was obviously ill. We quickly found the raided garbage and took him to the Small Animal clinic at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine. He was sent to the hospital where, after three or four days, he died, attending veterinarian, Dr. "Fuzzy" Knight, told us of acute liver damage because chocolate was a potent poison to dogs. Interestingly, in 1987 we read an article that warned against feeding chocolate to their dogs because it contains a bromide that dogs cannot metabolize.
We were devastated by his death, but were determined to get another dachshund puppy. We attended a dog show put on by the Valley Kennel Club in the Animal Husbandry Pavillion on Texas A&M Campus where we were entranced with a lovely dog owned by the Cox's, well known dachshund breeders from Worth. On our next visit to Pat's family [by bus, of course] we visited the Cox's to see whether if they had any available for sale. They didn't, and we almost certainly could not have come up with the money to buy an offspring of the sire, who finished his AKC championship in the minimum three shows. They were lovely people who graciously entertained a couple of youngsters with tales of how they were first into raising and showing Great Danes but were unable to cope with the amount of food they required.
They suggested we contact a Mr. Plummer, whom they told us one was of the top Dachshund breeders in the country. We took their advice and the next day were in Mr. Plummer's home looking at a puppy sired by his famous champion, Kurt von. We wrote him a check for $100.00 for the puppy; it was a good sign of our love for dogs because I was receiving $105.00 a month on the G.I. Bill and Pat was making $280.00 a month as a technician in Biochemistry and Nutrition Department. I don't remember how we got the pup back to Fort Worth, but I'll never forget how we got Donner, the name we quickly agreed on, to College Station. We obviously couldn't use public transportation and, of course, didn't own a car. We checked the newspaper section for a "share a ride" to College Station, a means of transportation during the automobile shortage post World War ll. Following a phone call to make the arrangements, we were up at Pat's parents' domicile shortly after noon to be met by two young men who looked, and subsequently talked, like a couple of guys rejected from the 'Dead End Kids' because of authenticity. We sat in the back seat, Pat cradling “our Donner" in her lap, while the two hoodlums bandied about their imagined escapades. Although I had learned in the army to subtract a sliding scale "fudge factor" from the tales of braggarts, I was happy to get out of their car at Veteran's with my wife unviolated, the dog unharmed, and my wallet in my pocket. Pat, who had never been exposed to that sort of people was even more relieved.
Our life at 20A Veteran's Village, though not idyllic, was pleasant. I got up first, took a cup of coffee and a lighted cigarette to Pat and, without speaking, cooked breakfast. She was so exhausted from walking to and from work, more than a mile each way, plus working hard all day as a laboratory technician that an unkind word could bring tears.
We took Donner everywhere we went on foot. One afternoon we walked a few blocks to the grocery store at South Gate with him, about six months old at the time, on lead. When a cat that apparently had kittens somewhere in the store, pounced on what she perceived to be a threat to her young, and bit his head, I rescued him as quickly as I could, but he was terrified of cats, even tiny kittens, for two to three years. However, when he overcame that fear he was a terror on cats.
One of the most shocking --and to us -- unfair rulings we had up to that time was an arbitrary announcement that after a certain date no dogs would be allowed in Veteran's. There was no limitation on the number of children, a point that, even then, infuriated us. We probably would not have bought Donner if we had had any inkling of the ban on dogs in college housing, but once we had him there was no way we were going to give him up. However, moving out of college housing caused a lot of hardship and cost a lot of money.
Somehow, I found a Dr. Barger, head of the Economics at A&M, who was building an apartment behind his house for rent. I was finishing up my B.S. in Wildlife Management and been accepted to Graduate School in the Biology Department. An impending Teaching Assistantship and GI Bill stipend plus Pat's salary made it possible to move out of college housing and buy the car we thought we had to have to live at Barger's. It was on Highway 6, between Bryan and College, and more than two miles from the A&I Building where Pat worked. In our new affluence, we decided it was too far to walk.
First Car
Shortly after moving into Barger's apartment we made a trip to Fort Worth to buy a car Pat's father had found for us. I don't remember how we got there -- not by public transportation; we took Donner with us -- but I'll never forget the return. The car was a 1937 Hudson, an earlier model of which had run over me, owned by an elderly couple who only drove to and the grocery store. We paid $600 for it, $100 down and$100 a month for five months with no interest. Paul George, Pat's father, suggested we go downtown and see it. I said I had a friend in College Station who was a mechanic and I thought I'd give him the business. Paul said, "You do whatever you like, Sparks, but I wouldn't drive it off the lot if it wasn't insured." That sounded good to me, and so we did as he suggested.
We, Pat, Donner and I, left for College Station after Sunday. After about 50 miles, the heat gauge suddenly went off into the red and the radiator boiled dry. I walked to a nearby farm, pumped enough water from a well to refill the radiator and we continued our journey. Fifty miles later it happened again; by then I was experienced enough to take extra water along. When I limped into a service station, the attendant said, "your fan belt is busted; I'll take it out if you want me to". I told him that I, indeed, wanted him to take it out. Of course it, cost a few dollars, and that hurt because we were playing close to the vest. All went well until we were between Bryan and College, less than a mile from our apartment. Someone driving on Highway 6 waved frantically and pointed to the front of the car as we met. About then, smoke began coming up from our feet and from beneath the dashboard. Pat said, "Stop, the car's on fire". I replied "I'm going to make it to that filling station where there's water to put it out." "Not with me," she said and, holding the dog and her purse, she bailed out in her high heels onto the shoulder of the road. Deserted, I lost my nerve and pulled off the road just as flames erupted around my feet. A couple of drivers with fire extinguishers stopped, raised the hood and began spraying foam on the burning engine. Someone had also called the fire department; they put out the fire, but only after considerable damage. I walked the short distance to the apartment, leaving the burned car on the shoulder of the road. It was NOT a happy time.
The next morning a young insurance adjuster arrived, prepared for a "buy and burn insurance scam". He took one look at the car and said, "It's totalled, you can have your $600 back". I said "can we have it fixed instead". He said we had that choice, but he advised against it -- by then he realized we were too dumb to be involved in any kind of insurance scam and was trying to help us. Unfortunately, I was too stupid to take his advice. The Insurance Company put the repair job out for bids and a family in Bryan, the Scardinos, made the lowest bid. In addition to having the local Hudson dealership, they also owned a store. I don't know if the Mafia had penetrated the College Station area, but they operated with mob-like ethos. They were always polite -- "sorry the car isn't ready like promised, but we've had some problems". The estimated two-week repair time stretched into something like two months. When the car was finally ready, it looked like hell; the Scardinos had let their kids repaint the dash board for "show and tell". I was so tired of dealing with the slippery Scardinos and or riding the bus everywhere we went that I accepted the mess without further argument. Pat cried when I brought it home.
We joined the Brazos Valley Kennel Club after seeing an ad to enroll in an Obedience Class in the local paper. This opened a whole new world to us; we made many new friends, human and canine, and learned about the Dog World. Mrs. Stewart raised and showed Boxers; she owned Tree Cedar's Kennel, the one Boxer kennel in the Southwest. Her Chris, a fawn, was a famous champion and Cactus, a brindle, was well on his way when we met Mrs. Stewart, and he soon won the requisite number of points in AKC sanctioned shows. Mrs. Stewart was obedience training Chris so that she could make him both a conformation and obedience champion. He was not only gorgeous, he was smart; she took him through the Trials in almost record time.
The other side of the coin was Mrs. Clark, a lovely elderly woman, and her unregistered Dachshund, Trudi. In between were people and their dogs, drawn together by one common factor -- a love of dogs and the compulsion to educate them so we could communicate with them to the maximum possible. We were encouraged to show Donner by other Brazos Valley Kennel members and entered him in the Puppy Class at the next AKC Brazos Valley Kennel Club sponsored show. Despite the fact that I didn't know how to show him, or even to groom him, he did well enough in the Puppy Class to go to the next round. There both of us were outclassed, though all the Dachshund fanciers recognized his father: "Kurt always throws that gorgeous head". The problem then was my inexperience in the show ring, and always was that we did not put any weight on him. In retrospect, I'm confident if we had had the money to put him with a professional who also kenneled him between shows, he would have become AKC Champion in a short time.
After we got our ugly duckling car back, we were happy at Barger's apartment. Everything was new and it was the nicest place either of us had ever lived, except for the short stay at Mrs. Blumberg's. We settled down to enjoy it at least until I got my Master's Degree , but after only a few months, Dr. Barger informed us he had other plans for the apartment and that we would have to move. We were devastated; we had been good tenants, paid the rent on time, kept the place immaculate, didn't have wild parties and didn't even make noise-- we were so tired we slept most of the time. I have no idea why he evicted us -- perhaps for a student in his department or the idea he could get more than wee were paying (he was close with money); but when I asked him why, he pointed out that he didn't have to explain his reasons. It was his apartment and he wanted us out of it; life WAS different then.
Having to move created a serious problem; with all the veterans there was a monstrous housing problem in the Bryan Station. Texas A&M had been a military school prior during WWII; virtually all undergraduates lived in college and there were few graduate students. There was no housing in College Station and very little in Bryan, a few miles away. The returning married veterans, many of them with children, were far too numerous to be accommodated in college and quickly overwhelmed the local rental market while waiting their turn for college housing. Texas A&M worked desperately to build more student housing for married veterans, but they couldn't keep up. The only place we could find to rent was in Munnerlyn, a collection of World War II Quonset Huts bought surplus and thrown up by Mr. Ford Munnerlyn to help alleviate the housing shortage AND make a lot of money. Once again we were in WWII prefab housing, but these weren't put together nearly as well as Veteran's Village, the rent was much higher, and we had Donner and, by then, Schatzie, a choice of litter from Donner's first stud fees.
It was not a happy time; the rent was more than we could afford, the curtains stood out from the closed windows when the winter winds blew and we couldn't generate enough heat to get the place acceptably warm. I put up a chicken wire fence which was supposed to contain the two dogs, but Donner "swam" the soil beneath the fence and Schatzie followed him through the excavations. I'd search the neighborhood for them; when they saw me they would head for home, trying to keep me from seeing them. By the time I got back they were always safely in the pen happily waiting to greet me. I thwarted them once by blocking their exit with a board and catching them outside the pen, but it never worked again. Donner dug another tunnel before I could get home. We abandoned the pen when one of the neighbors complained that Donner was eating their pet Bantam chickens. Actually, we didn't believe gentle, sweet Donner would do such a vicious thing until he brought one home.
Fortunately, we were able to escape Munnerlyn Village fairly quickly. Howard Joham, an instructor or assistant professor in the Biology Department, took a year's leave of absence to go to finish his PhD and offered to lease us their house at a very reasonable rent. We were delighted with the offer, though there were some stipulations such as the dogs being kept to the kitchen. Mrs Joham carefully oriented Pat as to where everything was and EXACTLY how she wanted everything cared for. Retrospectively, it was pretty funny, but didn't seem so at the time. The house was fairly new, all wood, and plain and small by present day standards. The separate garage had a dirt floor, and I'm pretty sure the driveway was unpaved, but I think street was. It was in a new addition between Bryan and Station; even the street name, Chocalaco, was new. However, it was the first house the Johams had and, from the perspective of Munnerlyn Village, it seemed like heaven to us. There was nothing behind us until the dam at Fin Lake, about a quarter of a mile away. Although Joham was a botanist, there was no yard to keep; I'm not sure that it had been sodded with grass.
The year we lived there was tranquil and productive. Pat was happy in her job, I was doing well in Graduate School and teaching, and we were luxuriating in living in a real house of our own with even an extra bedroom for guests. We usually ate at a small table in the kitchen, but there was even a separate dining room.
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