Follow in my Footsteps by Murphy Doodle

 i do not understand women or mothers who walk on two legs, there I said it!

today, while jack was reading the paper on the back porch he left his room open for me, which was nice, he normally doesn't let me in unless he is there, but best of all i found a new chew that he left out for me, so, i took it to letty's studio where she was on the computer listening to people talk, i must have done something wrong because she grabbed the toy from my mouth and said I needed to go see jack, luckily, jack and I are friends so i ran ahead of her to see jack, then

 i was still in trouble from last night, which wasn't my fault, last night they left me alone outside for hours, like half of my life went by yesterday and I was alone, no one to play with and I wanted to run and chase the ball and jump in someone's lap and be loved on the swing, but no, they went to a ball game and left me alone. they know i love games with balls that i can chase.

so, I sniffed out a bottle that was left on the outside table, it smelled like fish and just the day before I smelled sardines at a table, julie was eating them and i  really liked that smell, so I decided to bite the bottle and see if I could taste the fish. it took me all evening to roll the bottle, bite the bottle and finally bite and chewed enough to unscrew the lid.  it was awful awful tasting fish oil, one taste was enough but why did my mother leave it outside for me to drink if she didn't want me to have it?

see why i don't understand women

now she keeps giving me baths and washes my face, she says i smell like an alley cat

this is what got me in trouble first, and before that there was the book I chewed up, jack's soxs and a matching pair of shoes. why not chew on both so they look the same, i thought. the rugs weren't very good and they gagged me which made letty and jack grab me and pull a long string out of my mouth.

always before when i did something wrong letty rubbed my nose in it or shook a rattle that scared me, but this time with the little glasses she drug me across the room and made me see the error of my ways

"Go ahead a confess," she just told me, "tell them what else you've chewed up." 

a pillow

the garden hose piece that sprays water

pretty green plants with pink flowers

maybe a glove i found in the garden

locust and toads

newspapers

magazines

something off the kitchen table that made you mad

my harness that was too loose

a blanket corner that was in my way

"Thank you Murphy. You are still a good dog and you make us laugh and play everyday."

now i am grounded and i like this because i don't get to be outside without jack or letty to watch me until the smell of dead fish is gone. i like being grounded with people.  

this is me Messy Murphy, my name gets changed everyday, 
sometimes they call me goof ball, or howler when i
howl at the sirens on saturday, doodle bug, or curly
 because i like commas and have curly hair and more i 
can't think of right now, i am hungry
the end

We are the proud parents of
a puppy who can behave
in public with good
manners, 
sometimes. 

  

Forever Memories

 

Letty, Katy, Jonya September 2021

Over the weekend my sister, Jonya and I, relaxed over lunch with my daughter, Katy at Kitchen 324 in downtown Oklahoma City. Thus began our daughter's fiftieth birthday celebration. Why not celebrate the entire month when you turn 50!

No matter how we start our conversations it seems that we eventually work in a memory of mom and dad. So began stories about our experiences on the farm East of Miami, Oklahoma. Each of us found humor in those moments that happened so many year ago, yet 'seem like yesterday.'   

 

Katy and Jonya, remembered how mom saved table scraps for the dogs and food for the worm bed near the wood pile. The dogs received a can of  “Ol' Roy” dog food and a heaping of scraps. The rest of the foods went to the worms buried under a black mat. I can see my city raised mother with make up on her face and an apron around her waist feeding, digging, and turning the worm bed, so that they had worms for fishing on Mondays. Mondays were dad's day away from work and routines. Mother was never a fisher woman, but truly a dutiful wife there to assist her husband, even with wiggling worms. 

I remembered the hidden toy in the flower garden. Somewhere in those years of six to ten Katy cherished her Incredible Hulk action toy.  He went everywhere with Katy around the farm and then quietly disappeared. Katy hit the teenage years and put the Hulk memories behind her, until one day my mother called explaining that she’d nearly had a heart attack and needed to talk to Katy right away! With both of us ears to the one landline telephone my mother explained:

"Today, I was digging up the flower bed on the North side of the house when suddenly I hit something with the shovel. It wasn't a root, so I kept forcing the shovel down until it gave way. Suddenly, green slime oozed from the hole in the ground. I screamed, my heart raced, and Johnie came running.        

Katy and I could barely breathe and she continued.

 

Available on eBay for $165, Happy Birthday

At last Johnie dug up the green slime and the filthy aged broken and
battered body of the Hulk emerged.  

 

By now mother was laughing so hard she nearly cried, and Katy and I could finally breathe. Then we began laughing out loud and continue to laugh to this very day over the green slime in the garden. 

Incredible stories most certainly take place on farmland. Dad named all of their cows the first year, then after selling some for market learned to stop giving them names. Mom and dad both cried the first time their pet calves were sold.

 

We all remember Charley the Bull, who my father adopted like a pet. Charley had a purpose and he produced healthy calves in the few years that Dad owned him, but Charley also visited the females on the other side of the fences leaving gaping holes in the barbed wire that dad had to fix. 

 

Jonya explained that Charley was best known for his love affair with Rosemary. Charley and Rosemary produced a mean steer named Rosemary's Baby! We weren't safe around the farm with Rosemary's baby in the herd.

 

 

Little Katy and Heidi

Mom and Dad bought the farm in 1970 before Katy was born in 1971. So all of her memories of my folks come from the farm. None of us could recall what kind of red bull Charley was, but Katy's description is best. 

"Charley the Bull was an Auburn colored bull with huge HORNS and was very big and scary. I helped Grandpa Moo feed Charley and Charley always blew bull snot all over us! 

 

I like Mr. Kay, he was the smaller nicer brown and white bull that Grandpa Moo bought after he sold Charley." 

 

 

Mother and dad were both children of the depression and the need to save and store objects never left. Dad was most famous for hiding money, mother just couldn't remember where she put things (rather like her two daughters do to this day).  After they died Jack and spent weekends on the farm cleaning and boxing up memories. One cool fall day we were in the north barn where Dad fed his bulls. We were tired and worn from the heartache and memories but carried on. Somehow we came across a flattened Folgers Coffee can buried under the straw. Our hearts raced, like mother's with the hulk. Jack found two shovels and we began to dig. We knew without a doubt there would be a buried treasure, more than likely coins that dad saved for decades and weren't in the bank vault. 

We nearly dug a hole to China, only to find more dirt. We laughed at ourselves and called it a day.

 

I've often wondered what notes or monies I must have thrown away or given to Goodwill. What did dad hide in the lining of his dress jackets or the heel of his golf shoes?  We can only imagine.  

 

Those treasures and memories are now stored within our hearts, and they may be the reason that I am a storyteller.  

 

Salute! to Bob Hope and Thanks for the Memories

(Click on the blue link to take you to listen to Bob Hope sing this wonderful old song.)