Digger Dog



Digger O'Dell in his first home



      In the little city of West University Place, surrounded by the big city of Houston, my down-the-street neighbor was a PhD who taught at Rice University.  Another PhD lived next door.  On the other side lived a lawyer who was married to a lawyer. Four other lawyers lived on my block, along with two stockbrokers and an architect.  Having grown up in Lubbock, I knew the value of diversity and learned to look beneath the surface for inner beauty in everyone. In spite of their obvious shortcomings,  I became friends with these strange people.   That made me feel really good about myself.

     Dr. Rudolph P. Nydegger, the Rice professor, allowed me to call him Rudy.  I taught him how to barbeque and play dominoes and he tried out big words on me.  I’ll never forget when he discovered “bourgeois.”  He used it in every other sentence for two weeks.

     My friend Rudy was a bit quirky.  He wanted a dog as a companion for his five-year-old daughter, Ashley, and he wanted an Irish Setter.  I suggested that Irish Setters were large dogs and needed running room and our yards were relatively small, especially the fenced back yards.  I should have known better than to try to be logical with Dr. Nydegger, because he had seen a picture of an Irish Setter in a magazine and his mind was made up.  In a week or so, he brought home a registered Irish Setter puppy to live in the back yard and play with Ashley.

     Rudy named this new dog “Digger O’Dell,” after an undertaker on an old-time radio program.  The big red dog grew quickly and immediately began to live up to its name.  Within a few months, Digger dug under the fence at will and roamed the neighborhood while Ashley was at school and her parents were working.  Digger was far too bright and quick for the West U. animal control officers, and he always came home for dinner.

      Almost a year later, as I supplemented my income by playing poker with Rudy and some of his Rice friends, Rudy said, “Jim, your dad lives on a farm.  Do you suppose he might like a dog?"

     My parents had “retired” to a 250 acre farm outside Vashti, Texas, near Bowie.  Dad had fifty head of cattle and mother tended a garden and raised chickens.  They had gone back to their roots and were very happy.  Dad was partially crippled, but he managed to get around with a cane, and could still fix anything that broke.  He had to sit in a chair to do it, but he rebuilt the transmission on his John Deere tractor.  Turns out, he had always wanted a good dog.

     Dad drove the four hundred miles to Houston one Saturday and I nervously took him to meet Digger.   As Dad and I walked down the sidewalk to the Nydegger’s house, Rudy and Digger stood on the front porch.  Dad wobbled along with his cane and Digger headed for us.  The dog ignored me, but approached Dad with his head lowered, submissive, tail wagging wildly.  Dad was past the point of squatting or hunkering down, and the big dog sensed that; he stood on his back legs so dad could pet him.  No need to be nervous, it was love at first sight for both of them.  Digger happily ran around in circles and Dad cleared his throat several times.  When I wasn’t looking, he wiped away a tear.

     The next morning, after breakfast, Dad drove his Ford pickup down the street to Rudy’s house.  He hobbled out and held the door open.  Without hesitation, Digger darted from the porch past Rudy and me, bounded into the front seat of the pickup, and sat up on the passenger side.  Dad climbed in, cranked up the truck and headed north.  He told me later that after about a hundred miles, Digger lay down with his head in Dad’s lap and took a nap.

     From that day forward, they were inseparable.  Dad drove to the pasture to feed the cattle, and Digger Dog ran alongside.  Digger flushed quail and dove and chased them as he ran through the underbrush, but was always there waiting when Dad stepped out of the truck.  As Dad finished his chores and climbed back into the pickup, Digger, hot and tired, jumped in ahead of him and pawed the air conditioner, asking for it to be put on high speed.  He stuck his head in front of the vent and let the cold air blow directly into his face.

     Digger Dog did not chase cars.  His favorite thing to chase was birds.   One day, he flushed a covey of quail from the bar ditch next to the paved road that ran alongside the farm.  A neighbor lady was driving by and Digger, chasing a bird, darted in front of her.  Dad rushed him to the vet in Bowie.

     Digger’s left front leg was mangled and the tendons controlling it were severed.  The young vet said, “This dog is going to be crippled.  We will have to put him down.  There’s no other choice.”

     “By God, I’m crippled and I ain’t gonna be put down!  You figure out a way to fix him, boy,  and I don’t mean maybe.  Don’t you let my dog die.”   Dad was as serious as a heart attack.

     The operation took over two hours.  Digger’s entire leg was removed at the shoulder joint, and the skin where it had been was patched and sewn up.  Once Dad explained the gravity of the situation, the vet did a thorough job.

      Digger Dog recovered completely and was a three-legged Irish Setter for the rest of his long and happy life.  Beautiful silky red hair covered the wound and it was invisible.  The last time I visited the farm, Digger chased birds across the pasture as Dad and I fed the cattle.  Then he jumped in the pickup between us and pawed the air conditioner with his single front leg.

     

Nothing Much Ever Happens in Muleshoe

    

My oldest two grandsons at the Mule Monument in Muleshoe.  Note the Lowake Steakhouse tee shirt on Ian.  I am doing my best to introduce the boys to the finer things in life.

     Muleshoe, Texas, is near the New Mexico border, about eighty miles northwest of Lubbock and that makes it fair game for this blog.  I have lifelong friends in that part of Texas—friends who have never, ever bored me.  That’s about all I really expect from friends—let me enjoy your company and please don’t bore me.

     In Muleshoe, most everyone is a farmer.  Those who don’t farm are involved in some business that caters to the needs of farmers.  Some of the farmers own businesses in addition to their farms.  Charles Flowers told of one guy there who owned a furniture store.  Flowers was concerned with the mark-up on furniture—farmers are always concerned with everyone else’s mark-up.  Charlie said, “The store sets there empty, with not a single customer in sight, and Ole Willie Isaac has paid for three farms with it.”

     Muleshoe farmers, as all farmers everywhere, work hard most of the time but a lull in their activity comes after the crops are harvested and before spring planting.  Annual maintenance is necessary on every farm, and this is a really good time to repair equipment, paint barns, fix windmills, and drink whiskey.

A second picture of my grandsons in Muleshoe--the grain elevator is just to the left , next to the railroad track.

     In downtown Muleshoe, the S.E.Cone Grain Elevator stores grain sorghum from the harvest.  Ralph Abernathy is the manager there and his busy time coincides with the local farmers, as does his slow time.  My friends, Buck Campbell and Charles Flowers, enjoy loitering around the elevator office during the slow spells each year.  They like this because their wives think they’re off working and they won’t have to paint the house, or plant shrubs, or whatever chore the little woman can come up with to make sure they don’t get into some kind of mischief.

     The elevator office is a big open room, with a long counter across the front near the entry door, a large conference table behind the counter next to Ole Ralph’s desk, and a coffee machine with several heavy cups on a little cabinet in the corner.  Buck and Flowers grab a coffee cup and sit down at the big table.  Ole Ralph pulls out a half gallon of Black Jack from the bottom drawer of his desk and fills all three cups.  Then, they let nature take its course.

     After several cups, and the mandatory discussion of the prospects of rain, the idiot politicans in Washington, and the shape of the new gal at Tom’s Satellite Lounge in Clovis, the boys get restless.  Maybe it is time to go back over to Clovis and see if they really are that big.  If so, they need to go pick up Ole Benton.  Robert Benton, a friend from high school, farms a couple of sections west of Dimmit and is a swell fellow to get drunk with.  Ole Ralph puts a sign in the window indicating that he is at the doctor’s office in Lubbock and will be open tomorrow.  The well-used sign is almost worn out, old and dog-eared.

    After spinning by Benton’s farm and learning that he is playing golf in Dimmit, the boys head toward the golf course, Buck driving his wife’s Cadillac.

     There are reasons that you have not seen the Dimmit Country Club on the Sunday afternoon broadcasts of the PGA Tour.  To start with, it has only fourteen holes.  The developer ran out of money and never finished the course.  No one in Dimmit seems to mind and several young people from there were astonished when they went off to school and discovered eighteen holes on the Texas Tech course in Lubbock.

     Then, the topography in Dimmit leaves something to be desired when compared to other links.  The Ole Boy who built it had only a small Caterpillar, and he simply scraped up some dirt to make the greens, planted grass on them and quit.  The places where he scraped the dirt became natural sand traps, and there is absolutely no danger of any water hazard in that part of the world.  They planted fourteen trees, one for each hole, but the drought took them.  All except one.  One got cut down when it blocked a shot for Ernie Nydegger.  Ole Ernie just went to his pickup and got a chain saw and cleared a path to the green.  The rules out here are pretty liberal.

     Our boys, having the foresight to bring along the Black Jack and coffee cups, were feeling no pain.  They looked out across the course and immediately spotted Benton and another fellow, easing their golf cart up to the twelfth tee.  Buck took the direct route to the tee box, bounced across three parched fairways and a small sand trap, slid sideways on the cart path and stopped next to the little mound.  This attracted the attention of the two golfers.

     “Benton, put up that six iron and get in here.  We’re going to Clovis and run the whores.  You ain’t got a hair on your ass if you don’t come on with us.”

     Ole Benton nervously held up both arms and said, “Boys, boys.  Hold on, hold on.  Allow me to introduce our new minister.”

     Buck put the Cadillac in low gear and cut a donut in the rock-hard fairway.  As they sped away, Ole Ralph leaned out the back window and shouted, “Baldy.”

As the sun sets slowly in the west, we leave the peaceful little farm community of Muleshoe.