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Chapter 1:
Meet my new best friend.
(by PlasmaSprayer, added on September 7, 2009)
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DUSTY
He was my best friend, that little dust-mop of a dog.
His name was "DUSTY" because, well, he was (most all of the time), and he looked like one of those janitorial, industrial push mops you see in school closets and such. His breed was Lhasa Apso, but he had the heart of a lion and the courage of a pitbull terrier. That's so true with most smaller breeds of dogs, isn't it? Always the first in line to protect their own. Well, you know what they say, it ain't the size of the dog in the fight, right?
My folks got Dusty when I was 15 years old. I was a teen-ager in the 70's, when Dico was king and if you didn't like it, you were considered weird, or rebellious.
I didn't like it!
While everyone else was bopping and Hustling, I was head bangin' to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My folks hated both genres of music, but they especially loathed rock! So, for a time, my childhood friends that I grew up with, they went to the teen disco clubs and skating rinks. And I stayed home...with Dusty. Sure, I had two younger brothers, but they were just as into that lifestyle as most teenagers were then.I refused to conform. "Disco is just a fad", I'd say to my buddies (and anyone else who'd listen), "but rock-n-roll is foreever!" We won't go into who was right there, that's a story for another time.
Dusty and I would spend all day outdoors, fishing in Pounder's pond, or sneaking around old man Clapp's farm, hiking off to 7-11 to grab a SLURPEE and a bag of chips. After ignoring several "NO TRESPASSING" signs posted on the various properties he and I violated, we would lay down in whatever field we found ourselves in, and just stare up at the clear blue summer sky and watch the lazy clouds billow overhead. Dusty never ran off. He never attempted to go his own way without permission. Whatever I was doing, that's what Dusty wanted to be doing. Wherever I was, that's where you'd find Dusty. We were virtually inseperable. I spoke to him just as I would you, and he would bob his head from side to side and wag his tail.
It was as if he understood my every word.
I graduated from high school and immediately joined the United States Marine Corps. I had never been away from Dusty more than a night or two before I arrived at Parris Island in October of 1978. But boot camp was 13 long, agonizing weeks, and I would not be able to see my beloved friend until after graduation. During the few times we were allowed calls to home, my mom would speak awhile, then my father, ultimately my two younger brothers would say their colletive hellos, and then, you guessed it, I would speak to Dusty.
He would howl and bark so loud, the guys around me probably wondered what type of family I had come from! A pack of wolves maybe? But, I did eventually graduate and made it back home via Greyhound bus in February of 1979. And there at the station awaiting my return was my entire family and my best friend, Dusty. My folks had stretched one of doggie sweaters over his mop-head of a body, a bright red knit, with USMC emblazoned in gold across the chest.
I was so happy to seee them all!
Now, you may finally be wondering just how or what this story has to do with ghosts, the supernatural, or other things that go bump-in-the-night? Well, I am getting to that part dear reader.
I went on to do my duty in the Marine Corps, spanning the globe from the Phillipines, to Korea, Japan and everywhere in between. I became a sniper and found myself in some pretty interesting places during my stay in Uncle Sam's service. I eventually got out, got married, had kids...and all the while Dusty lived with my parents in the childhood home in which we both grew up, waiting and most probably, wondering what the heck happened to his friend.
Oh sure, I visited my folks and Dusty from time to time, but life gets busy and we tend to neglect those we were so close to as children growing up. It's sad, but it's no less true. How many of us are still close to those best buddies of yesteryear. If you still are, you are one of the lucky few. I would hold Dusty and play ball with him. Sadly. bowel cancer had taken hold of him by this time. and my mom said that most times he would just lay around the house, lethargic and quiet, mope to his food dish from time to time, then go lay beside the dryer in the laundry room of my parents home. For some reason, mom said it became his favorite place after I grew up and moved away and out of the house.
Dusty died on my 31st birthday. I got the call from my dad that day, first and foremost, to wish me a happy birthday, but also to reluctantly give me the bad news. My dad knew we were close, and he felt he owed it to me to let me know. He died quietly in the night, after everyone had gone off to bed.
He was right beside the dryed when they found him.
My parents buried Dusty at Memorial Garden Pet Cemetary ,near their home on a rainy Monday morning. They put him in the little red knit USMC sweater that I had seen him so proudly wearing the day I returned home from boot camp in 1979. She had placed it in a box in the attic in mothballs, and as Dusty became older and more feeble and prone to shivering, rerieved it, washed it, and began putting it on him again to help keep him warmer. "Plus", she said. "he seeed to act younger and more alive somehow evrytime I put it on him. It just seemed appropriate that we send it with him into eternity, he loved the darn thing so much!".
Dusty has been gone for more that 17 years now. After he had been gone for about four years, I got a call from my mom at home one evening. She said that my dad and her had just bought a brand new washer and dryer, and when they went to move the old one out into the garage, bemeath the dryer was an old, water stained photo. It was a POLAROID instamatic print, the ones where you take the picture, wait a few minutes, then strip back the top thin layer of black film to expose a moistened picture developing before your eyes?
Some of us know what I'm talking about.
"It was the strangest thing son", mom uttered, nearly gasping benaeth her breath, "it was a picture of you holding Dusty on the dryer, you know, the time we turned it on and had you climb up there with him? We thought it would be funny, so your Dad snapped the picture, remember?"
I told her I I remembered it as if it were yesterday.
She went on to tell me how her and dad were getting along now that we were all grown and moved out...but I knew we were both thinking of Dusty laying there beside the dryer, day after day, night after night...
Then, about three years ago I got a call from my cousin in Tennessee. He had moved there with his family back a few years ago, and my mom and dad had given him the old washer and dryer that had been sitting out in their garage for, well, God knows how long,
"Hey, I got something that I believe may belong to you", he tells me. "I was gonna' throw it away, it's been so long and everything, but Gina said that the Marine Corps was important to you and that this may be an important souverneir or somethin'...so I thought I'd call you.?" "Oh,what is it?", I replied.
To this day I get cold chills just writing or uttering these words...even today.
"Well, it's a little red-knit sweater, and it has USMC in gold stitched on the front..."
I know Dusty was buried in that sweater.
I also know that it was the only one of it's kind that my folks had ever purchased.
The washer and dryer sat unused and unattended out in my folks garage for years before it was given to my cousin and moved to Tennessee.
I have that little red knit sweater still, to this day. I keep it in a vaccuum sealed, airless SPACEBAG. It is a testament to loyalty, love and friendship. Friendship, I believe, that transends even the cold confines of the grave.
Dusty...I miss you. I always will
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Chapter 2:
Inseperable in Life
(by PlasmaSprayer, added on September 7, 2009)
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My folks got Dusty when I was 15 years old. I was a teen-ager in the 70's, when Dico was king and if you didn't like it, you were considered weird, or rebellious.
I didn't like it!
While everyone else was bopping and Hustling, I was head bangin' to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My folks hated both genres of music, but they especially loathed rock! So, for a time, my childhood friends that I grew up with, they went to the teen disco clubs and skating rinks. And I stayed home...with Dusty. Sure, I had two younger brothers, but they were just as into that lifestyle as most teenagers were then.I refused to conform. "Disco is just a fad", I'd say to my buddies (and anyone else who'd listen), "but rock-n-roll is foreever!" We won't go into who was right there, that's a story for another time.
Dusty and I would spend all day outdoors, fishing in Pounder's pond, or sneaking around old man Clapp's farm, hiking off to 7-11 to grab a SLURPEE and a bag of chips. After ignoring several "NO TRESPASSING" signs posted on the various properties he and I violated, we would lay down in whatever field we found ourselves in, and just stare up at the clear blue summer sky and watch the lazy clouds billow overhead. Dusty never ran off. He never attempted to go his own way without permission. Whatever I was doing, that's what Dusty wanted to be doing. Wherever I was, that's where you'd find Dusty. We were virtually inseperable. I spoke to him just as I would you, and he would bob his head from side to side and wag his tail.
It was as if he understood my every word.
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Chapter 3:
Life goes on
(by PlasmaSprayer, added on September 7, 2009)
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I graduated from high school and immediately joined the United States Marine Corps. I had never been away from Dusty more than a night or two before I arrived at Parris Island in October of 1978. But boot camp was 13 long, agonizing weeks, and I would not be able to see my beloved friend until after graduation. During the few times we were allowed calls to home, my mom would speak awhile, then my father, ultimately my two younger brothers would say their colletive hellos, and then, you guessed it, I would speak to Dusty.
He would howl and bark so loud, the guys around me probably wondered what type of family I had come from! A pack of wolves maybe? But, I did eventually graduate and made it back home via Greyhound bus in February of 1979. And there at the station awaiting my return was my entire family and my best friend, Dusty. My folks had stretched one of doggie sweaters over his mop-head of a body, a bright red knit, with USMC emblazoned in gold across the chest.
I was so happy to seee them all!
Now, you may finally be wondering just how or what this story has to do with ghosts, the supernatural, or other things that go bump-in-the-night? Well, I am getting to that part dear reader.
I went on to do my duty in the Marine Corps, spanning the globe from the Phillipines, to Korea, Japan and everywhere in between. I became a sniper and found myself in some pretty interesting places during my stay in Uncle Sam's service. I eventually got out, got married, had kids...and all the while Dusty lived with my parents in the childhood home in which we both grew up, waiting and most probably, wondering what the heck happened to his friend.
Oh sure, I visited my folks and Dusty from time to time, but life gets busy and we tend to neglect those we were so close to as children growing up. It's sad, but it's no less true. How many of us are still close to those best buddies of yesteryear. If you still are, you are one of the lucky few. I would hold Dusty and play ball with him. Sadly. bowel cancer had taken hold of him by this time. and my mom said that most times he would just lay around the house, lethargic and quiet, mope to his food dish from time to time, then go lay beside the dryer in the laundry room of my parents home. For some reason, mom said it became his favorite place after I grew up and moved away and out of the house.
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