Happy

Here, you see your correspondent as a very young child with his dachshund, Happy. Happy was part of my world prior to my parents' divorce, so I guess I'm between 4 and 7 in this shot.

I have two significant memories related to Happy. The first involves the time he got out of the house. I ran after him, and eventually got him to come to me. Then, I would let him go again. I saw chasing Happy as a marvelously fun game — until I realized I was lost.

I started crying, and calling out to the world in general: "I'm lost." Now, this was in the early 1960s, and this was a relatively suburban neighborhood. I think I went to someone's door, and asked for help. They asked my father's name, looked up the number in the book, and called my parents.

Padre immediately helped me memorize our phone number.

The second memory related to Happy came within a week after Padre's death. Among the effects I inherited were a cache of color slides (which I have since misplaced). And among those slides was a color photograph of Happy and me in front of a Christmas tree. Seeing that slide brought tears to my eyes.

Of course, I had cried in response to Padre's death. I suppose these additional tears were similarly motivated. But they may have also been in response to my lost childhood.