Eric and Rocky, Redux

There is one slightly Twilight Zone aspect to our house.

From the beginning....

When I was a wee lad, I LOVED dogs. I counted our dogs among my best friends and - since I spent most of my time working outside on our farm - they were my constant companions. They were by my side as I fed the cows, worked in the fields, rode my fourwheeler all over tarnation...

One of my first dogs was a German Shepard, whom I named Rocky.



(A note here on pet names: As a child, I had a tendency to think out of the box when it came to names. My first cat I named Christmas Tree, because he was completely black, just like it's really dark out all the time around Christmastime, which is when the Christmas trees are lit. Such was my logic as a four-year-old. My second cat was named Jeff The Wildcat, in honor of my cousin, Jeff, who played football for a team who's mascot was a wildcat.)

Rocky was awesome. He looked really tough, had a fierce bark, and scared the bejesus out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who dropped by every 6 months or so. He was also really sweet, clearly preferring to lick strangers rather than bite them.

Alas, he also had a unquenchable desire to chase cars. And one Christmas eve, when I was 10ish, he finally caught one. May he rest in peace.

Boy, was THAT a crappy Christmas.

Contributing to the emotional load was the fact that my parents had purchased one big gift for me that year... a stuffed dog that looked almost exactly like Rocky. Their idea, and it was brilliant, was to give me a way to have Rocky inside the house even though the real Rocky wasn't allowed inside.

Mom and Dad, of course, were in a complete bind. They didn't have time to find another gift for me. So their options were to a) not give the stuffed dog to me and somehow explain to me why they didn't get me any presents or b) give the dog to me and hope that I didn't have a complete emotional meltdown.

They gave it to me.

And that day it was both terrible and horrible to have this immediate reminder of my best friend who was now dead. But over the coming months most of the terribleness dropped away, and I grew to love that stuffed dog.

I still have him today and I fully intend to pass him on to my kids.


OK, so here's the Twilight Zone part of our new house:
Our downstairs neighbor is named Eric.
He has a dog.
That dog is named Rocky.

How weird is that? Of course, in terms of appearance, our Rocky's couldn't possibly be more different. But this Rocky is a sweet little dog too, and is quickly becoming on of our favorite guests.



And, yes, his tongue almost always hangs out the side like that.