Bonnie and Clyde Files

Bonnie and Clyde Files 45 (Book Launch Week!)

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(Friends: this week marks the launch for the sale of my forthcoming book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Saved a Middle Aged Man. Only 300 copies will be sold and it won’t be available in book stores. For more information and how to order, got to nestuccaspitpress.com or order here from the blog. Half of the profits are earmarked for the Angels for Sara Sanctuary to continue their excellent work. Please support me in this new editorial endeavor as I get back in the game of life, literature and service.)

As we headed back to the house, Jacque told me the story of how Bonnie and Clyde came to the sanctuary.

Bonnie and Clyde arrived at the sanctuary in June 2014. Clyde was then 12 or 13 and Bonnie 10 or 11. Their elderly owner had passed away and none of his family members wanted to keep the dogs. They had remained together at the Clatsop County Animal Shelter for almost a year, sharing the same small kennel. Clyde suffered from an old leg injury that had never properly healed and was overweight. Bonnie was overweight and suffered from hair loss. No one wanted to adopt them since they were older and had health issues. They were also a bonded pair that suffered extreme anxiety when separated. Jacque met Bonnie and Clyde while volunteering at the animal shelter and knew they were perfect candidates for the sanctuary, which had just opened. She arranged for Bonnie and Clyde’s transfer and on the day of their departure from the shelter, they jumped (!) into the back seat of her truck and barked and howled with joy on the ride over. They found the river, they found love, and in short order, demonstrated a remarkable recovery of mind, body and spirit.

I asked Jacque how she managed it all. She said, “Whenever things start looking tight or I get overwhelmed, I talk to Sara (the prematurely euthanized Rottweiler that sanctuary is named after). She is my angel watching over the sanctuary, and every time I talk to her, things start to turn around and work out. She is always around. When we have to help a dog transition to their next journey, Sara is there to help them. She is taking care of the sanctuary and I am just holding on for the ride. I could not have done any of this without her.”

Bonnie and Clyde Files 44 (Book Launch!)

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(Friends: today marks the launch for the sale of my forthcoming book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Saved a Middle Aged Man. Only 300 copies will be sold and it won’t be available in book stores. For more information and how to order, got to nestuccaspitpress.com or order here from the blog. Half of the profits are earmarked for the Angels for Sara Sanctuary to continue their excellent work. Please support me in this new editorial endeavor as I get back in the game of life, literature and service. Enjoy an excerpt from the book below:)

I parked my car in the parking lot of the Angels for Sara Sanctuary and got out. I heard a cacophony of barking coming from inside the house. A fit woman in her sixties appeared and introduced herself as Jacque. We shook hands and I introduced myself. I either looked invisible or a hundred years old. I handed over my volunteer form and she led me to the front door. The cacophony increased; the house shook. I entered the house and beheld dogs barking and prancing and singing. On the wall, a large flatscreen monitor played dog cartoons. Jacque gave me a tour of the house and I noticed multiple gates and partitions to sequester dogs for eating, sleeping, medical issues and hanging out. It wasn’t for everyone, perhaps not even me, but I smiled because I had met someone that it was for, and that she should be President of the United States of America.

Jacque sat in a recliner and I sat on a couch. Four or five small dogs jumped up on the arms and back of the couch. Another sat beside me. She introduced them. The two largest dogs, one black, a retriever mix, the other tan, a shepherd mix, came over and sat up in front of me. I met Bonnie and Clyde.

It felt like an interview, but not from a human resources department.

For the first time in my life, I sensed I was receiving a telepathic message, from one of the dogs surrounding me. I couldn’t discern which one, nor divine the message. I tried sending a telepathic message to the unknown dog. It was sort of like a First Contact from Star Trek. Nothing returned to me.

“How can I help you?” I said to Jacque.

“It would be great if you could come over and walk Bonnie and Clyde,” she said. “The house is a lot calmer if they get some exercise, relax, and don’t run over the smaller dogs.”

“That sounds great,” I said. “When do I start?”

“How about right now?”

“Sure.”

We went outside into the fenced back yard. Bonnie and Clyde followed. I saw the river, trees, blackberries, birds, pastures, hills, cattle, clearcuts.

A light rain began to fall. Neither one of us mentioned it. Jacque opened the gate and ushered Bonnie and Clyde out. I followed.

Jacque led us along until the trail sloped down the bank and met the river. We stopped there and Bonnie and Clyde walked into the water and started drinking. I surveyed with all my senses.

I didn’t say anything. I no longer recall how long I surveyed. It might have been five or ten minutes.

Jacque broke the spell. She said this spot was as far as Bonnie and Clyde should go. I was fine with that. This was good ground, I thought. A squad could make a formidable stand against an overpowering enemy here. Perhaps one man against an invisible enemy could, too. I also thought: this might be an interesting place to write. I’d never written near a river before. What would I write? Who am I? Do I even exist?

Bonnie and Clyde Files 43

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I sat at the table with Jacque, sanctuary founder and Marilyn, a sanctuary board member. Eleven dogs circled around us, including Bonnie and Clyde. Clyde whimpered for treats so I produced one from my pocket and fed him discreetly under the table. He wasn’t so discreet about gobbling it up.

“It all looks good to me,” I said.

I signed the contract to write grants for the sanctuary. It was treats all around! A chorus of barks, yips and yaps went up from the dogs.

It was my first official job in almost two years. I had applied for almost 90 others, most of them in the ever-expanding racket of online education delivered by corporations that seeks nothing less than the end to face-to-face instruction, the end of humanity in teaching.

In recent months, I have come to believe that face-to-face interaction is the only way to save Oregon, America, or the world that matter. Face to face with humans, dogs, elk, birds and flowers and trees if flowers and trees can be said to have faces.

My contract was only for 30 days and a thousand bucks, but it was the best work imaginable and would enable me to unleash everything in my editorial arsenal to raise funds for the sanctuary. One good fresh quote about dogs inserted into a grant might do the trick. I have many to choose from.

I stood up from the table and shook Jacque’s and Marilyn’s hands. I thanked them for giving me a shot. I walked out into the yard and Bonnie and Clyde followed me. We took our walk along the river under metal skies and I began writing the first dog grant in my mind, right there. And it only got better when it started to rain, which it did. I was walking with dogs and writing dog grants in rain.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Bonnie and Clyde Files 42

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I wielded the bush ax along the river, slicing through blackberries in lollygagging fashion. The nameless color of a congealed blue, green and white colored the landscape and sky. Bonnie and Clyde fanned out to my left and sniffed fresh elk scat. I whistled while I worked, tossing the dogs treats here and there as blackberries fell before my blade. A fortune cookie filled my pocket. I was going to feed it to Bonnie and Clyde and read aloud our collective fortune. I suspected reading the fortune by the river might result in some future good fortune. The river would help me divine it.

Delusional? Hardly. I placed infinitely more stock on predicting my future this way than other more expensive indoor ones presented by charlatans with credentials. It wasn’t even close.

Fifteen minutes later, I called the crew over and extricated the cookie. I bit off the wrapper and dangled the cookie above Clyde’s snout. He was on the verge of losing his mind, barking, whimpering, howling, while Bonnie sat their silently like the dignified lady she is.

“Are you ready for our fortune?” I said.

Clyde answered me. He lunged for the cookie and gulped it down! Our fortune was swallowed! I laughed and scratched his head. My fingers were just slightly nicked.

I turned to Bonnie and fed her a treat while Clyde licked up the cookie crumbles from the grass.

“What was our fortune Bonnie?” I said.

I stared into her wise old face and read it there.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Bonnie and Clyde Files 41

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I arrived at the sanctuary properly armed—a Swedish bush ax—an extraordinarily crafted and effective hand tool that basically amounts to a wooden baseball bat with a curved blade at the top. A flimsy machete can’t compare to this weapon of close quarter, blackberry destruction. I had slayed acres and acres of the Himalayan invader on the wildlife refuge with these axes and gifted myself with one when I left. I hadn’t wielded it in ten long years.

The sun was out but losing interest. Bonnie and Clyde worked our way through some newly planted trees along the river. Blackberries threatened their survival and I was hacking and hacking to release the trees from their thorny bondage. The muscle memory of using the ax quickly returned, but a few minutes into battle, I realized that most everything was wrong: I had not sharpened the blade, I wore the wrong shoes, I wore the wrong pants, I wore the wrong coat, and was in fact absurdly wearing a bulky pea coat!

I had forgotten so much.

How does one come to remember something worth remembering? I thought about that as I sliced away.

It started raining but I kept cutting. There would never be a shortage of invasive blackberries on the Oregon Coast to vanquish. The pea coat came off and I hung it on the branch of a Sitka spruce.

Bonnie and Clyde nosed around, doing their dog things, but they seem disinterested in my labor. At one point, they flopped down in the wet grass and watched the river.

I sweated my through two shirts but kept hacking.

An hour went by. The rain let up. I let up.

I looked at my hands: scrapes and scratches like the glory days on the refuge. Blood drawn. I had at least done one thing right—no gloves. You can’t grip the ax with surety with gloves. You have to expose your hands and grip the wood tight. You can swing for the fences that way.

It was time to go. I roused Bonnie and Clyde from their slumber, gave them some treats, and drank water from a bottle. I was soaked, steaming and covered in mud. I donned the pea coat and we made our way back to the house.

I would be perfectly prepared the next time I went into battle. I’ll be perfectly prepared for the rest of my life.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Bonnie and Clyde Files 40

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Snow graced the path along the river. Clyde took point, Bonnie followed, and I brought up the rear. My phone registered a temperature of 37 degrees. The sun shined, the sky blued bright, and the current ran swift and clear. I wore black knit gloves vaguely reminiscent of something Bob Cratchit might wear. I blew visible puffs of breath and imagined them smoke from a fine cigar, a victory cigar I long to smoke, any victory, even Don Quixote ones.

I looked up to the clearcuts. The stark contrast of white upon black braced me. Nothing reveals the ugliness of clearcuts like the blanched beauty of snow. What else horrible is revealed to the world when beauty falls upon on massacre? I thought hard searching for another example, perhaps even one related to my personal life. Perhaps Bonnie and Clyde were involved.

We mushed through the ice and I noticed a hummingbird nest made of moss tucked inside a leaveless vine maple. The tiny nest held traces of snow and was quite possibly the most beautifully tiny thing I’d ever seen. A few yards later, I stopped for a treat break and to admire the leaning alder that leans another inch or two with every new visit. One day it will lean no more and vanish down the watershed. No one will hear it vanish. I’d sort of like to do the same thing when my time comes to journey down watershed. Only a superstitious fool thinks you’re going to travel upward to begin the next life and not down, not to hell, but down the watershed to the ocean, to be reborn in the birth of all things living.

I tossed a stick into the water and spooked some ducks. A blue heron lifted off from the pasture across the river. Something caught my eye in the middle of the channel, something yellow and rectangular, resting on the bottom. I moved toward the river’s edge for a closer inspection, a trait rapidly disappearing from American cultural life in the digital age. Bonnie and Clyde tailed me. Dogs are always up for closer inspection. They find truth that way. They can smell it. Smell my truth world.

That something in the river was an Oregon license plate. I couldn’t read the numbers but I knew it came from an Oregon vehicle and the design hailed long before the era when Oregon drivers got to choose a design (and cause) and pay for the privilege of doing so.

How did that license plate come to rest at the bottom of the Lewis and Clark River? I wanted that plate. I wanted to run it through DMV records and investigate an unreported murder or reported missing person. Perhaps I might discover the truth or a truth.

The bank was too steep. The water too cold. I’d have to wait for summer, but where I would be this summer? By that time, who or what will have given me closer inspection?

We resumed our walk down the path. Bonnie and Clyde seemed almost giddy in the snow. They had the fresh spunk that always seems to arrive with snow in places where snow rarely falls. I had it, too. I stopped, barked out,“Treats!” You treat snow hounds.”

Bonnie and Clyde quickly reversed course and started galloping toward me, churning up snow. It was like a cavalry charge from a Russian short story or 800-page novel. I bent over, grabbed a fistful of snow, formed a snowball, and winged it at Clyde. He caught it in his mouth and kept charging. They bowled me over and I dished out treats in surrender.

I rolled another snowball and was about ready to stuff a treat inside when Clyde came up and wolfed the snowball down right out of my hand! I laughed aloud, Bonnie showed up, and we three jinxed it up in the snow.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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