friday flashback - the one with the dog

My Grandmother was a pretty amazing lady. She was patient, kind and loving. She had a lot of her plate as a Mom to five in a house with no indoor plumbing and an old wood fired cook stove, but she never made it seem like it was a lot. Although I have to assume those first few years with Ricky were difficult. The kinds of services and support we have now were virtually nonexistent back then. This journey would be something the family would have to figure out as they went along, with my Grandma in the driver's seat.



I often wonder what the learning curve for life with Ricky was like. Judging from one family story that has been told countless times it was pretty wide.

My Grandparents lived on a farm. I guess you would call it a hobby farm as it wasn't the full means of support for the family, but it was big enough that they had the typical farm things. Things like a tractor, a barn, barn cats, a farm dog and maybe a rifle or two.

Now the gist of the story is the dog was being a nuisance. Perhaps it was barking it's fool head off. All day. Endlessly. Maybe my Grandma was trying to get the wash done for a family of seven in that old wringer washer that was out in the yard and was at her limit. Maybe the dog dug up the vegetable garden. I'm not exactly sure what the circumstance was, but I do know my Grandma was annoyed with the dog that day.

"I wish someone would shoot that dog."

Now it should have been obvious that she just talking. Venting her frustration. She didn't want any harm to come to the dog. Here's where that learning curve would come in because Ricky went and found himself a BB gun and did shoot the dog. Thankfully just with the BB gun which probably startled the dog more than anything and, more importantly, allowed the dog to live to bark another day.

Although we laugh about it now, I can only imagine how my Grandma felt at the time. Pretty damn shocked I would guess. Maybe a little guilty about the "bullet" sting on the dog's hind quarters. But I'm guessing a very valuable lesson was learned that day, like... um.. Ricky takes things literally so let's just be careful about who we are suggesting needs to be shot.