Nuggets

Today, my dog, Snug, and I went to Haceta Beach, Oregon (the beach pictured at the right here). As you might be able to tell from the picture, Heceta Beach stretches for miles north and south. Today the conditions were gorgeous. The wind was brisk, sky cloudless, and the temperature required only a light jacket. I unleashed Snug and watched him gallop up the shoreline, the beach, and in and out of the tall grass that grows below the small homes that overlook the beach. When Snug is off-leash, he keeps a close eye on me and I can often get him to come to where I am by turning by back and walking away. He will usually follow. Today I turned my back and walked east, my back to the ocean, and when I turned back around, Snug had vanished. The sun was sitting low in the sky, so it was hard to see. No Snug. I walked north for a while. No Snug. I headed south. A woman asked me if I was looking for my dog, and told me he was "way down there". She pointed south. I walked way down there. No Snug. When I lost track of Snug, I hadn't had my back turned more than a minute. I was perplexed. I asked a couple of people if they'd seen my dog. No. I should point out that I trust Snug deeply. We depend on each other. I could not believe he would have run away. I decided to leave the beach and walk to my car. I wondered if possibly Snug had gone to the car without me. As I entered the parking lot from the beach, a car rolled up, window rolled down: "You looking for your dog?" It was Snug...in the back seat. He had gone to my car and had been with these kind people for about a half an hour or so. The young man and woman had been looking for me, but I had been "way down there" looking for Snug. They secured my home phone number from Snug's tags and called my wife to report the dog was safe but I was missing. When they saw me in the parking lot, they were preparing to drive Snug to Eugene. They left a note in my car.

On Rocketboom's video blog yesterday, the splendid Rocketboom vlog host, Joanne Colan stepped into the vermilion light of a Manhattan Friday morning and sought waltz partners to dance farewell to summer with. Many viewers found it touching. I was touched, but with an envy I'm not altogether proud of. I've come to appreciate Joanne Colan quite a bit over the last few weeks. I would have enjoyed waltzing with her, while all the time telling her the truth: I can't waltz. I hope she would have been as kind to me as she is to the subjects in this lovely vlog.

A word about the MLB playoffs now that the Yankees have been eliminated. In my opinion, the intimidation factor is now gone from the playoffs. I don't think the Oakland A's or the Detroit Tigers feel like teams that are insurmountably better than any of their potential National League foes. I look forward to wonderful baseball, especially with the Bronx Bombers out. With the Tigers in the thick of it, I can't help but think back to their 1968 championship team, a nine I loved. That team of round mounds of sound baseball would look odd amidst today's solarflexed, finely toned and tuned athletes. My favorite 1968 Tigers, Norm Cash and Mickey Lolich, were what I call lunarflex men. They looked like their weight room was at the local suds factory, lifting schooners under the moon's light. Lolich won three games in the '68 Series. He homered in one game. I remember watching him cross home plate after that homer and, to my fourteen year old perception, it looked like Lolich's paunch crossed home plate at the moment the rest of Mickey had only run as far as third base.