My First Love

I many not have many pictures of me as a child, but I have plenty of my best friend. Please let me introduce Boomer . . . In my humble opinion, one of the best dogs of all time.

As a child, I wanted a dog more than anything in the entire world. I begged and pleaded and cried myself to sleep countless nights trying to persuade my mean ole Dad to let me have one. It seemed there was nothing I could do convince him.

Then one afternoon I was sitting on the front stoop waiting for my father to come home from work. He was coming home early to take me to the hospital to get my cast changed. I had a broken arm and needed either a bigger or smaller cast. Either way, I was terrified and I sat there hoping Dad would be late and maybe we wouldn't have to go. But he wasn't late. In fact, he was early and when he drove down the street I would SWEAR I saw a dog in the front seat of the car. How is this possible? I must have been hallucinating.

But I wasn't. Dad indeed had a dog in the car. Apparently somebody 'donated' this dog to the facility where my father worked. He didn't know what to do with it and I think having a sad and scared kid at home, with a cast on, persuaded him to take the dog home. To date, one of the happiest days of my life. The time at the hospital sped by. All I could think about was my new pet at home.

Boomer joined the family when I was in 5th grade and he was part of my life until my senior year in college. Here's one shot of the two of us together.