THE LOST DOGS OF LANGSTON.

Entry 27.

If I put the wrong number of the entry here it's because I can't remember and I don't want to look back at the last one because I want to get going on it. I'll fix it later. Don't worry so much.

Well you may be wondering about my matrilineal mitochondria, that is, where I come from and such, since I do go gabbing (as compared with gadding, which I used to do but not so much lately) about a bit here on this page. And on my blog which is www.angstinlangston.com if you're interested. Well there's a lot more about my mother's side of the family and my daddy's side too, but basically I come from preachers and teachers and humble Methodists and good old Alabama folks. So you know pretty much all the same kinda junk that was in my grandmother's house, it was the same as your grandmother's junk probably if you're from Alabama and grew up Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever it was you grew up as which was pretty much white and Protestant mainly.

So my great-great grandfather came from Lebanon Tennessee I think or thereabouts and was a minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and was always complaining about how we didn't have enough education in Alabama. Funny how generations keep coming and we still have the same problems. I visited a seventh-grade class not long ago and it was 11:30, just before lunchtime and they were in a LIBRARY for chrissakes and they didn't listen to the speaker at ALL until she screamed and shouted and the teacher kept having to do this little clap thing with her hands that sounded like the cha-cha, we might as well have been in St. Vitas' Dance Class for all that, the kids were antsy and rude and couldn't keep from talking to each other and probably they were hungry and they don't feed any of them right because they're all on diets trying to be anorexic and they are supremely ill-behaved. Those goddam cell phones. Ruining the children of this nation. No education, no manners. What the hell is wrong with people, as my sister the trauma surgeon always says.

I guess I'm proud of my family sometimes and then sometimes I just think we're average as hell and just pure dirt, ashes to ashes, dus' to dus', if yer lookin' fer a miracle don't call us.

Well my great-great-granddaddy started the first college in Birmingham, Alabama, the Zelosophian Academy, in conjunction with his church on Green Springs Avenue. I think there is a very good Indian restaurant around those parts now. The church is still there but the school building is gone, I think. I haven't been to the church and I suppose I should go. He was real preachy in his poetry like about heaven and hell and making very flamy-outy statements about heaven and hell and choosing the "right path" in life and seeing visions and whatnot and it's a little scary to tell the truth and does not offer me much comfort. I wish he had read the Tao Te Ching more to get the part about COMPASSION WHICH WINS THE BATTLE AND HOLDS THE FORT, EVERY SINGLE TIME usually. It's a better "bible verse" than any in the bible. If you'll wait a minute I'll look it up for you and put which one it is so you won't have to look for it. But you'd be better off reading the whole damn thing, it's only 81 poems, won't take long.

So here's my great-granddad coming along after my great-great-granddad and he plays the violin and goes to conservatory and then decides to be a teacher but he is probably also a drunk, as my step-great-granddad (my great-grandma's second husband) is a friend and has to drag my great-granddad out of the bars where he sits playing the piano until late at night, the Maple Leaf Rag and such. I probably said that in my blog about a million times before because I'm intensely proud of that fact. I like any man who can play a mean Maple Leaf Rag. Well my great-granddad dies pretty early (at 35) and there goes the family. I mean what do you do? Then my grandmother dies when my mom is one and a half and there goes the rest of the family. (I never even met my grandfather on my mother's side.) One simply has to rely on great literature from then on out, as there is nothing much left.

Although my great-great-granddad has the supreme distinction also, not only of having started the first college in Birmingham, but also having lived in the first apartment building in Homewood. His daughter owned it and she was a journalist during the Bobby Dunbar case in New Orleans, which gave her the nervous fits and she had to come back home and dip into Bryce in Tuscaloosa for awhile due to overwork and probably mania. But she got better and went back to work and lived to be 84, still doing her thing. She was what you might call a little odd, but she was at least interesting. She also covered the Leo Frank case in Atlanta, along with Harold Ross and if you don't know who he is, well it's worth a trip to cheerie.org to find out and to save an animal in the process. She did not leave the apartment building to anyone in the family, I guess she sold it. Would have been nice to inherit an entire apartment building in Homewood, especially the first one.

There goes the fam'ly.

Well now if I were a teacher, I'd make the students do Dog 101 by at least as soon as fifth grade and give them an entire understanding of economics in this country, including B Corporations such as that one that makes the "indestructible" dog beds, that Ballistics company or whatever it's called, so that they could have a vision for the future of our economy and maybe understand some stuff that they need to understand such as how it's a big responsibility taking care of dogs and it will take up your whole life eventually when you retire and think your retirement is gonna be a peaceful drifting lily boat down the beautiful pastoral stream with a non-alcoholic pineapple drink in your hand, watching the clouds make wisps and formations above and going in for a light supper at about five o'clock every day. But the kids need something more substantial, lest they actually believe in these ridiculous fantasies. If they really wanna make them come true, that is.

So. Dog 101 and the ins and outs of training a dog and all about veterinary clinics including a field trip to visit one and the amount of time required each day to take care of a dog unless you just get really lucky and have an innately GOOD DOG, which is really rare to find and still you have to watch them because they don't know everything. Teach these kids what they need to know before they start whining for a puppy and then they'll have a good dose of reality about life and a good smart start. Do it comprehensively and in school and make them see the broader picture such as what the different types of dog foods are and the rating systems for those and the companies that make them and the whole entire picture. Throw in the alternative lifestyle stuff such as the people who have to cook for their dogs because the dogs have allergies or whatever. Put it all in there and make them really think about the wide wide world of dogs. Do this EARLY so they'll know and won't have to go picking through cheerie.org search engines late at night going crazy trying to figure out how to help animals any way they can. Get them organized, for chrissakes, so we can have some actual legislation that will prevent the pet overpopulation and dumping problems and so forth and so on. DO IT NOW.

I know I've left something out here. I'll think of it later and go back and put it in. Don't worry so much.

Meanwhile there is the problem of my family being obscure and not really knowing to whom to write to get some change effected in the great State of Alabama today. I mean, who the hell am I, except my great-great-granddaddy was a preacher? Everybody you know's great-great-granddaddy was a preacher, for chrissakes! How on earth am I supposed to be able to be influential enough to call some senator and get something actually done? I keep on writing to them via the e-mail on their web forms and nothing ever happens back but a form letter. Maybe I have to show up at their doorstep in Montgomery with gruesome photographs all over a sandwich board on my actual physical person. Maybe that will get their attention but it would also look ridiculous. And I'm not visiting people much lately due to the virus also, so there's that.

I say we take it to the primary schools and get them started there. Up North they have laws and they don't have the pet overpopulation problem that we do. I say if there's something that works, look at how other places do it and see what works and then incorporate the same thing for yourself. I've said that before and I'll probably say it again. It just makes sense, Tim James. It just makes sense.

(But then I don't really know how to get this implemented unless to have a party and invite all the teachers. I guess I could do it but it would take a lot of doin'. And we'd have to wait until we got to herd immunity to do it unless we all want to end up on my lawn shouting at each other from ten feet away, preferably on a nice day.)

Yeah, I'm takin' it back, Tim. It just makes sense. It's a public health issue because like I said before also, you don't want packs of wild dogs running around killing children. Or wild cats running around starving and looking awful and sick and too thin and upsetting people. That's not cool. Get a clue. It just makes sense.

In the meanwhile, I really am stymied as to how to get this issue dealt with properly. I mean there's any amount of talk that can go on as to how to get this done but I want to come up with something that really works. Maybe I'll think of the solution for real, one day when my mind gets all flattened out while I'm sitting on the porch for a spell. I don't know. Maybe the idea will come to me in the bathtub one day (which is getting rarer and rarer these days and I know that's gross and way too much information but it kinda gives you the picture of how I'm dealing with dogs and cats all the time and scooping out way too many cat boxes for one person and when I get to the end of the day, as they love to say now, I'm just too tired to take a bath all of a sudden and I just flop onto the couch and get ready for the next go-round).

(And I bet I'm one of the few people in Langston, Alabama who actually has a litter box, also. Just for the win.)

And I don't mean to complain, I really don't, but you can see that I am surely fast becoming a symbol for the normal American way of life in Alabama if we don't get something done about these dogs and cats getting spayed and neutered, and getting rid of the puppy mills, and whatever else unsavory we need to get rid of concerning animals, well if we don't fix all that then we're all gonna end up with umpteen cats and dogs and a weird lifestyle where you don't get to take baths much. And everyone will be grumpy and middle-aged and writing desperate blogs to get attention for the problem. Instead of visiting Bali or the La Digue or even just Apalachicola and writing about how wonderful the people are there and what to do and which croissants to eat and which coffee shoppes and museums are the most interesting to try out.

Sigh.

That Tao Te Ching verse is Number 67, Three Treasures as it's called in the Ursula LeGuin translation, which is my favorite so far. And I realize that I did not tell you about how Widget the cat got out of his bag twice in one night, nor about the #3##-head running around the neighborhood either, or even the rap song I wrote about him, which I did, but I will do that as soon as I've figured out how. And it won't have to hinge on whether an iPod runs off to the high school dance with the NFT and causes a ruckus at the lily pond or not, or any such half-baked, half-stolen reference to poor old racist Uncle Wiggily as that.