Letter From America: Some Questions Don't Need Answers
Englishman Ronnie Bray teaches the folk he meets in an Arizona dog park how to talk about the weather.
Some questions don’t need answers, and this was one. We sat together but apart, separated by a socially comfortable distance, on side-by-side iron benches at the head of the park, squinting from the sun and watching our dogs.
As time passed, dog owners came and went until the final line up was, east to west, Sharon, me, Michelle, and a middle aged fat man with a brown patched white dog whose name we didn’t learn because he never called it and we hadn’t seen him often enough to ask. He wasn’t comfortable and he only asked one question, right at the end before I broke it up by taking my exhausted dogs home.
Sharon, whose name I learned today, is a fifty-something stroke victim who is in the long recovery process. Her dog’s name is Ursa, strugglingly pronounced in her mild Minnesota accent as, “Oso.” We call it Oso so as not to make her feel inept. Ursa looks like a wolf. He is five years old, tall, slim, and rangy, with wolf legs and a beautiful wolf face with intense eyes, but a nature that the uninformed do not associate with anything wolfish. Blame it on Ursa’s papa who is full blooded wolf, and mama is an Alsatian, a dog that Americans call a German Shepherd.
Michelle I had known for a few weeks. She had two dogs; Buddy, an almost golden white Alsatian cross breed with gentle eyes and a fondness for schmoozing, and Skipper, a twelve year old Basset Hound with customised lowered suspension who had reduced his moving repertoire to slow and dead slow. He was a deliberate dog who didn’t always come unless Michelle’s husband was on the trip, and this Saturday he had not come. Buddy stayed unusually close to Michelle but for the promise of having his ears rubbed and his neck scratched, he moved along the line to where I could do that little job for him.
My Frankie was running with small dogs in the timid dog’s enclosure from this side of the fence. Belle was staying close to me, but running out to greet every dog that came into the park or had come near us on its way home. She flattens her ears, smiles, and wriggles as she crouches low to the ground in an act of friendly submission. Sometimes it works and sometimes she is growled off by a paranoid hound, but mostly she makes friends and is better known in the dog park than I am.
The fat man sat at the west end watching his dog, which was really his sister’s dog, but for some reason she could not keep him, and so he was lumbered with the animal. Perhaps he didn’t care too much for dogs. I say that because he seemed to be unconnected with the animal. Instead of watching her closely, as most owners do, he stared off into the distance and looked as if he would rather be somewhere else. Perhaps he was lonely and socially awkward, but like most human groups, we were waiting until we had him figured out. People need to know which way strangers are going to jump, and with this one, none of us was sure enough to make chin music with him.
We passed our time with small and dog talk. I have taught them how to talk about the weather and they are getting into this very well. Soon, they will be able to talk to strangers about the weather as well as the English.
This morning, I wore my white “England 2002” tee shirt. I don’t like the red one as much, not even for exercising the dogs. When Sharon had joined the group, I talked to her about her recovery. She seemed surprised that I knew about her condition and her slow and frustrating progress towards mending. I explained that I had been a nurse in another life, and had attended many stroke victims.
Then, Sharon was gone to fetch a drinking dish for her wolf, and Michelle was looking for Buddy who had disappeared from view, just as Belle had earlier. It turned out that Belle had not been stolen or let out by another owner, only that her puppyish frame was hidden behind a Saint Bernard.
I looked at my watch and noticed it was time to go. Both Frankie and Belle, exhausted from their activities, were laid in the shade of the bench, so I decided to clip on their leads and head for home.
As I contemplated whether to agree with my decision, the stranger spoke.
“You are English?”
I smiled at him, surprised that he had spoken.
“I am.” I confessed. What gave you the first clue?”
He smiled, half shut his eyes, and turned to look into the distance again. Some questions don’t need answers.
Copyright © Ronnie Bray 2004
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
