ROVER
A Boy’s Best Friend
Barry Blackstone
ROVER
A Boy’s Best Friend
Copyright © 2017 Barry Blackstone. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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Eugene, OR 97401
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3433-8
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3435-2
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3434-5
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OTHER BOOKS BY BARRY BLACKSTONE
Though None Go With Me
Rendezvous In Paris
Though One Go With Me
Scotland Journey
The Region Beyond
Enlarge My Coast
From Dan to Beersheba and Beyond
The Uttermost Part
Homestead Homilies
I dedicate this series of remembrances of my boyhood dog, Rover, to my adulthood cat, Eddie; the one who inspired me to look back into my past to understand better why we have become such companions in old age!
PRELUDE
I have been pondering for quite a while the theme of this book; not because of the hero of this book, but because of the animal that provoked me to think again of the childhood friend that started this love affair with a treasured pet. That pet today is a cat named Eddie who has already his own book (Meows from the Manse-not yet finished because Eddie is still alive). For most of my life I haven’t been a great pet owner. I can honestly say I have never sought a pet, but dogs like Rover and cats like Eddie really do chose you. Eddie came one day as a stray, but Rover was the family dog that chose me to be his best friend. I believe it was because my father didn’t have time for a dog in the busyness of being a dairy and potato farmer: a 24/7 kind of job. My mother didn’t have time either, but unlike Dad never cared for any animal I know of. My sister Sylvia was Rover’s other hope and though she paid a bit of attention to him she never has cared for animals that much. Granted, there were plenty of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents on the farm but they all seemed to have their own pets, so that left it for Rover to choose me. As I ponder on this boyhood friend nearly sixty years after Rover’s passing, I have come to some conclusions and some remembrances.
It was the wise man Solomon who first wrote of “ . . . a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) I have for most of my life read this as speaking of a human friend like my best friend Bob, a cousin, but a brother. As a pastor I have used this verse often to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ because He invoked this concept in His relationship to his disciples: “Ye are my friends . . . ” (John 15:14) But as I study more the context of Solomon’s proverb, I was directed to this concept also from pen of the mighty king of Israel: “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast . . . ” (Proverbs 12:10) Did Solomon have a pet? Often I have found in my mediations that sometimes it is the creature that gives more comfort and encouragement than the human. I can’t tell you (you ought to read my ‘Eddie’ book) how much I have learned from Eddie and how much that simple feline has helped me through the years we have been together. It was the realization about Eddie that made me think back to Rover and what I might remember and reminisce about our relationship when I was a lad on the land. Before you are the stories I remember, and the lessons I now understand through a part German/Collie half-breed becoming my boyhood friend. Come back with me into the late 1950s and early 1960s as my friend and I roam my ancestral homestead in search of adventure.
Also before you are the spiritual sermons Rover preached to me and the practical precepts I learned from a barnyard dog. I would only ever have one more dog in my life: a dog my wife and I called Cherry, during the early years of our marriage in Pembroke, New Hampshire. For these dog tales I am taking you back to Perham, Maine when the Blackstone homestead was still a working farm and dogs were a part of the animal zoo we had. Cows were for milking, pigs for meat, cats for moussing, and chickens for eggs, but Rover was just a “friend”; he wasn’t even needed for guard duty in those days, days in which we “never” locked our doors (I don’t think my parents ever knew were the keys to the house were). As I look back I realize that I had human friends, but my best friend was a dog we called Rover. So come with me back in time to a simpler age, a quiet time, a gentle period when a boy and his dog could walk together down country lanes together, and now I realize I still can walk with Rover again down memory lane!
Barry Blackstone—January 1, 2017
ROVER
When you live on a potato and dairy farm for nearly twenty years, you come to enjoy harvesting, long summer evenings in the hay field, and the companionship of a dog. Though there were many dogs on the homestead in my boyhood, Rover was the most memorable of them all. Lady and Lassie come to mind, but Rover lives on in the sweet memory of a boy’s best friend!
The intimacy I had with that dog goes back to some of the earliest of my childhood reflections. I can’t remember when we got Rover, for he always seemed to be there in every boyhood MEMORY. I still see in my mind’s eye, half-scrambling, half-leaping upon his back in the middle of the kitchen floor. At other times, I see myself laying peacefully beside him next to the big register in the living room. My first reflection of him is walking together beside the small stream that crossed the road just above the house. As I threw rocks into the water, Rover would bark with very splash. I can still see him impatiently setting in front of the chicken coop door wanting to come in, but not being allowed too. Rover was everybody’s dog, but deep down I imagined him to be my dog, despite the fact he would walk with my sister Sylvia, and play with my cousin Clayton. Rover liked Dad and was often found with him in the barn.
Whether he was running after cats, or romping through the fields, Rover’s favorite season was summer. Summer was filled with more places to go, and more activities for a farm dog. Winter was more of a vacation to the corner of the kitchen. I don’t ever remember Rover liking the cold. Mother would never allow a cat into her house, but Rover must have won her heart. I see Rover now running through the tall grass on a warm summer day trying to catch butterflies, or grasshoppers. Rover chased anything that moved, even automobiles. We tried to break him of the bad habit, but we never did. He was one of the few dogs who managed to live to a grand old life without making a fatal mistake, though once I remember he came tragically close.
Rover was always caught up in the fragrance of the farm. With the nose being one of a dog’s great senses, Rover was constantly sniffing out something. He loved to sniff out groundhogs in the pasture. He tracked rabbits in the woods. A cat couldn’t come within a mile of his sensitive nose that he wouldn’t be on the trail. I must have had an odor as well, for he always seemed to be able to find me even when I was hiding in a mount of hay. I think he like the challenge, for his nostrils were always moving in search of his next prey. Even when fall would come and the smells of summer changed, Rover kept up his pursuit of alien creatures invading his territory that is until the first snow can down. Then and only then would Rover retreat to the pantry or kitchen, where no doubt he slept dreaming of the smells of spring! These are just some of the things I remember of a boyhood, barnyard, backyard dog. My Dad taught me very early this concept from the pen of Job: “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee . . . Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought