Making community in unlikely places
Kerry Peirson died two weeks ago. If you read his obituary, you will learn much about him — an activist, a volunteer, a former reporter, a medic during the Vietnam War, honored numerous times by the Marin County Board of Supervisors.
His legacy of fighting the good fights for increasing equity and ending racial and social injustice in
Marin is unquestionable.
None of that mattered to Teeka, Tahoe, Miles, Sedona, Annie, Kayla and a handful of other dogs at Mill Valley’s Bayside
Dog Park, three green and treed acres on the edge of the Richardson Bay and under the shadow of Marin’s majestic Mount Tamalpais. To them, Kerry was just another person who happened to have really tasty treats and was generous in handing them out. But to the guardians of Teeka, Tahoe, Miles, Sedona, Annie, Kayla and all the others, Kerry was much more.
It became a daily source of joy, not only for the dogs but for the small group, although the dogs admittedly got much more of a workout than their people.
They were the self-described Breakfast Club.
It was hard not to notice Kerry at the dog park. He was a tall, handsome and slender man with lively blue eyes and a genuine smile. He was also a Black man, and there just aren’t that many Black men at the dog park, let alone in the City of Mill Valley.
It started nine years when Carl and Karen got a rescue dog, Tahoe, and took him to the park every morning before heading off to work. One day, a black Lab named Alice took a liking to Tahoe — the feeling was mutual — and they got to know Dave. Then another day, up ran Luca, an energetic Italian mastiff, followed by his person, Kerry.
As the dogs played day after day, the small group got to know each other, shooting the breeze about the weather, sports, current events and, as Carl says, general nonsense. Race was a frequent conversation, which often led to some intense discussions that gave all of them something to chew on when they got home. It became a daily source of joy, not only for the dogs but for the small group, although the dogs admittedly got much more of a workout than their people.
But the group didn’t stay small for long. Dogs have a way of dragging their people into conversations with strangers, and so over the years, the club grew organically and they were strangers no more.
Among them were an accountant, an architect, a tree trim
mer, an engineer, a Realtor, a fitness instructor, a fire safety specialist, a psychologist, a lawyer, a social worker, an education consultant, a filmmaker and an activist — that would be Kerry, an engaging provocateur who was known to hold court as he presented his many theories.
Even when Luca died, Kerry often stopped by the park to see his friends — the human kind and the canine kind — where he was greeted joyously by both. But when the first stay-home orders hit, the dog park was closed for weeks. Even after it reopened, many stayed away.
Although the group celebrated each other’s birthdays and consoled each other in loss, they rarely saw each other outside of the dog park. That all changed when word got out that Kerry had terminal cancer and was not doing well. They brought him coffee and other goodies — a “Kamala cake” when Kamala Harris and Joe Biden won the presidential election — kept him company, donated an iPhone when his broke. And when Kerry wanted to gather at the park one last time, Brian picked him up and brought him there. He was too thin and weak to make it to the actual park, so we met him at the picnic table near the footbridge.
Holding court again, surrounded by the dogs and friends who knew him and cared about him, a smiling Kerry shared what their friendship meant, calling them “the most significant social group of my life. It’s a home base. It’s the most rounded. I learned. I laughed. All of you here contributed to a great quality of life.”
I start most of my days at the dog park. My rescue gal gets a good romp and I get a bit of exercise in. Mostly, I look forward to seeing the faces of people I’ve gotten to know there, the intriguing conversations we have — it’s my daily dopamine rush.
The pandemic has made many people feel isolated and lonely, especially those who live alone like I do. But as the Breakfast Club discovered, community can be made in the most unexpected places for the most unexpected reasons. And community is what we need now more than ever.
“Little did we know then that it would grow into something more meaningful than just taking the dog for a morning walk,” Carl says.
There’s talk of building a circle of benches at the dog park in Kerry’s name. I have to think nothing would make him happier than knowing it might be a place where disparate people will gather one day, create community and return home with things to ponder. Hopefully, someone will always have really good treats.