Old and ugly, but I love her

Columnist Lee Walburn writes about a dog named Chloe.

Pullis Legg was surprised when he heard about a new bond between an old dog and an old me. He knew I had never been much of what is called “a dog person.” My kids brought them home, Jackie assumed motherly supervision.

Pullis hasn’t been around much since he and Delores moved downstate to take care of Pullis’ mama, Miss Peggy. But he was in town for my granddaughter’s wedding at Berry’s Frost Chapel and he wanted to meet this Chloe I mentioned so affectionately in telephone calls.

We strolled up toward Chloe’s dog house. “She’s old, she’s ugly, she’s not very smart, but I love her,” I said. Pullis must have thought we had made a conversational transition because he said, “I’ve said that about Delor...” I cut him off quickly. “No, no, Pullis, I’m talking about my dog.”

“Well, all I know is sometimes when I come home from work and Delores is in one of her moods, I’m way happier to see my dog.”

Now, Reed Biggers, whom I’ve come to know rather well, is a real dog person. He was 18 first time I met him. I didn’t have much choice since my daughter was in love with him, a development that put Reed in quite a bind. Up until the night he met Shannon at a Berry College dance and told his mother he had met the girl he was going to marry, most of his real fun came in company of his beloved setter, Dippy. He reminisces that it wasn’t easy to break news to a dog that she suddenly had competition. So the three of them became a couple.

Fact is, if Reed wasn’t a dog person and Shannon didn’t know her daddy’s heart, then Jackie, Chloe and I might not have replicated their trilateral collegiate experience.

Well, you might as well know how this came to be.

Several years ago, after Jackie’s mother left to hug Jesus, we decided to accept renters in the house Mamaw Miller loved so much. One new tenant brought with her two children and a hound with sad yellow eyes. She said the dog’s name was Chloe and was homeless when she took her in. LEE WALBURN When our renter left for another home closer to her work, she said arrangements had been made for a pet service to claim the hound. No one ever did. So we told the next resident the dog pen and the hound came with the rental contract until we could find a new caretaker. Of course the canine caveat in the rental agreements never tugged the hearts of three more tenants over a span of seven years. With each broken promise of caring for Chloe, Jackie delivered daily rations of table scraps and store-bought Rachel Ray. As for the last tenant, I found myself liking the hound dog more than the person. I volunteered to deliver the daily morsels, more to keep my eye on the tenant than the redbone.

Some days I would hang around and talk to Chloe. So far as I know she has never revealed anything I’ve told her, perhaps honoring the motto of my Dirt Town Deli breakfast buddies, “What’s said here stays here.”

Soon enough I began to take Chloe for walks. Or perhaps she took me since her pull against a leash could plow the north forty by sundown. One day last October Shannon and Reed suggested we move Chloe to the empty dog pen vacated by the death of their beloved Milo. It was closer to us and it was like moving from a double wide to a cottage at Hilton Head. Nevertheless, would stick a pomegranate up their nose.

I also get a lot of news releases from public relations firms from around the country, hoping to get a plug for their client or company in the paper. For example, I have been informed that there is a new “pee pad” made of grass for house-training your puppy. That is a much better alternative than the reader who wrote to inform me she put my column down on the floor, face-up, for her puppy’s target practice.

But the stopper this week came from the personal-finance website WalletHub, which has just released a report on 2018’s Most Sinful States. You might like to know the Great State of Georgia comes in as the fifth most sinful. Finally, something we are good at. Eat your heart out, Mississippi. In case you are wondering, WalletHub deems Vermont the least sinful state but they also have Bernie Sanders, so these things tend to even out. WalletHub says they compared the 50 states across seven key dimensions: 1) Anger & Hatred, 2) Jealousy, 3) Excesses & Vices, 4) Greed, 5) Lust, 6) Vanity and 7) Laziness.

Within those dimensions, they used 38 relevant metrics. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of sinfulness. Even Junior E. Lee, general manager of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company, located in Greater Garfield, Georgia, and a pest control professional, was impressed with the depth and breadth of the study. Those of Staff graphic when a brutal January cold spell broke half the water pipes in Armuchee, I moved Chloe into my studio, usually so off limits even Jackie knocks before entering.

The first night Chloe ate “Just My Type,” a book that contains a 50-year collection of my newspaper and magazine stories. I had no idea she had preferences in literature, but she left not a tooth print on Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” at rest on the same coffee table.

I began to look forward to each eventide when I would sit at the edge of my office couch in order to give Chloe room to sprawl across my lap, her moist yellow eyes reflecting gratitude for this furlough from seven years she had spent in dog pen isolation.

One night when Jackie visited and saw I gave no resistance to Chloe’s nuzzling of my cheek I quipped, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a redhead sit on my lap.”

Jackie honored me with a wifely snigger. She knew that Chloe may have never been beaten, or starved and up until now, had never been loved. She also knew from experience it was safe for Chloe to finally open up her heart to a man that wasn’t going to break it. you who know Junior know he doesn’t impress easily.

Georgia was second in the nation in the categories of Jealousy and Lust, according to WalletHub’s analysis. Junior’s take on that is having lost the National Championship to Alabama this past January, we are jealous and lust to kick Nick Saban’s behind next year. Makes sense to me.

It is hard for me as a proud native of the Great State of Georgia to believe that we as sinful as the WalletHub study says we are. I have to blame a lot of this on Malfunction Junction, aka, the City of Atlanta, where the sewers don’t work and neither do a number of its citizens. Get outside that blowhard place and I think we’ve got some awfully nice people walking around this state.

In fact, WalletHub ranks us 50th out of the 50 states in the Greed category. That doesn’t surprise me. We have majestic mountains in the north, the Golden Isles in the south, pecan orchards in between, the greatest state song in the history of the world, “Georgia On My Mind,” and the oldest state-chartered university in the nation, located in Athens, the Classic City of the South. Plus, it doesn’t snow here ten months a year and all our buildings aren’t rusted. There is no need for us to be greedy. We have it all in Georgia. Maybe that’s our sin. Shorter fires Paula Penson months after she alleged harassment Seattle Seahawks appear to be in line for more big changes One of Berry’s eaglet falls out of nest, doesn’t survive Fort Oglethorpe man arrested on child molestation charges Teacher accused of firing shot at Dalton High School identified Attacker in brutal home invasion gets life imprisonment Coach David Jones: A Lindale monument Richey looks back on time with Rome Police Department Local fishermen win big in crappie tournament Coyote Challenge challenged by Berry professor 11,176 views 5,433 views 4,723 views 4,090 views 4,050 views 2,967 views 2,807 views 2,270 views 2,217 views 2,067 views

As the regular reader of this column can attest, I’m not the greatest champion for proper English.

I know that sounds like blasphemy coming from the “editor” of a “newspaper,” but I write my columns like I speak, which means sometimes I produce a run-on sentence like the one you are currently reading.

Proper usages of grammar, past, present and future tenses aren’t really my strong suit either. A former teacher made me keenly aware of this many years ago when she sent back one of my columns with corrections in red ink all over it.

Thus, even when I hear or read misuses of my Mother Tongue, I rarely correct. That would be hypocritical.

But then again, in keeping with the consistent hypocrisy I’ve shown in writing this column, I’ll make this one exception.

I’m making this exception not on the basis that this certain violation of our language particularly bothers me, nor do I find it offensive. I just believe that as a matter of public service, it is my duty to educate people if a word they are using doesn’t exist.

The word I speak of is one I hear constantly, coming from the mouths of babes, mouths of nonbabes, and mouths full of mashed potatoes alike. At first, I thought it was an isolated incident, like that first time I saw a flash mob. But then, I noticed that it had engulfed local language like a plaque of chronic halitosis, or a flash mob, whichever you find least desirable.

The word I speak of is “onliest.” It is used as in: “This is my onliest right arm.”

Apparently, people are using “onliest” when trying to convey the idea that an item or person or whatever is their one item or person or whatever.

But what these people need to realize — and mind you, I’m not being critical — is that the word “only” doesn’t need a more extreme tense. “Only” is good enough. It means that it is the one right arm that you have, the only one. Unless you have two. In that case, you may want to stop reading this column immediately and consult a physician, or a carnival.

For instance, you don’t say “that is the worstest column I have ever read.” You say “that is the worst column I have ever read,” unless it’s this column, and then you are allowed to use “worstest.”

The biggest advantage, though, for using “only” instead of “onliest” is that “only” is shorter. That in itself leans me toward “only.” I’m too lazy for that extra syllable.

Again, I remind you that I bring this message not to mock anyone, but rather for informational purposes. As stated, I’m a strangler of the English language myself and don’t make it a habit of correcting people on their strangulations, unless it is me they are strangling. Or they are on the internet and insult someone about their “grammer.” In both those scenarios, I let them have it.

So, to conclude, I quote Burt Reynolds who in “Smokey ’n the Bandit” — an homage to improper usages — said “We ain’t never not made it yet.”

I couldn’t agree more. I think.