Zheutlin - The dog went over the mountain: travels with Albie: an American journey

PETER ZHEUTLIN

PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON

THE DOG WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN

Pegasus Books Ltd.

148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2019 by Peter Zheutlin

First Pegasus Books edition September 2019

Interior design by Maria Fernandez

The author is grateful to BringFido for their generous support of the authors book tour.

DO RE MI

Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

WGP/TRO Copyright 1961 (Renewed) 1963 (Renewed) Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. and Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, NY

Administered by Ludlow Music, Inc.

International Copyright Secured Made in U.S.A.

All Rights Reserved Including Performance for Profit

Used by Permission

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-201-3

ISBN: 978-1-64313-270-9 (ebk)

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company

In memory of my late mother Baila, a caring parent, voracious reader, and passionate advocate for education, social justice, and equality for all...

... and for Albie, with whom every moment is precious.

Contents

I n the course of our travels, Albie and I met and talked with a lot of people. Only a few visits and conversations were planned in advance. For example, we stayed in Sacramento with my old friend and colleague Bill Monning. Bill is a lawyer who worked for many years with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America and later California Rural Legal Assistance seeking justice for the hard-working immigrants and migrant workers who harvest our fruits and vegetables throughout Californias Central Valley. Hes now the majority leader of the California State Senate. In New Orleans, I arranged to sit down with 79-year-old JoAnn Clevenger, the legendary proprietor of Upperline, named best restaurant in the city by the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2017. Clevengers remarkable life in the city has given her keen insight into what makes New Orleans, in my view, the countrys most unique city.

During some of these conversations, with JoAnn, for example, I took contemporaneous notes. But since most of our conversations were the result of chance encounters we had with strangers, some brief and some that lasted hours, I relied on memory until I could write them down, to the best of my recollection, later that day or evening. Nothing kills a spontaneous conversation like asking someone if they can wait while you get a pad of paper and a pen or, even worse, turn on a voice recorder and stick it in their face. The presence of any recording device tends to inhibit open, unguarded dialogue. I have worked hard to be faithful to the substance of all the conversations recounted in this book and believe the rendering of them to be true and accurate, even if not all are reported verbatim.

Albie and I were on a road trip. We never lingered long enough in any one place to immerse ourselves fully in the life of a community as, say, an anthropologist or sociologist would. What a traveler has to share are impressions, snapshots if you will, created from random encounters and chance events. Thus, the view offered here is kaleidoscopic and panoramic rather than microscopic. I dont pretend to speak with authority on any of the communities we passed through. Doing that would require settling into a place, observing the rhythms of life over weeks or months, and getting to know many people well. The best the traveler can do is to be observant and aware of his or her own prejudices and preconceptions as impressions take form, impressions that are, ultimately, completely subjective. Some places impressed me favorably, some did not, and Ill be the first to admit some of my impressions are based on limited evidence and may not be entirely fair. Maybe if wed spent more time in Pampa, Texas, for example, Id have loved it. But I doubt it. Albie is a less discerning traveler. He seemed to be pretty happy wherever we went, especially if there were squirrels.

O n a mild, rainy night in the spring of 2018, I patted the mattress of the bed in the dog-friendly inn where Albie and I were spending the night in Bennington, Vermont. Albie is the soulful yellow Lab and golden retriever mix our family had adopted six years before, when I was fifty-eight and he was, our vet surmised, about three. Albie hopped up on the bed and laid his head in the crook of my arm. As I had every night during our travels, I gently stroked his head, told him where we were, where we would be going tomorrow, and what a good guy he was. This night I told him we would, after nearly six weeks on the road, be going home. And I told him I loved him.

He looked at me with his deep, dark brown eyes, rolled slightly on his side to rest his body against mine, and sighed. I knew he didnt understand. I could have been reading him The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, or sections of the Internal Revenue Code, it didnt really matter. He also didnt know where we were or why. What mattered was the sound of my voice, that he was safe and sound, and that we were together.

The safe and sound part is important. Albie had been picked up as a thin and frightened stray, a lost soul, on a country road in rural Louisiana in February of 2012, and impounded at a shelter where nearly nine of every ten dogs are euthanized, a bland euphemism for killed in a gas chamber. Against all odds, and thanks to a shelter volunteer who took a shine to him, Albie survived for five months until we found him online and vowed, without ever laying eyes on him, to set his world right.

That night in Bennington we had nearly 9,000 miles behind us and just a couple of hundred more to go. The next night, after a stop in southern Maine, wed be sleeping in our own beds, reunited with my wife Judy, and our two other rescue dogs, also from Louisiana, Salina and Jambalaya (Jamba for short).

During the nearly six weeks wed been on the road, Albie and I had watched a full moon rise over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, snow showers sweep across the Grand Canyon, and bison walking along the road in Yellowstone. Wed driven by massive stockyards in the Texas panhandle, through endless orange groves in Californias Central Valley, and alongside vast fields of onions in eastern Oregon. Travel around America and youll see where most of your food comes from.

Wed stood on the spot where the great explorer Meriwether Lewis took his life along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, spent time in front of the hardware store in Tupelo, Mississippi, where Elviss mother bought his first guitar (for $7.90), and walked up and down the streets that shaped the conscience of Woody Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma. Albie had posed for pictures standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and with curious Chinese tourists in Yosemite Valley. Wed driven through sun-splashed corridors of wild rhododendrons and dogwoods blooming along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, in rain so heavy it was bringing down trees in Mississippi, and along remnants of old Route 66 in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. And along the way wed met many characters, each of whom enriched our lives in some way: restaurateurs, politicians, veterans, musicians, shopkeepers, and itinerant travelers also in search of America.