A dog's life

Junior high was a seminal time of my life. The early 1950's: Rock and Roll was emerging from the Afro-American culture with songs like "Dance with me Henry", "Annie had a Baby", and "Sixty-minute Man". I discovered girls and, to please them, learned to dance. I took up the trumpet and with diligent practice quickly moved up to the first section in the school band. And--the world of literature opened up to me, beginning with Albert Payson Terhune's tales of a collie named Lad.

I recently re-read Lad: A Dog, which was first published in 1917. The language is stilted, the action not quite credible, and anthropomorphism abounds. Even so, the text retains its cloying charm and the emotional power to elicit the tears and joys usually associated with stories about man's best friend.

I no longer play the trumpet, but I do still listen to '50s music and dance with girls when I get the chance. I've read hundreds of novels--a few of my favorites (alphabetically):

     Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
     Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (unlike Paul Ryan I've out-grown it)
     Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
     Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein
     Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
     Lord of the Flies by William Golding 
     The Magus by John Fowles (I own a first edition)
     The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
     The Sot Weed Factor by John Barth
    
And it all started with Lad: A Dog.

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