Dog Heads in the Night

Went water skiing yesterday. The skiing part didn’t last long though, on account of the choppy water. So I switched to tubing, which was better suited to the conditions. Unfortunately the whole experience has left me with some kind of rigor mortis, sans the death part. Everything is sore...everything! In retrospect, I should just have let go of the tube when I was rolling around in the water, or somersaulting in the air. When your body isn’t used to holding onto things in extreme conditions, it has the tendency to make you pay for it later.

Crazier than water stunts, however, was the ride home, along a dark mountain highway. There was this horse trailer in front of me, and I’m staring at it and suddenly I see something huge. Maybe it was the fatigue or all the lake water I inhaled, but I swear I saw a gigantic dog head, peeking out from the back of the trailer. I mean, this dog’s mother must have had romantic relations with a dinosaur for it to have a head that size. The dog swayed back and forth in the trailer, its movements so natural and convincing I decided I must be losing my mind. We were driving too slow for my taste, but I couldn’t change lanes. I was transfixed. I kept staring, and the dog kept staring back at me, jiggling its head.

But when we hit a major highway, and were at last surrounded by lights, I realized I was not staring at a dog with a severe case of elephantitis, but rather the ass of a very large horse. The spots on the horse ass still formed a dog face, even with all the light around, but the illusion had shattered. Stupid horse. It was much cooler as a dog.

Capped off the night by watching the meteor shower into the wee hours of the morning. The night was clear and the shooting stars left long trails across the sky. Made me think of Ray Bradbury’s short story, “The Rocket Man” --- the part where an astronaut’s son looks up at the night sky and points to a shooting star. It’s his father’s rocket, tragically breaking apart in the atmosphere. The mother smiles down at the kid, and says, “Make a wish.”

Nice man, Ray Bradbury. I met him once at a book signing. He was chewing on a hamburger, little pieces of food flying out of his mouth while he was signing my book. I was supposed to meet him a second time, years later, when my dad was doing the music for a radio show version of his book, “The October Country." But illness prevented him from showing up to the recording. Consequently, my initial impressions of him remain. Nice man, great writer...nasty, sloppy eater.

Not that water sports, phantom dog heads, or Ray Bradbury have anything to do with each other. Unless, of course, they have EVERYTHING to do with each other. Or did I just blow your mind?