SKIPper & Me

 MY DOG SKIPper #2.

This my second dog named Skipper. Skipper #1 got ran over and killed on Atlanta Steet, near Hick’s Grocedry.

The muscular Tarzan look alike with Skipper is me. Where I went Skipper went, unless he had romance on his mind or a place he wasn’t allowed, like the movie theater, school, etc... Back then there was no leash law.

He was something of a Super Dog. Almosr every time we rode off to town in the car, he would chase us. The only time I heard my daddy cuss is when he looked in the rearview mirror downtown and see Skipper running behind us. We lived out near the 4-lane, almost 2 miles away.

Each time we would pull over, open the trunk, and Skipper jumped in. One time we routinely did that and forgot about him until about 3 or 4 days and we missed him it occurred to us he might be in the trunk of the car. We ran out to car and slowly opened it afraid of what we might see. Out jumped Skipper, he did a quick shake like he was all wet and wanted to be petted.

Another time around the corner on Glover Street there was a place we called “The Hollow”. We thought it was haunted. It was a clearing adjacent to the woods. At night it was always pitched black because of moon shadows. We used to dare each other to go up in hollow in the dark. One time I took the dare. When I got in the darkness I saw a pair of green eyes rushing towards me. I kept my eyes on the green eyes coming towards me and tripped. The green eyes landed on me and started licking my face. It was Skipper!

Because Skipper coming and goings as he pleased my parents had a chain-linked fence put up in our back yard to keep Skipper grounded, so to speak. After the chain-link fence was installed, Skipper jumped over it with no problem

Skipper was a lady’s man, or dog. There were several young puppies in the neighborhood from time to time that had Skipper’s markings and same white and black markings.

Roy Petty's Boys

 

This is Billy and Rodney Petty, sons of my uncle Roy Petty and his wife Dorothy Humes, about 1959. This same Christmas card photo was used as an insurance advertisement and was in Saturday Evening Post. At the time they lived in New York City.

Later they moved to Carmel, NY, where Roy was over Clear Pool's Boy Camp, a Heinz Foundation project. The second picture is of me and some Navy friends visiting Clear Pool Camp and played cowboys and Indians. Rodney and Billy and in that picture also. That was about 1964.

The color picture was taken about 1985 of Billy and his wife Joy when they visited Marietta. They live in Colorado.

PS click on the picture of the boys camp. You see the dog without a tail. On a previous visit when I was in the Navy we were on walking on a road that went around a lake and a car went around the curve past and almost hit us, but swerved and hit the dog. The mishap cut the dog's tail off.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! CONFIDENTIAL Mag as seen by MAD #25

Torn from the pages of MAD Magazine #25, story by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated 

 by Will Elder