Widge

Legend of a Squirrel Chaser_________

 

WIDGEON

January 7^th, 1995 – June 22^nd, 2009

 

I don't remember why on earth I wanted a dog.  I was a junior in highschool; the notion seems out of place with the time.  I do know that I never imagined the real magnitude of the bond that we would share, or how profoundly I would be changed because of it.   How many people say, "I am where I am because of my dog."?  Well. . . I would. 

Widge was a chocolate lab.  When he was born I imagined training him to be a good duck and dove dog.  Hunting was my thing at the time.  And I did train him this way, but I wasn't such a great dad in the beginning.  I was finishing highschool and partying.  He got Parvo and nearly died. How much did I notice?? 

 My first year of college at Sewanee I had to leave him at home with Mom.  My mom loved him and was pleased to have him.  He was born with the same personality he would die with: laid back, unburdening, serene, communicative.  He was not neurotic—give him a bellyrub and a dirty plate and he was happy. 

 

Our bond was built after my first year at Sewanee.  I took a year off school to get my mind right.  I was a boy growing up in the south.  I wanted to do something different from the norm.  I wanted to travel, do crazy stuff, have adventures.  But I couldn't get any support.   I couldn't even have a good dialogue that would nurture these sorts of sentiments.  Widge was different (he was a dog after all); he was always keen to do anything that had to do with going places.  He was a REMARKABLE road trip dog.  He never complained, never whined or made me stop unnecessarily.  He wanted to go and pee on foreign soil same as I did.  Finally I had a partner, someone who would promote my dreams instead of quail at them.  This is how he changed my life.

It started with our first roadtrip out west  to live in Jackson Hole.  We rode mountain bikes in the Tetons. It continued on in climbing trips, of visiting friends or to our favorite destination, Montana..  He wanted to pee in every state of the Union.  And he came close.  Our last road trip was only a few years ago.  Nothing had changed.

Widge supported me in a time when I needed it the most—I wanted to choose a path.  I was scared because it wasn't a well-worn one.  Would I have had the courage to drive the miles alone??  You can't imagine—unless you are Jamie Blythe Wood—the comfort Widge gave me on untold nights in Montana.  I was so so isolated.  It was just me and Widge.  I was happy, but without him the pendulum could have swung. 

 

After a short stent in Wyoming, we learned about the Appalachian Trail.  He was three and a half; I was twenty.  It sounded just like what we were trying to do: live simply, live naturally, be in nature.  He had his misgivings about his pack at first, and he never approved of hiking in the rain, but all in all it was a dog's life. Squirrels hid behind each tree.  Trail running would be his abiding past time until the end.

Widge was popular with other hikers.  He was well-mannered in the shelters and had the peculiar quirk of, as you slept, slowing pushing you off your sleeping mat so that you woke up sore, and he content.  He had his own mat, but he particularly preferred Ridge Rests above all others.   He chased squirrels all day long.  We used to wonder what sorts of things Widge would see, as he was perpetually the first to go around the corner, and then back, then forward again and again and again.  Back and forth, back and forth.  We spent all day everyday together.  He guarded me while I slept.  He awaited me while I dined or shopped in town.  We have too many stores from this time to share here.

We returned to Sewanee after the AT, but this time together.  I found a place to live off campus.  I started rock climbing then and was completely addicted.  This suited Widge well, because it meant we spent all day outside where there were squirrels and shade a'plenty.  It was this year that we first met Jamie Blythe (now Wood) and we lived and climbed with her and Rob Fargason.  They took Widge on many runs around the grounds when I was in class.

 

So at this point in Widge's life he had gone from being a gun dog, to a horse riding dog (left this part out), to a trail dog, Frisbee dog, to a climbing dog.  Now we are in Montana.  We still get out in the woods same as always, but eventually I go back to school.  Widge wouldn't stand for simply staying at home—and I wouldn't blame him.  (At this time I had moved back to town).  So he would run along side me as I biked to campus, staying on the sidewalks, heeling at cross-streets, otherwise chasing squirrels as we went.  During the day he would lounge under a favorite tree stealing belly-rubs from freshman passers-by.  He wasn't "always" there and ready to go when I came out of class—he had an agenda; I had to respect that. Small price to pay to keep him happy.  I really didn't feel like his master; more like his brother.  We shared.  I rarely had to put my foot down about anything.  We'd find some agreement in the middle.

I was so proud of him.  Our school time was special.  He could do so much and do it safely.  There was mad traffic on the way to school—and he is HORRIBLE with moving cars.  And we never, ever had trouble.  Even after the trip to school and back, we would still go out for an afternoon run to get a fresh breeze, Missoula sunset, and remember why we lived in Montana.

 

These years in Montana were before and after Widge hiked the AT for the second time, this time with Jamie and Rob, my roommates in Montana and Tennessee.   This was the beginning of a shift for me from being sole partner to Widge to a shared role with Jamie and her family.  I sailing dreams were just beginning and I new they wouldn't please Widge at all.  Yet Jamie's life was everything he loved, and more of it than I could have ever offered.  Our goal was to keep Widge doing what he loved doing—this was more important that who he was doing it with. And he adored…adored Jamie. . . for good reason: she ran a lot, and gave numerous bellyrubs.

He had lived with Jamie in Alabama and Idaho and become a true backcountry ski dog.  Trail runs may be his bread and butter, but perhaps skiing was his dying passion.  The dog loved snow.  His smile was never so big as when bounding through a snow bank (maybe that was because his smile was the only bit of him visible above the powder!!).  This was not a part of his life I shared with him nearly as much as I would have liked to.  This chapter is all Jamie's.  She and her roommates in Driggs Idaho were in the backcountry relentlessly.  And later it would be Jamie and her husband Jeremy skiing in Washington and Alaska. Mind you, Widge was starting to get some years now, seven, eight years old, no mere pup.  And he had to keep up with the best athlete's I know.  They'd do twenty mile runs and Widge would do his standard up and back, up and back routine. . . how many miles is that??  I won't even think about the skiing miles.  I know he never looked so fit as he did after his first winter in Driggs Idaho.

Jamie is from a farm near Huntsville Alabama and goes back there regularly to help her dad, Jimmy with the crops.  Widge always came along and loved chasing the Blythe's cows around.  When Jeremy went into medical school, it wasn't always possible for them to have pets in their housing, so Widge would stay on the farm with Jimmy. 

In a way, these were the beginning stages of Widge's retirement.  Maybe at first they were vacations from the pace of western mountain living, but as he finally accepted old age—by which I mean twelve plus years old—the shady life on the farm suited him well.  Jimmy and Widge would ride around in the truck or gator and feed the cows (Widge was now a little too slow to safely outmaneuver the mama cows, so he stayed in the cab).  They'd go fishing down at the pond.  At some point in the years together, Betty Barton, Jamie's mom, relented on the steadfast rule: No Dogs in the House.  Now Widge could escape the affections of the younger dogs—the one thing that always seemed to annoy Widge, puppies.  Never had much patience for them.  He resumed one of his favorite roles: that of kitchen floor mat.

Widge died in his sleep the there.  Well, not exactly there on the farm, but in the Blythe's home at Sewanee, where they split their time.  I am oddly proud that Widge rests there.  I am happy to have part of myself tied to Sewanee in more than memory.  Widge rests by the pond where he and Jimmy had been fishing just the day before.  There is hardly a more tranquil, serene place in the world that the Cumberland Plateau to rest in peace.

 

 

Memories of Widge:_________

I remember Widge always smiling, eating ice cream off Matt DiFranchesa's spoon in ID—Gandi boosting that Widge had been unable to wrest his mat from him during the night while on the AT—the story Rob and Jamie told me about the baby squirrel that fell onto the Trail just in front of Widge. . . and he panicked, didn't know what to do, there was no chase, and the squirrel got away—I remember teaching him how to be a Frisbee dog—bringing him to class in Snowden Hall at Sewanee—the time he got skunked in Arizona while we were on a climbing trip, how he rolled and rolled and rolled in the pine straw to get the stink out, and how it worked!—the time when Molly and Luke Nemeth took him on a drive in an Aspen blizzard and let him out of the car while they went to the grocery, only to find him gone when they came out.  They looked for over an hour for him to no avail. . . .only to find him at the front door when they came home, miles away.  They never mentioned this to me for years.  How did he find his way??—Same story in Missoula, found his way to Heidi's house in a white out when he had no bearings what-so-ever.—the time he and Karma (roommate's husky) got themselves stuck up on a high mountain ridge in the Mission Mountains and I had to go up—again—to rescue them.  Idiots.—The story Aderly told me about the summer she looked after Widge and her roommate had descretely made a chocolate cake, and Widge broke into her room and ate the whole thing, and therefore everyone found out about the cake—I remember him getting chased down the Trail by a crazy raccoon—I remember waking up to Widge whining, only to see scores of cow legs surrounding me on all sides in Wyoming.—I remember Widge whining seemingly without reason for the ten minutes before I wrecked the Explorer on I-90 on black ice. He knew.—I remember Rob and Jamie finding Widge's lost backpack two feet beneath the snow when Jamie had put a ski pole onto it and Rob saw the red through the hole in the snow.  And this was miles away in the backcountry and not even on a true trail.  Amazing.  And I remember Widge getting head-butted by a goat in Virgina, one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.  Not sure why.—I remember tolerating his extreme pleasure while driving through Yellowstone Nat. Park, as Jamie can attest to.  One of the few places where he can really not control himself.  The elk and moose galore were more than his senses could stand.

 

This is an abbreviation of the life of Widge.  Jamie could no doubt write as much and more.  Jamie and Jeremy and Jimmy shared as much of Widge's life as I did.  Weren't we the lucky one's??  Yet we all deserve some credit for providing so much for a dog we loved so well.  He was never kenneled, lock-up, leashed, fenced, fattened up, or, most notably, left behind.  He was as impassioned as any person I know. 

And think about this:  He did all that stuff in a mere fifteen years?. . . makes me feel lazy.