Sampson is full of energy this morning. Officer Pete sees us as soon as we cross the street. “Hey Sampson, come on ovah, I got a real treat for ya!” Pete inquires politely if I’m “still giving Sampson that frooty tooty crap from da helt food sto ah?” I ask Pete if the little children are still giving him the finger. He laughs and says “OOH yer a bahhstid too.” But he’s laughing his head off so we both get a good chuckle and Sampson gets yet another milk bone.
“See” Pete says, “Sampson loves milk bones, he’s smahhta that you ahh.” “OK Pete,” I say, “watch this.” And I give Sampson a healthy cookie, which he wolfs down. Pete says, “Ah, he’s a dog, that don’t prove nothing.”
Rather than argue with Pete, I decide to change the subject and ask him why he does this crossing guard job. He tells me it’s just something to get him out of the house because he’s up early anyway and after the job, he goes to the lottery/keeno parlor for coffee and hangs out with his buddies for a few hours. He’s told his wife that the job runs from 6:30 AM to 10 AM. Even though the job ends at 7:30 when all the kids are supposed to be in the school.
I tell him that it’s obvious that he’s doing it for the love of the children. He laughs out loud. Pete then goes off on an old guy rant about how kids aren’t the same as when HE was a kid. When HE was a kid you showed RESPECT for your elders. Kids now days…….. well, you get the idea.
Sampson is getting bored and is waiting patiently at the front gate. I ask him if the folks that own the home are still away. Then he tells me, “I dunno, they might be.” Now I’m concerned that Sampson has been crapping in these folk’s yard for days now and I live a ½ a block away, “Jeez Pete, you should have told me”– I tell him. “Ahh, screw them”, he says. I tell Pete that he is one of a kind and that Sampson really needs to get going.
“Hey, what did ya do in the Navy?” he says. I say, I could tell him, but then I’d have to kill him. “Oh yah, yah, I’m sure you wuz a big doolie!” (big doolie is Boston slang for Doolie, Large)
I wasn't actually in the Navy, I was a civilian instructor for Navy and Army special forces many years ago.
Sorry for the short post, but duty calls.
Be safe all.
