Well, it's Friday night and I took Sampson for an evening walk. As I've mentioned, I always let Sampson go in whatever direction he wants to. Tonight he decided to go down the street and explore the Main street of Watertown. Friday night is the big night for a bunch of old guys who hang out at the local convenience store and play lottery and scratch tickets. They stand outside the store and scratch their tickets and smoke cigarettes. As usual, Sampson gets a lot of attention as soon as he walks up to say hi.
They are a friendly bunch of guys who love to chat. And Sampson was immediately the center of the conversation. "What's this big guy's name? - How old is he? Oh, he's a beautiful Shepard. Where did you get him? Oh, you're taking care of him?" - you get the drift. So I explain the whole story. One old black guy is a Marine, (there are no ex-Marines, just retired Marines) and a Vietnam vet and he starts telling us stories about patrols he was on in the Nam with Shepards on point. Now I've heard a bunch of stories like his, but I let him tell me his war stories and all the other old guys (who have probably heard his war stories a million times) all listen like they have never heard the story before.
Then an amazing thing happened, this old warrior starts getting teary-eyed and he reaches down and just hugs Sampson and keeps hugging him. I know he was crying and he just kept hugging Sampson for a long time because he didn't want to let his buddies see him crying. Sampson never moved or got uncomfotable, he just let him hug him. In fact, Sampson just sat down and waited. When he finally let go of Sampson, he had regained his composure.
Then (and I just knew this was coming) he went into the store and bought a box of, you guessed it, Milkbones. Now all the old guys want to give Sampson a milkbone, and Sampson has absolutely no objections to this. So I have to ask all the old fellas to go easy on the milkbones, but, they're old and stubborn and they have each decided that they are all going to give him a milkbone. So I am not only outnumbered, I'm out-ranked. Fortunately, he bought a box of the really little milkbones. They made me take the box. And they made me promise to bring Sampson back for another visit.
