A few nights ago, my friend Easy* and I were bemoaning the absence of good gossip during the pandemic.
We both love gossip, the chit chat and tales told to each other and the ensuing meanderings which enhance our understanding of each other and of life. There hasn’t been much of that lately; our gossip has been slimmed down to when we’ve gone shopping and what we’ve found (Bell & Evans are making chicken dogs without preservatives!) and where (Zabars).
So I started telling her about how I watched “The Yorkshire Vet” every night, just to lighten and warm things up with animals before I go to bed. And that reminded Easy about an incident in Yorkshire years ago.
She was on an English hiking trip with about six people. One day they entered a Yorkshire town, the main street of which was fairly empty of people. A dog, however, was sitting beside a house — presumably his house — on a low hill.
The dog held a ball in his mouth. Just as Easy and her group drew opposite the dog, he released the ball, sort of tossed it, toward Easy’s group. It rolled and stopped precisely at their feet. So, naturally, they picked the ball up and threw it back to the dog. He got it into his mouth and tossed it back to them.
The throw-and-catch game continued for a while and perhaps would have gone on until this day except the group needed eventually to move onward.
Easy remembers him as the smartest dog she’s ever met. We both feel bad that he had to wait for outsiders to play ball with him. We’d like to believe he’s still there with the ball in his mouth, expecting teammates for his ball game.
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*Easy had another name at birth but she also had an older sister who insisted on calling her Shrimp or Easy; Easy was the one that stuck.