Richard Wolkomir & Joyce Rogers Wolkomir

 

 

 

A book club asked us to talk about our new memoir—it tells how a charismatic corgi came to us, just as Joyce was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, chances of survival 4%.  

 

That was three decades ago, and Joyce attributes her cure, in part, to Nosmo the corgi's devotion. I, however, wanted no more dogs in our life. I wanted to endure no more dog deaths. And I didn't want to be tied down by a dog, when our magazine work required constant travel.  

 

At the book club meeting, a woman asked me: "So when did you start to love Nosmo, and accept him?"

 

Not easily answered.  

 

For one thing, I instantly loved Nosmo, when he first popped up on our deck. A dog so handsome, so joyous, so charming, so clearly aware, you had to love him. Accept him, though? No, not until one horrific night.

 

I'd spent that day in Joyce's hospital room, as she lay in bed, bald and skeletal, unable to lift her head. I thought she might be dying. So I stayed by her, fetching ice cream. She could eat nothing else. I made frequent trips back home for Nosmo's walks, and his supper, then back to the hospital. All afternoon and all evening I sat by Joyce's bed, talking, unsure she could hear.  

 

I felt desolate.

 

I got home at midnight, too weary to think. I took Nosmo out for his final walk in the moonlit meadow. Then I pulled off my shoes and socks and fell into bed, still wearing my jeans and t-shirt, and I instantly sank into unconsciousness.

 

At 2 A.M., out of deep sleep, I jerked upright in bed, feeling summoned. Had Joyce died? Then I saw Nosmo sitting beside the bed, staring steadily at me. Seeing me sitting upright, he seemed to nod, as if saying, "Finally!" Then he hurried to the stairs, and looked back to urge me on.

 

"All right!" I said, angry.

 

I put my feet down beside the bed and it felt wet. I turned on the light—diarrhea covered the rug, and now covered my feet. I managed to get to the bathroom, walking on my heels to keep from spreading the mess everywhere. I washed my feet in the bathtub. Then, cursing under my breath, I followed Nosmo down the stairs and let him out the back door into the yard.

 

While the corgi walked in the moonlight, I hunched on our deck's steps, burying my head in my hands.

 

At some point, I realized Nosmo sat beside me, leaning against my leg. I knew he sensed my misery, and offered his warmth and caring.

 

We sat that way a while. Then I noticed I had my arm over Nosmo's back. I suddenly realized it horrified me, to think of coming home from a day like this with no corgi there to love me.   

 

 I heard my own voice: "It's not your fault, Nosmo." 

 

At that moment, I accepted Nosmo into our life.  

 

Afterwards, with a bucket of sudsy hot water, I cleaned the bedroom rug. Then I fell back onto the bed.

 

I heard Nosmo sigh, as he lay beside me on the floor.

 

So we became a team of three, a corgi, a woman, and a man.

 

That's how Nosmo wanted it.

 

--Richard

 

 

 

My grandfather, Anson Rogers, bought the seven horses by mail. Their train, from the west, arrived at the Rochester, New York, freight station in the dark, as he'd arranged.

  

At that hour, Anson knew, the constabulary slept.

  

He was a huckster. He bought low and sold high.

  

Problem: how to transport the horses twenty miles to the family's rundown Bristol Hills farmhouse. Solution: free labor.

 

Grandpa loaded his pickup truck with his seven sons.

 

My father, Art, was oldest, at fifteen. Next came Andy (14), Herbie (13), Stanley (12), Billie (11), Jimmy (10), and Bobby (9).

 

 Anson had moved the family from Rochester to that weathered country house—no running water, no electricity—to avoid regulatory eyes. He knew the child-abuse laws. Only when no one watched did he enforce discipline with a bullwhip. Once, he and my grandmother drove to Florida for the winter, leaving their seven sons and seven daughters to shift for themselves, which got him arrested.

 

He figured endangering kids to move horses would be okay, if he did it in darkness.

 

With Anson hissing orders, the riders mounted, the bigger boys boosting their littler brothers aboard.

  

I assume the horses had been working steeds, accustomed to riders, because my father—who told me about this adventure—said no kid got bucked off.

 

They rode bareback, clinging to the horses' manes.

 

Anson drove ahead, the horse riders following his red taillights, hanging on, mile after mile.

 

At some point on that twenty mile journey, one rider, Herbie, fell in love with his horse.

 

I'm guessing that in a household crammed with fourteen children and a work-weary mother, Herbie got little love. His horse loved him.

 

As the weeks passed, Herbie fed his horse special. He taught the horse many tricks, like picking up a dropped handkerchief in his teeth and handing it to Herbie.

 

Every day Herbie hurried home from school to be with his horse.

 

Anson watched the horse's growing portfolio of tricks with a calculating squint.

 

One day Herbie hurried home from school and his horse was gone.

 

Sold.

 

My father said his little brother spent the rest of the week sobbing.

 

I guess my grandfather decided a trick horse could sell for a few pennies more.

 

I do know one thing for sure.

 

Anson Rogers was a bastard.

 

--Joyce

 

 

 

We stood, Joyce and I, at a desert's edge, facing 3,000 miles of sand.

 

Behind us, in an outdoor market, villagers sold dates and figs and leather belts and wind-up alarm clocks. We didn't know the language, but we bought a few figs, by pointing, then extending a handful of coins, for the seller to choose among.  

 

 So, munching our figs, we stood where the oasis ended and the desert began. If we walked out there, we knew, under that lethal sun, we'd soon die. We guessed nothing lived on that sand.   

 

Then, out of the village, three white-robed men rode camels, each beast laden with wicker baskets and burlap sacks. Trading goods, we guessed. Each camel wore a strap of bells around its neck.    

 

We watched the camels stride out onto the sand, their riders relaxed in their saddles, chatting convivially, as if they followed a familiar road. Maybe they exchanged village gossip, or discussed today's price of myrrh.  

 

Camels and riders dwindled, finally too distant to see. Yet, we still heard their bells ringing.   

 

At odd moments, I remember that sound, long ago, bells out on the desert.    

 

--Richard  

 

 

 

Our new book, The Corgi With Starlight In His Eyes, just published, is unusual for us, because we're in it, Joyce and Richard.

 

It's about when a handsome corgi appears on our deck. Nosmo makes it clear—our home will be his new home, and we will be his new people. 

 

"It's fated," Joyce exclaims. "He's come to us for a reason."

 

So it is, because just as Nosmo arrives, we face a crisis, life or death. This memoir is the story—as Nosmo sees it—of how we face that crisis together, now a team of three: a woman, a man, and a dog.

 

But what a dog! Preternaturally aware. So charismatic he seems to glow.

 

It's a joyful story.

 

It's a love story.

 

We hope some of you read this story. We hope it gives you pleasure.

 

You can find this book on Amazon.com.

 

 

My draft summons came just after Joyce and I graduated.

 

We'd taken low-pay starter jobs in Manhattan, and that summons felt like a wallop.

 

For one thing, without my meager contribution, how could Joyce pay our two-room apartment's rent?

 

Also—and this came as a shock—outsiders now directed our life.

   

So I rode up to Albany for the physical, feeling unnerved, weakened.

 

That's my excuse.

 

My seatmate on that government bus was Willie Flute, who'd emigrated to our Hudson River factory town from Appalachia—tiny, frail, mildly retarded.

 

Otherwise, young men from the adjacent town's Black neighborhood filled the bus seats.

 

As we exited the bus, a soldier, probably a corporal, not much older than us, yelled orders.

 

"Line up!"

 

"Clothes off—underwear, socks, everything!"

 

So we stood in a long naked line as the corporal thrust bottles into our hands.

 

"Pee in that!"

 

Probably half the men, given the circumstances, had trouble peeing in the bottle. 

 

"Hurry up!"

 

Now the corporal focused on tiny Willie Flute, dazed and uncomprehending.

 

"Damn you, I said pee in that bottle!"

 

"Did you hear me, Jerk?"

 

Willie shrank under this barrage, and I felt terrible for him. Yet, I didn't speak.

 

Somebody else did.  

 

One of the men from the neighboring town glared balefully at the corporal, then spoke in a steady voice.

 

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

 

I could see the corporal taken aback.

 

"I'm doing my job," he protested.

 

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

 

So the corporal left Willie alone.

 

Riding back on the bus, after the physical, I thought: I should have spoken up, but I didn't.  

 

Some wars involve machine guns and grenades. Every day, though, micro-wars flare, incidents like the bullying of Willie Flute. In those tiny hostilities, even when you see the injustice, you may shrink back.

 

Some, though, with principles, and character, and courage, do speak up.

 

They defend the Willie Flutes.

 

They are heroes.

 

--Richard

A dog just taught me the sound of one hand clapping.

 

I had errands to finish before lunchtime. So I barreled along the highway, until—abruptly—I braked to a crawl.

 

A small SUV blocked me.

 

In this stretch of highway, speed limit 50 mph, the car ahead poked along at 30 mph.

 

Frustrating!

 

Rushing is what I do. I'm given to impatient finger tapping. My head's full of worries.

 

After a few annoyed minutes, staring at the slow car ahead, I noticed a dog in the back seat, calmly regarding me through the rear window. An old dog, muzzle gray, but with amiable brown eyes.

 

Those benign eyes seemed to say: "Friend, why hurry?"

 

Actually, I didn't know—why do I hurry?

 

I finished my chores. I drove home.

 

All the way I remembered that old dog's kind gaze, and I relaxed.

 

--Richard

 

 

 

When my mother was a small child, her father—beset by a bitter mother-in-law—left the marriage, becoming a reviled pariah in the family.

 

My mother's brother, the family favorite, walked down the street to get ice-cream and never came back, hit by a car and killed.

 

Because my mother looked too much like her despised father, and because she was not her beloved dead brother, she experienced unrelenting emotional abuse.

 

They—her mother and grandmother—routinely made  her stand on the corner, waiting for her father to come by, to beg him for money.

 

Her grandmother and mother ordered her to say in school that her father was dead. 

 

Scarlet fever left her deaf. In school, even the teacher mocked her deafness.

 

So it was for her, day after day.

 

Valentine's Day approached, and it was customary for the class's students to exchange cards, friend to friend. My mother had no friends. So she knew that, as always on Valentine's Day, she would receive nothing.

 

That day came, and a large envelope arrived on my mother's desk, inscribed "For Ruth."

 

My mother looked around the class to guess who sent it, but she saw not a single friendly face.

 

She opened the envelope and pulled out a huge card, bedecked with frills and ribbons. All eyes in the classroom stared at her and the card, thunderstruck that anyone would send Ruth such a thing.

 

It was signed: "Uncle Ed and Aunt Hattie."

 

They knew, you see, what Ruth endured. Somehow, they knew about the classroom Valentine's Day custom.

 

They cared.

 

All the rest of her life my mother remained close to her mother's brother, Ed, and his wife, Hattie. When my mother married, someone arranged a wonderful wedding for her. Certainly not her mother. It was not really a mystery who did that for my mother.

 

My mother's Uncle Ed and Aunt Hattie live in my memory. They were incontrovertible proof that, no matter what else happens in this world, there are moments of true decency.

 

 

There are truly decent people.

 

--Joyce

 

 

We heard about a cool incident on an airliner, posted on Facebook by Wendy Battino.
 
You can check out Ms. Battino's first-person account here—  https://www.facebook.com/wendy.battino/posts/pfbid02XBBD8AkYBDrAsPtb7ETN6QgrWSsL82yxC37uToAuQrBt1V7gMoZBVW6eJfoKKd9yl.

We found this story so amusing and touching, we wanted to pass it along, for those who missed the original account. So here's an abbreviated version—

 

After a sojourn in California, Ms. Battino says, she boarded an Alaska Airlines flight back home, with her two Siberian huskies, Artie and Moon, kenneled in the airliner's cargo hold. As she walked back to her seat, from the hold below, she heard a tremendous howling.

 

It meant: "Where are you, Wendy Battino?" Knowing the howling would continue unless she howled back, Ms. Battino knelt in the aisle and prepared to howl.

 

First, though, a flight attendant asked her to hold off, while the attendant used the PA system to alert the other passengers.

 

After that, Ms. Battino howled.

 

Down in the hold, Artie and Moon went silent.

 

Everyone on the plane laughed.

 

Then the flight attendant made a further announcement: "Would anyone else like to join in one more howl to let these dogs in the hold know that we care?"

 

Just about every passenger on that plane howled. 

 

After that, says Ms. Battino, it was an upbeat flight home.

 

--Joyce and Richard

 

 

 

A good friend e-mailed us—

 

"Murdock went peacefully on his bed at home yesterday."

 

We know that heaviness.

 

You dread summoning the vet, with her vials and needles. You hold that furry body—once so warm—as it goes limp.

  

You wanted to stop the suffering, but now there's guilt—"I killed my dog!" You're lonely. Your companion is gone. You feel hollow inside. Silently, you mourn.

 

A dog is a consciousness, like us, only with a better nose. How did these creatures—progeny of wolves—become so entwined in our hearts and homes?

   

Maybe it's simple: your dog worships you. It's not coy about it. It'll happily lick your fingers. Dogs like fun: let's chase that ball! Tell your dog your fears or worries. Those ears will listen.

 

What better friend than that?

 

Yet, we've seen dogs wandering streets from Cairo to Newark, homeless, hungry.

 

Maybe dogs evolved to test us. Maybe how we treat them measures our humanity.

 

Our friend's West Highland Terrier died of leukemia, after a glorious life—Murdock knew the bliss of being a player on the A-team, beloved.

    

Lucky dog.

Lucky friend of dog.

 

--Joyce and Richard

 

But here's Eric Morse with the last word about his best friend, Murdock—

 

"He had an amazing life of running, covering over 25,000 miles with me, more than the circumference of the Earth. We teamed together in over 200 races in 9 different states.

 

"He continued to run every day with me up until the final weeks. I'm convinced his fitness and continued running extended his life.

 

"I'd like to thank each and every one of you for the thoughtful remarks and reactions to Murdock's passing. They all brought tears to my eyes, knowing so many people cared.

 

"Farewell our friends. It was the best times."

 

--Eric

 

 

 

My husband recently asked if I remembered which Dakota my Uncle Wayne came from, North or South?

 

It was the North, a ranch.

 

His father died when Wayne was a toddler, and his mother carried on until she cut her finger. Out on the plains, far from hospitals and doctors, before the discovery of antibiotics, a cut finger could be fatal, and it was—she died of blood poisoning.

 

So five-year-old Wayne, my eventual uncle by marriage, got dropped on his grandmother's ranch, expected to earn his keep. 

 

One day his grandmother demanded he harness the work horses to a wagon, a four-horse-hitch, to do heavy hauling around the ranch. Those huge Belgians got away from the child, leading to temporary havoc.

 

Wayne's grandmother apparently decided: this kid's more trouble than he's worth. So she shipped him east, to his other grandmother.

 

I picture that little boy, at a prairie train station. He's wearing his Stetson, with a note pinned to his shirt, saying where he's supposed go, a thousand miles away. He's got a bag with what clothes he has, and he's carrying his .22 rifle.

 

He's alone.

 

My aunt, who one day married Wayne, told me: "One of those grandmas was just as mean as the other."

 

Wayne served as a marine, in World War II, on Iwo Jima. I suppose that wartime stint must have stuck in his mind as his greatest adventure, but I think he had an even more telling adventure—I sometimes think of a small boy, alone, on the plank platform of a prairie train station, with his Stetson and his rifle.

 

Pinned to his shirt: his ultimate destination.

 

—Joyce