July 4, 1976
Many of my memories from my childhood have a faded quality to them. Almost like looking through a filter that makes those long-ago days at the beach or Disneyland look like a bleached-out polaroid. My faded memories closely match those pictures that my mother so carefully placed in our family photo albums only to see the colors slowly disappear over the years.
But July 4, 1976 is a day that is fresh in my memory. I can close my eyes and see West 72nd Street in Anchorage as though I was standing right there and I have gone back in time. That was the day my 12=year-old broken heart got put back together.
1976 was a tough year on my family. It was exceptionally tough on me. We were moving. I was leaving my boyfriend. We were leaving our big house on the corner lot with the giant boulder in the front yard. And all of that paled in comparison to the final blow. My German Shepherd, Weevil Dog, was not coming with us. I had turned 12 on June 24th and had a very sad goodbye birthday party with my friends. A few days later my parents told me the dog wasn’t coming. The next day I came home from my friend’s house and she was gone. She had gone to live with a family 20+ miles away down the Seward Peninsula.
Val, as my parents knew her, and Weevil Dog to me and my friends, was one of those perfect dogs that only children have. My parents did all the work and I spent day and night with a big hairy dog shadow. That dog never left my side if she could help it. You know that all-American story of a boy and his dog. That was us, except I loved my dog just a little bit more than everybody else and that dog was as devoted as a hound could be.
She was a beautiful dog with lots of papers and good breeding and terrible eating habits. The name Weevil Dog itself…well…it deserves to be told. My friend Tracie and I were giving MilkBones Flavored Treats to the dog, you know, the colored ones. And I dared Tracie, or she dared me, and then we dared each other to eat a Milkbone. We each took one and, crunch crunch, crunch…not so bad. So we both tried a different flavor, and another different flavor. Poor Val (she was not Weevil Dog yet) sat there with her head cocked. It was pretty clear she was thinking, “Hey! Those are MY Milkbones!”
We were close to the bottom of the box and Tracie put out her hands and I poured the remaining Milkbones into her hands. Out came a few whole biscuits, a bunch of broken biscuits and about a million weevils. Tracie’s eyes bulged out, a scream broke from her lips and she did the worst thing she could possibly do. She threw her weevil-filled hands up into the air.
And as she screamed, the weevils fell down on us like rain. In our hair, on our clothes, down our shirts, and we rolled around screaming on the grass. Val busily chomping up bits of Milkbone that had fallen across the lawn. Then Tracie stopped screaming and projectile vomited across the grass. Then I stopped screaming and did the same, And as we kneeled in the grass, throwing our weevily guts up, sobbing hysterically and still trying to get weevils out of our clothes, Val trotted over and began eating up the Milkbone/Weevil/Vomit which made us start throwing up all over again. But now there was a loving dog trying to lick up our salty tears and, YUM, eat some more MilkboneWeevilVomit.
For a few weeks I cringed every time Weevil Dog tried to lick me but I eventually forgot and loved her all the more.
So on that crazy red-white-and-blue Bicentennial day, I was sitting on the giant boulder in our front yard. It was chilly and grey and my parents had decided to skip the fireworks. We were leaving Anchorage in the next day or two and they were busy packing. So I was sitting on the rock, alone, already missing my friends who were either gone to the fireworks or gone for the holiday and I quietly sobbed to myself thinking of my best friend, my dog friend.
I loved my dog more than anything. My dad had had eight heart attacks the year before. My brother was in a different hospital that year and my mom had been running herself ragged running between my dad’s bedside, my brother’s bedside and trying to run the family business. I refused to be sad or cry in front of my mother. I would not give her any more pain than she was already carrying, so I put flowers next to her bed, and tried not to make a big mess, I ate Cocoa Pebbles for dinner a lot of nights and went to bed without seeing anyone in my family the whole day… I cried a lot of tears onto that very absorbent German Shepherd. The dog was my rock. Some days it felt the only family I had was that dog.
And now she was gone and I did not know how I was going to survive the broken heart.
Tears were running down my face and dripping onto my polyester red, white and blue plaid pants and up West 72nd Street I saw a big animal come around the corner. Not a moose, or a bear but something big. And I watched and saw whatever it was was limping and staggering.
It was Weevil Dog. She was bloody and gimpy (and weevily) and she had crossed the Seward Peninsula to be with her boy. Something had taken a few chunks out of her, and she had cuts and bloody feet but she had come home.
And my broken heart was suddenly whole. And the joy unlike anything I’d ever felt before and I’ve never felt since. And that moment is burned into my mind—all of it. Every feeling, every image, every step as I leaped over the fence and ran to my limping dog. Her tail was going a mile a minute even though she still staggered and stumbled like a tired old dog.
Don’t ever tell me an animal can’t love. You’re wrong. I’ve looked into the tired, beat-up brown eyes of that beautiful girl and saw love as deep as any human can feel.
That’s my story about Independence Day. That is my slice of Americana to share with you today.
July 4, 1976. It was the Bicentennial. We had cool quarters. And for a little while, everything was right in the world.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but I do have a puppy story...about a black lab pup we got when I was about ten, and he slept with me on the back porch that first night (an enclosed porch) in a twin bed pushed up near a wall. I had a box of cheerios to snack on that night, which I shared them with him. In the morning I woke up and the box was laying on my stomach, empty. It had spilled...most of the contents down between the wall and the bed. I reached down to grab a handful, and came up with a handful of spaghetti...I thought. It took me a minute to realize the spaghetti was moving...it was alive. I just about threw up right then and there. It dawned on me that the puppy had worms and must have thrown up a whole ball of them on top of the cheerios.
I did not have a friend or sister to share that experience with...we were alone on the porch, but it was burned into my memory just the same, and I did not nickname my puppy roundworm dog, although that would have been appropriate. 
I do understand your reaction to weevils though.
Now I have a sad memory for the 4th. Last year my ex died on the 4th. We were still good friends and e-mailed regularly. I hate when that happens on a holiday, because it will always be associated with that day now. 
Your happy joy reunion with your dog made me cry, but that's OK.
