shut yo’ mouth!

My maternal grandparents moved from Detroit to Charlevoix when I was little. First they lived in a smallish but beautiful house feet from Lake Michigan and then when the area got really popular they sold and built a new home on a hill overlooking acres of forest with Lake Michigan visible in the distance. Our family visited every summer and my brother and I spent many happy afternoons wandering the woods nearby and searching ponds for frogs or small fish.

One afternoon during such a vacation, my dad, Mike and I were heading back to the house from a longish ramble through the woods. We were a couple hundred yards away when a dog broke through the tree line and ran like hell straight toward us, without barking and tail down – intentions manifestly unclear.

My father calmly pushed Michael and I behind him and crouched down a bit. It was a tense few seconds but when he got within touching distance, the dog slowed and began gamboling about while sniffing and licking happily (because my dad is the original Dog Whisperer) and everything relaxed and we finished the walk back to the house accompanied by our furry friend.

I was impressed immediately by what my father had done – especially since at 10, I wasn’t sure whether the animal we faced was domestic or wild (as if there were a distinction between facing down a wolf or a mere mad dog). Years went by and as I reflected on the experience with the eyes of an adult and a parent, the memory came to stand for the best of my (very good) relationship with my dad.

We were all on vacation in Charlevoix again, probably 10 years later when my mother added the crowning detail. I had just finished recounting the story over dinner, it being one of my favorite family legends.

“What you kids didn’t realize”, she said, “was that as your father crouched down, he took out and opened his pocket knife in case he had to kill the dog”.

Yup, my daddy is one baaad motherf -