The day started like so many Saturdays, busy. Billy and I had gotten up, had coffee, fed the Herd, and so on. Then he left for a paying job and I headed out to catch up on some of my volunteer work. I was dressed in my running clothes, thinking I would get my miles in after I finished up my treasurer duties. I had no idea how long Billy would be working. He usually doesn't even know until he gets to the job. I walked up the street to the United Way office, did what I needed to do, then walked back home. Planning on hooking up Doozer and striking out.
I was quite surprised to find Billy home when I got back there a few minutes later. Not just home, but already out of the shower! He spends longer in the shower than anybody I know so I knew my work had taken longer than anticipated. But he was working with a mission in mind - Derby Day.
Billy and I have always enjoyed horse racing, which sounds odd coming from a couple of animal lovers. Yes, I hate that the jockeys use whips on them and I usually hold my breath the entire race, praying silently that all the horses make it to the finish line uninjured. I hate that the Kentucky Derby will allow 20 horses to race each other. That is way too many and just invites trouble.
But I find them breathtaking animals and I admire what they are able to accomplish. I love watching them run. When Afleet Alex stumbled in the home stretch of the 2005 Preakness and not only recovered but beat the field handily, I knew I was seeing greatness. When Barbaro passed after trying so hard to recover from his injury in the 2006 Preakness, I cried along with so many others. He was a beautiful creature. Growing up in Arkansas, going to the Oaklawn race track was a treat, and something we did every so often with Mom and Dad, or friends in college.
When we lived in Kansas City, Derby Day became a big deal for us, as did each leg of the Triple Crown. There is a horse and dog track there and they would simulcast the races. We would go out the night before and pick up the Daily Racing Form. Resplendent in the bright colors that always adorn the covers for the special races. We would take turns studying it and then, secretly, make our picks for the next day. We would ride out to the track, just a few minutes from home, and spend the afternoon having a good time betting on the horses and enjoying each others company. But I would never reveal my picks to him until after the race was over. Hopefully as I was cashing a winning ticket.
It has been different since we moved, but we have still found ways to enjoy the day. We can't purchase a Daily Racing Form locally, but we can view it online. There is a nice casino on an Indian Reservation about an hour and a half away and we've gone over there to place our bets in the past. And that was Billy's plan on this day. We were headed to Marksville. I didn't have time to change but I brushed my hair and threw on a little makeup. Plus, I still hadn't run so I didn't want to get out of those clothes. As long as I am dressed to exercise, I believe I will do it.
We arrive, only to discover the Off Track Betting section of the Paragon has been closed. The next nearest option to bet on the race is over an hour away. Not enough time to get there. And it is in the opposite direction from Natchez so we'll be headed too far away.
We look at each other. At least we can hit the buffet and get a meal out of it, right? That way the drive won't be a total loss. We walk over to the restaurant and yep, you guessed it. Buffet doesn't open for almost 20 minutes. At this point, Billy is getting what my Daddy used to call "the bumps". He is agitated and aggravated. But we decide to wait. I don't think either of us had actually eaten all day. It is, as buffets go, not bad. We've eaten there before. We ate our fill, plus some, and then headed back.
Now I am getting anxious. I have been sitting a whole lot more today than planned - working, riding. I am full, stuffed actually, and I really want to take to a walk. Doesn't have to be a long walk, but I want to get out. It is late in the day and it has been a bit exasperating. I can feel myself needing and craving exercise.
We get home and before I know it, Billy has already gotten out the dog bowls for the afternoon feeding. I grab Doozer's leash. He practically inhales his food so I know he'll be ready to rock and roll in mere minutes. We sneak out the front door while everyone else eats and head out.
We have a few regular routes that we follow. One takes us on the edge of some less than "nice" streets so I decide, with daylight starting to fade and without Billy (or my mace) that we won't go the usual way, but we head in the Plan B direction - straight to the bluff. As we get a couple of blocks closer, I see two young boys playing with a puppy in the street and the field at the bluff's edge. The puppy is running loose. Not wishing to intentionally put Doozer in a situation where he could fail, I turn onto a very nice street. One of my favorites in town, and the same one as our first house contract when we were planning our move. (We had contracts on four houses in Natchez before we could get all the way to a closing.) I time it so the puppy is out of sight as Doozer and I round the corner.
About a block and half up, I hear leaves crunching behind me. Crunching quickly. My immediate thought is that the puppy is running up to us, or some other loose dog. Don't ask me why, but I never considered that a person was behind us. But is was. I stopped Doozer and turned and there was a lady standing just a few feet behind me. I jumped, startled to have someone that close. She jumped a little, too, when I did. I just said "I'm sorry. You startled me." and I walked Doozer up to the nearest driveway and we got off the sidewalk. I was giving her room to pass us. She got to the end of the driveway and stopped. I'm thinking to myself, of all the places I could have stopped, I picked her house and she wants by. Doozer can be a little, okay, a lot, intimidating and I thought she just didn't want to walk past him. I wouldn't have either, if I were her. Doozer is the consummate "mama's boy" of the canine world and no one would be safe around him if he felt threatened or perceived that I was being threatened. One of the primary reasons I take him. I know that he can't stop a bullet or anything like that if someone horrible was out there, I don't mean that. But he has jaws of steel and those teeth hurt and he is going to at least make someone think twice.
I ask the woman if that is her house and does she need past us. No, she says. She was just wondering if we were going to walk on the bluff. I look at her. She is not much taller than me. I probably outweigh her by 35 pounds and I'm guessing I have about 15 years on her. I don't feel threatened, in other words, so I say we are, but that we're going the long way around to it because of the puppy and the children playing in our path. She asks if she can walk with us.
What to do? As I said, she was older. A little frail looking. All I could think was "Doozer could rip your throat out." All I can hear in my head is Billy's voice. Keep Doozer away from people. If he bites someone, even if it is justified, he'll be the loser in the eyes of the law and they'll take him away from us. You'll lose your baby. But my Southern manners and respect for my elders wouldn't let me say "No ma'am, you can't". What came out of my mouth was "sure you can. Just stay behind me and let Doozer be in the lead. He likes to be in the front. And by the way, my name is Deanne." She said her name was Beverly. And off we went.
We walked and talked. She told me her children lived in Natchez and that she had recently moved here from California. For years she had spent summers here, even though her husband still had work and couldn't come with her. She normally stayed at some of the bed and breakfasts in town, but this year he bought her a little house. In California, they had a lot of land and she had a dog that looked just like Doozer and they had competed with cutting horses in shows for many years. She told of how she walked the bluffs every day, sometimes 8, 9, 10 times, but that she didn't want to do it alone that close to dusk. As she told a story of a person coming up to her on one of those walks and befriending her, she described her so well I knew immediately that it was a mutual friend of mine. This mutual friend took Beverly to an art show once and she saw many people that she had graduated with at LSU many years ago. This continued over the two plus miles that Doozer and I cover every day. Our mutual friend even called while we were walking and I heard her making plans to be picked up for Mass the next morning.
As we got closer to our house, I looked over at her and told her this is where our walk ended. We were home. I hesitated for only a second and then asked if she would like me to walk her home. She had mentioned so many times that she didn't like walking at night and the sun was setting, the sky filled with pink and purple streaks. It felt like the right thing to do.
Beverly got a little quiet, a bit thoughtful. She accepted my offer. She said "I would really appreciate it, if you don't mind. I have dementia and it can really be a pain." I asked her to stay on the sidewalk and let me run Doozer up to the door and into the house. Of course, she followed me all the way up to the porch, and the front door was locked and I didn't have a key so that "drop off" became more of an ordeal than I had planned, but I did get Billy's attention and let him know that I was walking Miss Beverly home. At this point, I had absolutely no idea where her home was, just that I needed to get her to it, and I hoped she could tell me. I know people with dementia often suffer with Sundown Syndrome and what can seem like a perfectly normal day can be be followed with very abnormal evenings after the sun sets. But she led me to her house, not far from where she joined us actually. She had a moment when she couldn't find her house key and my heart beat a little faster. What would I do then? Turns out, she never locked her front door. I could see some people hanging out on the cross street a half block away and I hoped they hadn't seen that her door was open.
She invited me in, but I declined. I was more than ready to go home and get in a bathtub. It had been a long day for me. One that didn't end as I had anticipated. I thought Dooze and I would go pound out some miles and I'd go home, clean up and be ready to sleep. Instead, I had a nice walk, longer than planned. I made a new friend, and helped someone out.
Now, will my new friend remember me? Maybe, maybe not. Will her children know that she asked a perfect stranger to walk with her? Probably not. I hope she doesn't do that kind of thing often.
Along our walk, Doozer was "engaged" by the loose puppy. That was no fun. He and I worked our way through all the prom couples getting their picture made along the bluff, and avoided no less than six or seven cats. He was constantly pulling or being pulled in every direction, looking at or trying to get around someone or something. But he never even gave Beverly a sniff. Ignored her completely. For all he cared, she was a long time friend that he knew. Odd, isn't it? He can bark at the mail carrier that he sees every single day, but not care about a stranger walking with us for 45 minutes.
What if we hadn't gone to Marksville? What if we hadn't stayed to eat? What if we had tried to find another off track betting location? I probably would have missed meeting Beverly. For all I know, Beverly needed us right then. Maybe the walking helps her deal with the dementia somehow. The released endorphins making her feel better. The routine of walking helping her keep a handle on her life. I don't know. I do know that everything happens for a reason. We were there, where we needed to be, when we needed to be.
And I know dogs are good judges of character. If you are okay with Doozer, you're okay with me.
