Monday, April 19, 2010

The Family Tree

photo by Melissa McGee, 2008

The best ground score I ever found on a midway
(title inspired by a question on Facebook)
There once was a bitch living at the winter quarters of a carnival in Tampa Florida. Now before anyone starts firing off names.. this particular bitch was of the canine variety. She belonged at the time, to a carnival electrician named Juan. I'm not sure how it all happened but eventually she met a nice male dog and they got along fine until he got her pregnant at which point I'm almost a hundred percent sure he ran off looking for some other bitch.

Same as it ever was. (I'm kidding of course)

Time moved on.

A couple of weeks before the carnival was set to leave for Streator Illinois, this girl (I hope someone will stop by and offer up her name) gave birth to a beautiful litter of bouncing baby puppies. They all went on the road together and I wish I could tell you that each one of them lived happily ever after but the only thing I really know for sure is that that tiny little white stripe in the middle of the dog pile, traveled through ten states, ate a lot of pizza, lived in a truck, was given to a girl named Stephanie, made a gazillion friends, was almost stolen in Lincoln Nebraska, came to Nashville, and moved in with a tail-free cat and a woman who proceeded to write and photograph every mundane bullshit thing she ever did after that.

It can't possibly be as exciting as it used to be for Stella but (as someone said) she still gets up every morning wagging her tail and I'm reminded of all the wonderful characters that (to me) she represents.

Many thanks to Juan for the heads up on the photo, to Melissa McGee who shot it and to Stephanie & Billy (on the right) for letting her go. Anyone who was there is welcome to correct any factual mistakes I've made or add any details to this post in the comments.

Meanwhile, take a ride on the Skywheel. It's almost as good as the real thing and guaranteed not to mess up your hair.


5 comments:

Susan Rose said...

Awwwwwwwwww!!! What a great family photo! Now we know where Stella got her beauty.

Two Pitties in the City said...

That's so neat you get to see her so small...she looks like a little guinea pig. And it's always interesting to see who the mother was.

Colleen - the AmAzINg Mrs. B said...

Nice to have photos of the 'ancestors' for posterity. :-)

ANd the ride? Played it here at work and now we're all a little motion sick! Yeeeheee it was fun!

Beverly said...

Love the post and the picture. You know I'd never get on that ride in real life--thanks for the virtual experience.

A little more history... said...

Juan writes to say: "The bitch's name was "Cristal"and the dad was "snook", he belong julian the mechanic...they were 7 puppies 2 males look red like the dad 5 females 1 white,1 beige 1 dark brown, 1 light brown and Estela that have all the above colors when she was born and was the biggest also...lol"

Glad to see there were a couple of brave souls game enough to ride the skywheel :)S