Barks at Planes

Photo by Alanna Mallery

My dog is no Kevin Costner. As far as I know he doesn’t even know Kevin Costner or Lloyd Bentsen for that matter.  That lack of familiarity should on no account make him less worthy of his own nickname.

I saw Kevin Costner, back in 1991, on the campus of Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, not too far from Nashville. Well, it wasn’t actually him. There was a pretty good likeness of him though considering the floppy screen they were showing Dances with Wolves on for $2 that evening in the student union. I was there studying Theatre and Music Recording and from what I recall here these twenty years later I believe there was a little of each of those in that film.

I didn’t have any dog back then. I was living in a dorm on campus and I don’t believe that sort of thing was allowed. I did have a Russian roommate named Igor. Actually he and his family had just moved here from the Ukraine.  He looked more like Yakov Smirnoff than Boris Yeltsin. But he had more of a Boris Yeltsin sense of humor. I never asked him but I don’t think he knew Kevin Costner either. I might have helped him spell Kevin Costner a time or two. I helped him out quite often with his reading and writing assignments. Not sure why, but that fellow seemed to have an awful time pronouncing and spelling words.

Barks at Planes is not much for enunciation or spelling either. Don’t judge him though; we just adopted him from Parma a couple of years ago.

A lot of people say that a dog is man’s best friend. I’ve got to tell you though, sometimes old Barks at Planes seems awfully fond of my wife. We have found that beyond the companionship a dog can bring into your home, he can bring you a feeling of safety and security as well.  Just this afternoon I was bringing my son home from school. Barks at Planes loves to go for rides. He’s very happy when we pull up and he sees our buddy waiting for us. 9 times out of 11 my boy hops into the back to ride with our dog on the way home. When we got home today we stood out back for a while watching Barks at Planes tromping around playing in the snow. As we stood watching, a jet came roaring nearby and sure enough there the dog went running and jumping and barking, ferociously defending his turf. Right then and there it occurred to me. Not once since Barks at Planes has come to live with us here has a single airplane even attempted to land in our back yard. And in this day and time that’s just one less thing to worry about.