Our Dog Murphey

As I work on my book about rescued and "found" animals, from time to time I'll share stories about the dogs we have had in our family (I won't say "owned."  Pets have more integrity than that!)

So today I'll tell you about our wonderful dog

                                                               Murphey

One afternoon a strange dog wandered into our yard.  A mix of tan and dark brown fur, her front and back end seemed to belong to two different dogs.  She seemed to be put together by a committee.  We decided that was one dog too many for us, and ignored it.  The following day our son Dyson heard a great commotion of barking dogs down the hill from us, where the town ran its waste treatment plant, and kept stray dogs there temporarily.  He went down to investigate and found a number of dogs there, with one dog halfway under the fence and another trying to pull him back by his tail.  And in that company was the dog who had showed up at our place!  He reported on this, but we did not act on that information, hoping that somehow the local vet (who would be receiving these dogs soon to hold them for a few days) would find a home for the dog.  By that time we knew she was a female.

Guess who showed up the next day in our garage?  We called her to us, and Charlie happened to see her as well.  “No more dogs!”  he said in exasperation.  And then he looked at the dog again.  “Don’t show it to me again.   You two make the decision.  Dyson and I looked at each other, put the dog in our car, and off to the vet’s we went for a check-up, shots and whatever else might be needed to get the newcomer cleared for living with us.  On the way we passed Murphey Street, named for the founder of our town, and said together, “Murphey is her name!"

We did make one attempt to find a good home for her, but the family who took her returned her saying she barked and barked at their parakeet and this just wouldn’t work.  So Murphey became our dog.  She had little to offer us in return but her loyalty, her permission for us to love her as much as we could, and to let her lick our toes.  Murphey got into some scrapes along the way, such as the time she trotted down our long driveway one afternoon so covered with river mud that all we could see were two eyes and a nose.  It took over an hour to clean her up.  Another time she and Winston went under our house via the crawl space, after some critter, and Murphey was afraid to come back out.  She remained there all night, and we could hear her bark every so often as the sound traveled along our heating ducts.  Charlie had to crawl under the full length of the house the next morning, past various dead rodents along the way.  But finally Murphey was once again with us and the entrances to the crawl spaces were barred.  A day or so later we discovered one act of bravery Murphey performed while under our house:  the strong smell of dead snake came through our heating vents.

She loved to dig out under the dog lot fence, with our dogs Winston and our Westie Zelda to roam the town. In fact, she was an expert at getting through any fenced area we had around our yard.  But she survived all her escapades, lived to be about 13, and died peacefully at home.  She had a good life.

        

 

         Murphey

On December 7, 1941

Seventy years ago today, I was an 8-year-old living in Honolulu, Hawaii (then known as the Territory of Hawaii -- before it became a state).  My father was an Army doctor.  Four years later, I wrote an essay for my 7th grade class, at PS 104 in Brooklyn.  We then lived at Ft. Hamilton.  I like to think it was my first blog.  So here it is, as it was written in 1945:

A Day I Shall Remember

It started just like most Sunday mornings usually begin in our household.  Everyone was asleep but me.

We were living in Honolulu, as Daddy is in the Army, and had been ordered there.  In fact, we had been living in Honolulu since August of 1940.

But to return to the story, I was the only one awake, as I said before.  I heard the dull booming of guns, but paid no attention to them, as the army and navy practice firing frequently.

Finally Mother and Daddy woke up, (my brother was still sleeping soundly) and as Daddy always listens to the news, he turned on the radio for the 9:00 broadcast.  The first message that came to our ears was: “This is the real McCoy!  Pearl Harbor is under attack!  The Japanese have made a sneak attack on the Island of Oahu!”  We were naturally taken aghast.  Daddy announced that he was going to eat breakfast and go straight down to the hospital.  I didn’t feel like eating very much breakfast myself, I was so frightened.

We went out on our small back porch and gazed up at the sky.  There were puffs of black smoke here and there which showed that the anti-aircraft guns were busy too.  Fortunately, we were in little danger ourselves, because we were approximately 15 miles from Pearl Harbor.

It was a rather strange and frightening day, and one to be remembered, too.

Just Who Is Charles Rodenbough Anyway?

 

I am Charles Rodenbough and beyond my role as husband, father, and grandfather, I suppose I can characterize myself as a writer and teacher, both capacities I have enjoyed since retiring from being a business manager.  Many years ago I was aware of what I enjoyed doing but I let others convince me of my “responsibilities” and I gave up the desire to be a college professor.  I don’t begrudge the choice nor do I regret what might have been.  In my retirement I am getting to catch up on the avocation that I had continued even while functioning as a businessman.

            History is my genre and my concentration has been associated with North Carolina.  I chaired a Sesquicentennial Celebration (Madison, NC), organized Historic Districts, county chaired the National Bicentennial, Presided for the Historical Society, planned for a county museum, and all the while I read, researched, and collected for a time when I could write.  When that time came, I was not starting from scratch but ready to compose from what I had assembled. 

            I like to structure my writing on the bare facts but I like to create beyond into the logic or lack thereof in how people, individually and collectively, accommodate to their circumstances.  History writing is always interpreting the circumstances of one time or generation to another which sees through its own prism.  The historian has to convey facts and situations in such a way that the reader begins to perceive in the historical moment.  I have written biography, history, and historical fiction.

            Most recently, I wrote a biography with my grandson that could be read and appreciated by multiple generations of readers.  Stealing Andrew Jackson’s Head was published this year by All Things That Matter Press.  My wife, Jean Rodenbough, is also a published author with All Things That Matter Press.

Currently, I am involved with a project with the University of North Carolina, studying a unique common thread of slavery from Africa, through the West Indies, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Canada over a hundred year period.