Almost
all of us know how to pronounce
pandemic now, and we have a pretty good idea of what it means
since everyone we
know spent more than a year under virtual house arrest.
But that
didn’t help Billy much. Billy’s our
town dog, of course. He’s been our town dog since Sally passed
away on Doc’s
porch, and Billy’s owner died two weeks later. Sometimes an
honored position
doesn’t require an election.
Billy took
right to it. He made his daily
rounds to the back door of the Chinese restaurant and the Mule
Barn coffee
shop. He drifted over to the Rest of Your Life retirement home
often to give
the old folks another reason to enjoy life.
And there was his
job, too. Every weekday
morning Billy was on duty at the street crossing where the
kids went to school.
Martin, the crossing guard, was always there with his vest and
his sign, and
Billy was the official cross-the-street escort.
But when the
pandemic hit, the kids were
suddenly home schooled and Martin stayed home as well. This
threw a big monkey
wrench into Billy’s gear box.
So about once
a week, a bunch of us masked
coffee drinkers would go to the school intersection and stand
there until Billy
showed up. He’d look both ways and take us across the street,
and then continue
on his daily rounds.
Just because
we’re in a pandemic doesn’t
mean we can’t do our job.
---------
Brought
to
you by The Fly Fisherman’s Bucket List, published by
Rio Grande books
and written by Slim Randles, who had fun researching it.