Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
#1. A Good Dog. Every man should sometime in his life be blessed with a good dog. A dog that is as smart as Lassie. Every dog isn’t as smart as Lassie. Most are dumb as a block and lazy to boot.
There are large dogs, medium size dogs and some that resemble a dust mop. Some dogs belong to blue-haired women who put ribbons on their heads and paint their toenails pink. I don’t think the dogs care what color their toenails are or what color the ribbons are. They (the dogs) still like to sniff each other and eat roadkill. They’re dogs.
I was blessed to have a good dog. I named him Booger. ’Twas the only name that fit him. I got Booger as a pup around 1992. He was a black and tan beagle pup just weaned from his mama.
Booger was cantankerous, hardheaded, always playful and jealous of other animals. Booger never had pink toenails, but I did catch him eating roadkill.
Booger made it through the winter of 92-93. I was in Montreal PQ, Canada, on March 10, 1993, at the Sears, Roebuck Distribution Center and asked the general manager if they had the weather channel on TV.
I saw that large low-pressure system moving from the Texas coast northeast and the temperatures up through Tennessee area and told the boys in the Sears Roebuck employee lounge that our usual conversation about American politics and the Clinton White House was over for two weeks as there was going to be a whale of a snowstorm and I had to get going home.
I bought Booger a plastic doghouse from the local Farmer’s Co-op the week before. Booger was about six months old and loved sleeping in it.
Well, I arrived home Thursday, March 11, late in the evening and made sure I had a shovel and extra firewood on the patio. We had a gas/electric heat pump, but it was no good without electricity. We had and still have a fireplace with a unit for backup.
The power went off at 11 p.m. that night and we had about 7-8 inches of snow accumulation then. I lit the fireplace and went back to bed. The next morning, I thought of Booger. Looking out the glass door onto the patio I saw no doghouse, no wood, only snow and the shovel handle leaning against the house and no Booger.
I put on my boots, stepped outside in the snow and sunk down twenty inches on my patio, got the shovel and started uncovering Booger’s doghouse. I finally saw Booger whining and coming toward me. He was so happy.
He jumped from his dog house right into the snow and disappeared again. Booger yelped. I picked him up by his collar and tail and lifted him from the snow. All his underbelly parts had an instant freeze put on them.
Booger had never seen snow before but learned a lesson about a short dog jumping into snow. He loved riding in my truck with me and during warm weather would want to stick his head out the window. Booger was with us for four years before he was attacked by a pack of dogs. I think of him daily.

#2. A Good Pickup Truck. Every real man wants at least one good pickup truck in his lifetime. It doesn’t have to be a $70,000 whiz-bang truck with tires bigger than those on semis or every known extra that mankind can think up.
It’s just that one special truck that a man buys that he remembers in his thoughts and dreams for the rest of his life. He remembers the very sound as it cranks, the sound the motor makes, the unique smells from the interior, the aroma of the oils collected on the motor and transmission as the truck reaches operating temperature. These aromas, rattles, vibrations shudders are the persona that he remembers for his lifetime.
I’m fortunate to have found my truck of my lifetime at Buddy Cox’s General Store in Clio, Alabama in 1971. Buddy was a customer of mine. I called on Buddy every two weeks. I’d noticed three pickups parked near Buddy’s store in some weeds. I asked Buddy who they belonged to, and he said they were his.
One was an old 1948 red Ford half ton just sitting there. I asked Buddy how much he wanted for it, and he said he would let me have it for $50.
Buddy didn’t know when it had been cranked up. I decided to buy and picked it up on a trailer the next Saturday. Got it home, washed, cleaned the interior, outside, and pressure washed the engine so I could see what I had bought.
I had the radiator cleaned out and checked for leaks, took the head off the 6-cylinder flathead engine, had it surfaced, the cylinders looked good, put a new head gasket on, replaced the head, changed the oil, replaced the oil filter and cleaned the air filter, new spark plugs, points, condenser, new rotor, distributor cap and new spark plug wires, installed a good 6-volt battery and new gas.
It cranked a few rounds, then started. After a few minutes, it settled down and ran well. Four new tires, new brakes and wheel cylinders, rebuilt master cylinder and that 48 Ford red pickup has remained in my soul. I regret I sold it in 1974 and wish I had it today.
#3. A Good Woman. My first good girl was named Maggie. We were both seven years old and going to a local two-room elementary school in Union County, Tennessee. My first grade was spent at Columbia, Alabama, in elementary school. I returned home to Union County, Tennessee for my next ten years of education.
Yet I returned to Columbia High School in Columbia, Alabama for my graduation year.
In my second grade Maggie and I became close friends. Both she and I were ostracized by the other classmates, so we bonded as close friends playing together during our recess periods. We would search each other out and most times played by ourselves.
Maggie became a closer friend than my brothers and kin. She was a pretty little blonde slender girl who always wore a smile. During the school year of 1952 her parents decided to move to Kokomo, Indiana for a good job. I had no idea they were moving but come Monday morning there was no Maggie at school.
I was told by another child that the family had left over the weekend and would not be back. It was a shock to me as I had lost my best friend. I often wondered over the years how she grew into a woman, if she had a good life and hoped she was happy.
The second woman in my life I saw for the first time in 1957 at the age of 12. She and her sister were walking into a swimming pool area in Ashford, Alabama.
My brother and I spent the summer of 1957 with our maternal grandparents near Dothan, Alabama. If I washed my grandpa’s 1955 Chevy truck Saturday morning, he would take us to the Ashford Municipal Swimming Pool on Saturday afternoon. Can’t beat a deal like that I thought.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, I saw these two redheaded girls entering the pool. Both were pretty and slender. They also acted smug and didn’t notice my brother and me.
I had never seen a redhead and much less two at one time anywhere in Union County, Tennessee. That was the last time I saw these redheads until September of 1962 when my parents separated and us boys went with our mother to live in L.A. (Lower Alabama.)
Two years later the older redhead and I were married and still are. We moved to Union County, Tennessee, in 1987. That’s my woman’s story. Like I’ve been told by old timers: a dog, a pickup and a good woman.
See you next month.