Spring Break and Perfumed Dogs

By Mark Morgan

www.markmorganbooks.com

I been thinking about spring break lately and how different it looks now compared to when we was kids, and somehow that train of thought ran straight into dogs, which tells you how my mind works these days.

Spring break now involves airplanes, beaches, and pictures of people standing in water they paid a lot of money to stand in.

Spring break when we was kids meant you were home long enough for every adult within a ten-mile radius to remember you existed and needed help with something.

You didn’t go on vacation.You got reassigned.

Spring break used to be scheduled right at the exact time the mud was deep, the fences were broke, limbs were down, and somebody had decided it was time to “clean up around here.”

I learned early that “clean up around here” meant work until you forgot what day it was and started answering to “hey you.”

But while I was thinking about how spring break changed, I realized nothing in this world has moved up in social standing faster than dogs.

Back in the old days, a dog’s job was to guard the porch, chase something that needed chasing, and smell like the underside of a tractor. They were tougher than a two-dollar steak and lived off whatever fell off the table and the occasional unlucky squirrel.

If a dog went inside the house, it was because there was a tornado coming or he was about to meet his Maker.

Now I’m sitting here looking at the specimen currently ruling my household, and this dog is so rotten he’s fermented.

He don’t smell like a swamp or a wet rug — he smells like a French barber shop. He’s got more perfume on him than a debutante at a cotillion and sleeps on a bed that costs more than my first truck.

This dog eats better than we did growing up and has his own blanket, his own shampoo, and I’m pretty sure if he lives long enough he’ll qualify for Social Security.

If you told an old-timer their hunting dog would one day be wearing lavender-scented paw wax, they’d have thought you’d been kicked in the head by a mule and left out in the sun too long.

Dogs used to ride in the back of the truck.Now they ride in the front seat and look out the window like they’re late for a meeting.

Dogs used to have jobs.Now their main responsibility is not shedding on decorative pillows.

Times change, I suppose.

Kids go to the beach for spring break now instead of fixing fence, dogs sleep in the house instead of under it, and everything in general is a little cleaner, softer, and smells a lot better.

But I still think we had it pretty good back then — muddy boots, burn piles, pocketknives, old dogs that followed you everywhere, and a spring break that somehow turned into the hardest working week of the year.

Funny thing is, we didn’t know those were the good old days when we were in them.We thought the good days were still coming.

Turns out, we were standing right in the middle of them the whole time.

Moral of the story:Life may smell better now, but I ain’t sure it’s any better than when dogs were dirty, kids were muddy, and spring break meant you were about to get volunteered for something.