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Comic strip artists from the 40โs draw their characters while blindfolded
yunghau5
You are one of the top Problem Sleuths in the city. Solicitations for your service are numerous in quantity. Compensation, adequate. It is a balmy summer evening. You are feeling particularly hard boiled tonight.
I canโt pick a favorite
Some of these take on an impressionist quality. Eyes are important.
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An Incomplete List of the Animals my Grandpa brought home over the course of his 67-year marriage to Gandma:
- Annabell, a solid white and completely deaf pit bull that used to let mom draw on her belly
- The Worldโs Ugliest Tom Cat, who turned out to be the cuddiest teddy bear of an animal
- Cocker spaniel named โCaptainโ
- Stupid, the Cat
- Litter of baby raccoons
- Three more cats
- A completely bald and extremely anxious canary that sang beautifully, but only at 4 AM
- Baby Squirrel that grew up in the house and then refused to move out
- A Genuine Thoroughbred Racehorse who was a spectacular athelete but had a habit of running races in the wrong direction.ย Benny turned out to be a terrific trail horse instead.
- Turtle
- Snapping Turtle
- A bucket full of 43 goldfish left over from the fair.ย Mom counted once they were all in the bathtub in the backyard with the snapping turtle.
- Another cocker spaniel namedย โMajorโ, who had the tremendous talent of eating green beans silently
- Red-tailed hawk he found on the highway, and sucessfully nursed back to health and released.
- Dummy, Son of Stupid
- Strange, the dog that lived under the porch and only came into the house at night.
- Anย โabandonedโ baby deer.
- Spooky, an alleged dog.ย ย
- Joey the parakeet whose tricks wereย 1. drinking tea out of a tiny cup 2. threatening to peck out peopleโs eyes 3. wearing hats
- A Really Big Toad he found behind the factory, because the other auto workers were discussing using it for target practice.ย Mr. Grumpity was guardian of the rosebed for several years and grannyโs (his mother) favorite animal he ever brought home.
- Gretchen, a St. Bernard that had to be shaved from her prior ownerโs neglect, and spent a week hiding from sight with such success in the house that they thought sheโd run away.
- Arson, Burglary and Murder, three frankly adorable little kittens.ย They did not change the names, much to the regret of the cop who lived three doors down.
- Yet another Cocker Spaniel, namedย โColonelโ
- Cardinal (bird)
- Canada Goose (Demon)
- Once in the nursing home, he had aย โpetโ 12-point whitetail buck that would come to his window to be fed corn and get headskritches, inexplicably namedย โFlorenceโ
The marriage only ended because thier time on earth did. He never kept an animal Grandma wouldnโt allow and if anything she was worse about it. She was the one who brought home a tarantula.
Questions from the Notes:
Your grandparents were Druids, right? They were a Steel Worker and Head Clerk at the local grocery store, respectively.ย
How does a Horse run races the Wrong way? Get near the finish line then make a U-turn becuase he wasnโt done running yet.ย He was also an excellent jumper and swimming horse. Much happier being a trail horse on Clevelandโs Emerald Belt.
How does a St. Bernard hide in a small suburban house? Clever use of the space behind the couches, under the sink and under beds.ย For a 110lb animal, Gretchen was also very quiet and knew to wait until the house was empty to move from hiding spaces or to snitch food off the counters.ย Once her coat grew back in she was willing to be visible again.
The Tarantula Didnโt come fromaย pet store, did it? You know that stereotype about Tarantuals hiding in Bananas? That used to be a real thing that happened when bananas started being regularly available in Postwar mass market grocery stores.ย Not very often, but it did. Grandma found the tarantula in a shipment of Bananas, and being the only non-arachnophobe working in the store, took her home and named herย โCarmen Tarantulaโ after the famous brazilian singer. Geography was not Grandmaโs strong point
Carmen Tarantula lived for 3 years and juding by the extremely blurry polaroid in the family albums, was probably a Brazilian Black.
What do you mean Spooky was an โAlleged Dogโ? Well, for one thing, she Meowed.
Spooky was a 35lb delicate-limbed dog with owl-like pale green eyes and bat-like ears that was solid black save for a white patch on her chest in exactly the shape of Casper The friendly ghost, which was the only part of her visible when she would roam the halls at night, which is how she got the name.
Spooky was living in the house at the same time as Dummy, Son Of Stupid and another more Prototypical cat named Needles.ย Dummy would sometimes forget what he was doing and get lost in the house, causing him to mewl pathetically until one of the humans or animals found and escorted him back to more familiar settings.ย Typically, Needles would meow back at Dummy until she found him.
After three weeks in the house, Spooky could do an astonishingly good Catโs Meow as well.
Spooky could also open doorknobs, get into the attic which didnโt even have a human entrance, would sit up like a human to eat her dinner or watch TV, and had a peculiar penchant for fishing.ย Grandpa and Uncle popeye would regularly take her on fishing trips becuase sheโd gleefully dive into the lakes and finish bringing the catch in, whether it were lake trout or pike or in one case, a strugeon.
Spooky also LOVED tomatoes.ย More than anything else in the world.ย If given a choice between a ribeye and a tomato, Spooky would chose the tomato every time.ย This only applied to raw tomatoes though, she despised ketchup.
So while very much shaped like one, Spooky gave the distinct impression of something else dressed up as a dog.ย Whatever she was, she was a loving and beloved companion to the family for 16 years.
If you enjoyed this story, you can check out my #Family Lore tag on my blog, or you can pre-order copies of the Family Lore Book containing many more stories on my Patreon.ย I am disabled and telling stories online is my primary source of income so if you share these please link back and consider donating to my Ko-Fi or PayPal.ย Thank you all for your support!
DEFINITELY go read the tag. The stories are incredible! I would straight up read an entire book of them. Repeatedly.
And if youโve got a buck to spare, drop it in that tip jar.
Appreciate your taletellers, folks. ๐
Iโve only seen this post in screenshots. My day has been made.
i, too, have only seen this post in screenshotsโฆ.. and the lore about spooky has me thinking: โwhat if it was a spirit of the fae (or something of the like) who came and chilled with your grandparents bc they took in all the injured, unwanted, supposedly unlovable animalsโฆ?โ
Iโve known Gallus was an amazing storyteller with a remarkable family for years, but this is the first time Iโve suspected an ancestral connection to Gerald Durrell.
Yet another epic. :)
I wondered why this was getting notes lol.
Some More animals from my motherโs childhood home:
- Nickel and Dime, the bait fish that lived in a teapot
- Susan, the rat snake
- Susan 2 or โTwosanโ, also a rat snake but may have also been the same rat snake but bigger.
- The cats Smoke and Fire, so named because: 1. They were gray and orange, respectively 2. Fire was blind and navigated the house by following Smoke around, so literally, wherever there was Smoke, thereโs Fire.
- A Goldfinch that moved into the Canaryโs cage after he passed away and it was put outside one day during housecleaning
- A flying squirrel
- After my Grandparents moved to a nursing home, Grandpa had a โpet deerโ that was a wild whitetail buck who would come up to the window of their room for carrots and head skritches, despire everyone telling Grandpa NO!!
- The Woodcock That Lived Under The Oak Tree. several attempts were made to name it but the next time it came up in conversation, everyone forgot what they had agreed to call it, so it became The Woodcock That Lives Under The Oak Tree.
- Romaine, a frog they found in a head of lettuce
- A Cow, briefly
- Apparently Strange The Dog had puppies at some point and they managed to find homes for Weird, Odd, and Bizarre, but they decided to keep Queer, which was a real funny animal to stand in the street calling in for dinner.
- At least 17 Bullfrogs, all named โDogโ
- Skittles the Pony who had a penchant for swimming in the local lake and biting pieces out anyone who wasnโt paying enough attention.
Honorable Mention:
- The first Dog my mom got was โCopsโ a beautiful 120lb purebred German Shepherd who had flunked out of the police K9 academy.
- Cops HAD been doing very well at Bite Training, except that being A Creature of Profound Intellect and Sound Philosophy, Cops had assumed that the purpose of biting was to get the guy who was shouting and behaving aggressively to stop. So the first time he was told to Chase Down A Fleeing Suspect (the guy in the bite suit, sprinting away) Cops correctly decided that the man screaming at him to bite someone who was actively leaving the confrontation must be the aggressor, and promptly bit his handler in the dick.
- Being that he was entirely too morally upstanding for police work, Cops was surrendered to the local animal shelter as my mother arrived to adopt a dog.
- She expressed an interest, was told why he washed out and โHeโs got a mean streak a mile wide- A little lady like you wouldnโt be able to control him.โ
- My mother, 4'11 and the former Ohio State Weight Lifting Champion, looked down at this gentle soul and promptly scooped him up into her arms on his back like an infant, where he was thrilled to remain, tail wagging, for the rest of the adoption process.
- Cops was my motherโs loyal guardian, and largely aloof to politely hostile to nearly every man my mother brought home, which tended to end romantic relationships. Until one night when she brought a former ESL teacher turned computer programmer sheโd been seeing home for a drink and when she came back from the kitchen with the bottle of wine, Cops had climbed into the manโs lap on the couch and rolled on his back while the man goo-gooโd over him like an infant.
- โThatโs when I knew it was serious.โ She told me, much later. โI hadnโt made up my mind about marriage at that point, but I knew I wanted children, and that I wanted him to be your father.โ
โ
Found old photos of some of these!
This is my great grandmother with Spooky the alleged Dog and Dummy, son of Stupid.
This is also my great grandmother (mother of the man who kept bringing animals home) and one of her โpet birdsโ because she would just have wild birds from outdoors decide they wanted to be her friend and just. Land on her hands when she whistled for them.
And this is my Dad with Cops. You can see why his displeasure with Momโs previous suitors tended to put a damper on romance.
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the-gwynedd-chronicals
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artisticnudemengay
lord the peasants are so loud today
pheasants. PHeasants. The birds
Don't you mean classist Typo, as in discriminating against poor people, and not classicist, the type of academic who studies antiquity in southern Europe?
don't worry guys I got the fire extinguisher
Achievement unlocked!
Fire post!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE POST IS ON FIRE
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Not really leaving much up to the imagination
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In 1989, in the midst of a raging storm off the Brittany coast, photographer Jean Guichard circled above the French lighthouse of la Jument (Le Phare de La Jument) in a helicopter, camera in hand to capture the tempest. Hearing the helicopter, keeper Theodore Malgorne came out to investigate but retreated quickly as a huge wave crashed into the lighthouse.
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