Recess: Going to the Dogs

I have a number of ways to decompress after an intense rehearsal, or after dealing with a crying child, or when I need to come up with an idea to fix an onstage traffic jam. I take a yoga class, or meditate, or take a long walk with the dog.

On our route we can count on specific houses where dogs will go berserk as we amble by.


There's the white poodle yapping a mile a minute while fiercely pawing the living room window.

There's a furry bundle of...something...running wildly across the yard behind a picket fence, all the while barking in a frenzy as if grenades were in the offing.

There's that tough-guy Doberman throwing himself against iron gates to get at us.


My favorites are the little dogs on leashes. They tug, snarl and yelp to get to us.

Our dog weighs seventy-five pounds, he's twelve years old and in his dotage. The little dogs do not know they are little. They act as if they could take on a big dog and reduce it to smithereens.

Little children are the same. I like it when an eight-year-old tells me about when he was "a little kid."

"I was so dumb when I was little, I didn't know anything." Or "When I was a little kid I thought...."

That's as it should be. We don’t know when we're little, or young, or naive.

If we knew all that, we couldn't keep going. We wouldn't keep fighting. We'd back away from the bigger and the older and we'd get nowhere fast.

Woof!

CHILDREN'S WRITES: A Journal Entry

My most disire is to be King. I want to have a normal family. And be ritch. I would want to be all ways loved and rule a very wide land. I want to be a good King.

—Oliver, 4th grade

painting by Cindy Hall