{"id":5585,"date":"2022-11-30T20:08:32","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T01:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5585"},"modified":"2022-12-06T20:37:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T01:37:33","slug":"golden-doodle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5585","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGolden Doodle\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

B<\/em><\/strong>acon <\/em><\/strong>S<\/em><\/strong>crapins \u2013 <\/em><\/strong>\u201cGolden Doodle\u201d<\/h3>\n

by Barry S. Wolfe<\/p>\n

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the nutrition needs searching for. This tale is <\/em>a bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

BBQ banter. You never know where you\u2019ll end up.<\/p>\n

Our wives were inside. The three of us were standing around, for probably the season\u2019s last BBQ on the back patio. Chilled brown bottles in hand, meat piled on a plate, waiting for the temperature to reach optimum. Louis\u2019 puppy was stretched out on the patio stones, soaking up the last of the day\u2019s heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouis,\u201d Hank asked, \u201cwhat\u2019s the dog\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pure-bred cross between a golden retriever and a poodle \u2013 a Golden Doodle. My wife paid big bucks for the little guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cName?\u201d added Hank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe breeders give them long descriptive names, for registration, with the name of the kennel, the sire, and the dame, and then a name for the \u2018out-pup\u2019. They named this one something, something, something, \u2018Doubloon\u2019. Doubloon is for its colour, like a gold coin. When we get the registration papers, I\u2019ll be able to tell you exactly. In any case, the long name says what the breeding means.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLouis,\u201d said Hank, \u201cmy full name is Hendrick. To my parents, that says what it means. But everyone calls me \u2018Hank\u2019. \u2018because that means what it says. What do you mean when you call it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call him \u2018Loonie\u2019.\u201d The pup raised its head slightly and went back to snoozing. \u201cHe\u2019s a crossbreed, and somewhere back in its gene pool, something got skipped, so he\u2019s not the brightest match in the box. Not smart enough to rank as a doubloon, and a little bit dim, so we call him \u2018Loonie\u2019 \u2013 worth a little less but still valuable to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louis then scowled, paused and changed the subject, \u201cHave your grandkids had any trouble on the playground at school?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by trouble?\u201d, inquired Hank.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, fitting in. My son\u2019s two are in grades 2 and 3 and they seem to be shunned by the bigger group of kids.\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cShunned? At school? Shunned how?\u201d I probed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other kids don\u2019t play with them on the playground. The others just run around and chatter in their own language. My grandkids can\u2019t understand them, even though they speak English in the classroom with the teachers.\u201d Louis complained. \u201cThey have a closed group and don\u2019t let others join in. There are so many of them that they have taken over the playground – in our own community.\u201d he finished with a scowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur own<\/em> community?\u201d Hank asked with a raised eyebrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Our own<\/em> community. We were here first. Not long ago, everybody got along, but with this big influx in the last few years the new ones have taken over in numbers. Our kids are a minority of the mix in our own community<\/em>.\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

I looked at Louis. \u201cHere first<\/em>? Our own<\/em> community? Scientists say the oldest human fossils, so far, were found near Morocco, north Africa. They\u2019re about 300,000 years old. Everybody, all of us, started out there they say, and then we spread out in all directions, all over the globe. The scientists say humans eventually wandered over here across a land bridge between Asia and Alaska, following the caribou.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018first<\/em>\u2019 folks here are long gone. It seems we replace each other over time, don\u2019t we? One group occupies a region, then the next one, and so on. We can occupy or own<\/em> a parcel of land for a short time, but maybe there really isn\u2019t any ours<\/em> or theirs<\/em> for very long?\u201d<\/p>\n

They both gave me \u2018the look\u2019. The \u2018What the heck, smart-Alec?\u2019 look. I shrugged, \u201cJust sayin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just then Louis\u2019s Golden Doodle jumped up from the stones and started barking at us, its front paws down and rear end up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s with the dog, Louis?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoonie! Quiet Loonie!\u201d Louis warned the dog. \u201cLoonie means well, but he sometimes has trouble being friends with folks. You have to be calm, patient and non-threatening with him at first. Toss a small ball back and forth and he\u2019ll play along. Invite him to come closer. Just talk gently to him. He\u2019ll settle in soon enough.\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Hank chuckled and said, \u201cMaybe, we should advise our kids to do the same at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took a swallow and started loading the meat onto the BBQ.<\/p>\n

Characters in these tales are fictional.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>You may email appropriate comments for the writer to thisiswilmot@gmail.com<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins \u2013 \u201cGolden Doodle\u201d by Barry S. Wolfe Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the nutrition needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. BBQ banter. You never know where you\u2019ll end up. Our wives were inside. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5585","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5585"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5600,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5585\/revisions\/5600"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}