Articles

By: Mike Luther

Here's my offering.

Toby was a Russian sled dog born in Siberia, Not a Husky at all, huge, close to the hundred pound mark, he arrived in Alaska as a "Thank-you!" present. A KL7 Alaskan ham operator I'd worked on CW as a high school kid named Bill, had, as an Air Force guy, been crucial in rescuing a Russian in a not-so-little trans-border mercy flight mission done for a stranded Russian sled team and driver. Not many folks realize these things did happen between us and them. They aren't well known, but they do! Toby, the lead dog for the man's team arrived in Alaska .. with the rescued Rusky and remained.. a "Thank you!", for Bill.

Bill arrived in Texas as an escort to an air force buddy, an Aggie, a comm guy who skinned a phone pole, was filled with creosote splinters and later died in the deal. In addition to their world-wide Air Force burn center duties at San Antonio, it seems the unit there also was the 'directed' vector world-wide for pole cases! For whatever reason, Bill came back to go to Texas A&M and Toby came with him to Texas.

Texas A&M refused to let Toby stay in student housing just across from where the Bonfire fell. With a great deal of emotion, Bill called me. I got Toby. Toby was told to go in the hand-over. I never asked my Dad, I just brought him home. I think the dog knew exactly what was happening. Bill gave me a can of dog food to take with me, "Just give him the unopened can to keep him occupied. He'll know what to do and who you are."

Mikey puts Toby in back yard, does as instructed. Toby takes the unopened dog food can mouth, looks curiously at me, then lays down chewing the can, very deftly and carefully. Hours later, the can has been chewed open, all the contents squished out of it. Toby has been occupied, now knows where home is and who is supposed to be the boss. Dad came home, found the dog and the can. There were no questions asked. Bill later said, "His original owner did that to the dogs to keep them occupied in the lonely missions and bond them."

Some dog indeed. Curious dog. He couldn't even bark, howled - mostly wolf, at the passing Sunbeam, the fire trucks. NO other dog ever even approached him; period. Yes, indeed, Toby was just about single-handedly responsible for the College Station leash law that later followed him. We won't dwell on his taste for chicken, or his roaming range, pre-leash law. I biked it; he hiked it. Dad paid for the difference in more ways than one, but Toby stayed. Dad never once complained about the cost. Once passed, it was Toby's territory.

He was a marvelous strange companion dog. Especially at the private rifle range. A queerly-configured left-over bell shaped piece of waste land, just across from what is now the useless Texas World Speedway, the front mouth of the bell was what you drove into. The long skinny handle was the range, a full 500 yard affair. No spotting scope allowed. You may use the 300 H&H with the Bausch and Lomb optics for the loads you put up last week Mike, but you and Toby have to walk to bring back the 3 inch group. I learned quickly why dogs are prized up North!

Years later, Toby appeared with a virus thought only to be in the guard dogs from Viet-Nam! He became case-of-the-month at Vet school, the first known appearance of it in the USA, somehow. He eventually weakened and died. But he finally, in some curious half-hearted way, did learn to partly bark from the rest of the dogs in the Vet School during his confinement there!

You know, it sometimes takes us a major shift in our perspective about things, to realize what is going on all around us we never noticed before! During this curious, "I'm finally learning to bark!", syndrome, I suddenly realized Toby had a HUGE collection of sounds in a vocabulary I had never noticed before! Years later I've learned from what I have read, but once was right in the middle of and never noticed, that wolves have one one the largest animal vocabularies we know about, for those who've found it out - and listened! He'd been trying to tell me lots more all along, to which I was never listening.

Fido is like that and yes, the word play is intended here.

So, Toby was buried not far from the right side of the bench rest. There is a reason for the phrase "Right Hand Man", for those of you who know the medieval European origin of the phrase. A whole group of descendant offspring and cross-breed dogs within our family, focused mainly on the follow-on Siberian Huskies we acquired, are there with him. You are allowed to bury privately in Texas.

Only once, at the peak of the sunspot cycle, did he ever get to see the Northern lights from Texas.

Dr. Zeller, the bachelor sanitation engineer for Texas A&M who actually owned the range, died long ago. The parcel remained, for a while as a range, but lay fallow for a long time until .. lights began to appear on it at Christmas time! It is now "Santa's Wonderland!" Today, thousands of visitors take the annual tour which featured, this year, over 1.750,000 lights of a fantasy-land that fascinates children, older children, and especially the oldest children of all, the ones from the nursing homes for miles around.

Most folks know nothing about Toby in relationship to the place. But I often wonder if he thinks the lights above him are just for him, a reminder of the cold Northern Lights that covered him when he was just a puppy?

Perhaps they keep him warm.

Mike @ 1:117/3001