Ol' Duke

I had a few moments today as I waited on Jilda to finish getting ready to hit the road on our errands. We'd planned to get a Christmas tree today, but we ran out of time and decided to bump that until tomorrow. 

But I sat down to scan the blogs I follow for updates and I ran across one profile of a woman and her German Shepherd. This was a beautiful animal and it reminded me of the first dog Jilda and I got after we married. 
He was a magnificent animal named Duke. I was helping her dad do a plumbing job during the summer of 1974. Duke live at the house where we were working, but he took an immediate liking to me. He made every step I made all day long.
I sat out in the yard playing with Ol' Duke as we waited for the lady to write us a check for our work.  
Jilda's dad was having fun at my expense when he said "I think that lady's is going to give you that dog." I looked up in total surprise and said, "are you kidding!" 
She happened to be within earshot and heard him say what he said.
"Actually," she said, "we have a new baby and we were thinking about getting rid of the dog." She called her husband at work, and a few minutes later, the dog was mine.
I opened the tailgate and Ol' Duke hopped in, and he never looked back.
On the way home, I went by the store where Jilda worked and Ol' Duke sat out on the sidewalk while I ran in to fetch her. It was love at first sight.
We took that dog with us on all of our vacations. He went to the beach, the mountains, and even rode seventeen hours in the cramped cab of our Datsun truck when we drove to Michigan to visit one of my Army buddies.
We kept him thirteen years and when he died, we both cried as if we'd lost a child.
I hope the woman in the blog I read today, loves her dog half as much as we loved Ol' Duke.