All Hallows

The neighborhood’s most startling Halloween tableau this year occasioned me genuine alarm.  Walking the dog, one foggy morning this week, I saw ahead of us a car where it didn’t belong:  partly in the street and partly angled up over the curb on the lawn extension.  I hurried to see if anyone needed help.  When we got there, I saw it was, alas, far too late for help.  The nose of the car was up against a tree, and sprawled back over the hood was . . . a skeleton!  More than a bit macabre, unquestionably creative.  Another life-sized—so to speak–skeleton at another house was, by contrast, carefree.  It was enjoying a ride on the swing of a swing set that had been set up rakishly in the front yard and strung with purple lights.  This tableau was also quite good in the fog.

     My husband and I went to the Yankee Air Museum again last night, for another of the museum’s monthly presentations.  Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Beverly Weintraub spoke to us about what she’d learned about the Navy’s first women pilots while researching her recent book about them, Wings of Gold.  The first six of these women led the way for others, starting in the early 1970s.  Female Navy fliers still don’t have the opportunities male fliers have, but they’re coming closer.

     Everywhere the first women Navy pilots went and everything they did was a “first” and, as such, generated publicity, which the Navy liked.  Weintraub did not focus on how the women felt about story angles such as how the pockets in their flight suits might accommodate “feminine gear,” such as makeup.  Or about a photograph of one of the high-achieving young women in stylish civilian clothes, captioned, “The Shape of Things to Come.” 

     The very first of the women to win her Golden Wings from the Navy, Rosemary Mariner, died in 2019.  In her honor, eight young women Navy pilots flew the Navy’s first all-woman Missing Man Flyover.  They praised the work of those pioneering Navy fliers, and they praised the women who flew as Women Airforce Service Pilots—WASP—during World War II.  That corps was disbanded in the last months of the war.

     People don’t do missing dog flyovers for dogs.  Dogs aren’t people.  They can, however, be pretty wonderful, and keenly missed when they die.  My friend Sue’s border collie Tesla was the best dog I’ve ever known.  Tesla died suddenly about six weeks ago.  Her body was full of cancer.  No one knew.  She’d never complained.  She’d just carried on, in her good-natured way, until she couldn’t.

     Although she had, when warranted, demonstrated her willingness to protect Sue from harm, Tesla was predisposed to like everyone she met.  She was, moreover, completely nuts about children.  When Sue granted Tesla permission to approach children, the dog would hurry toward them, then drop to her belly and crawl the rest of the way.  “See how approachable and nonthreatening I am?” you could hear her thinking.  “You want to pet me, don’t you?  What a good idea.”

     And, whooee, was she smart.  One day Sue’s husband brought home a new toy for Tesla and, in the dog’s absence, buried it in the toy basket.  When he saw Tesla, he asked her for the new toy, by name.  This puzzled her some.  Then she removed the contents of the basket, item by item, until she came to the toy whose word she didn’t know.  Which, ergo, must be what was required.  She dropped the requested item triumphantly at her master’s feet.

     There are so many Tesla stories.  That dog was loved, and Sue is loved.  Adults are still sending her cards.  Children made their own or drew pictures.  Everyone is sad that Tesla died, and everyone is sad for Sue.  The outpouring of sympathy has come as a great surprise to my friend.  It even, to some extent, buoyed her up.

     As has her new dog, Vesta.  When Tesla died, various of Sue’s friends, including me, busied themselves on line trying to find her a new dog.  (This was before Sue had even decided she needed one.)  Vesta is one of those dogs.  She is a Shetland sheepdog, a Sheltie.  A family had her for two years, loved her dearly, and needed to find her a new home.  Now she has one.

     It’s early days yet.  Vesta’s orientation to her new place in the world is ongoing, so Sue doesn’t really know what the dog’s personality will be.  This much is already clear:  Vesta is predisposed to like everyone she meets.  And Shelties are wicked smart.

4 November 2022