I received a message from Classmates.com, to get on Facebook.com from an old friend from seminary. (Thanks Paul!) When I got on Facebook, he mentioned that another friend from Seminary had posted some pictures from his stay with the Oblates. So off I went to make sure there were NO pictures of me with derogatory statements or participating in illegal activities! (NOT that I would ever have done any!) Thank god I was behind the camera a lot (I was the historian and photo taker for most events, really). Thanks David for NOT having any pictures of me posted.
David had a picture there (which without permission I downloaded and have now up loaded here) of Joey. Joey was a mutt of a mutt dog. You could not have asked for a more faithful and loving dog. He was great. Whenever you took off down the Mount in Loomis, Joey was with you. Every day Br. Vincent Paletta (see my March 21, 2007 post on Brother Vince) would take a walk down the "hill" and walk down to the stop sign and back. Br. Vince swore that it was Joey who saved every tree on that hill in the drought we had in the late 70's. Joey would stop at almost every tree and leave his "mark". When we were in chapel, Joey was right outside the door on the mat, waiting for us. He never came into the chapel, even if the door was open. At nights when we would watch Saturday Night Live (the first cast!) he would lay in the TV room under the coffee table and sleep. When it was time to go to bed, he would lead us out and take his place on a bench outside where he would sleep. I remember Fr. John Keehan, when it was really cold, would allow him to sleep in the front office of his room. But 90% of the time, Joey was outside and "free" to go and come as he please.
In the spring, when the time was right, Joey would be gone for 2-3 days. Seems he had a girl friend he would visit annually. Bro Vince would say he was, "Down at the pool hall with the boys.", and sure enough, he would be back for the rest of the year in a few days time. It was after one of these "nights out with the guys" actually it was a bit more than a few nights, it was almost a week, Joey came back. I saw him walking up the stairs onto the front walk and he looked skinny and beat. From the other side, which I could not see, he was covered in mud and blood. He had been hit by a shotgun and had laid in mud for a few days before making it home. We took him to the vet, and being a "country" vet, he said very quickly, "I will take care of him this time, but the next time I will put him down." What it was, is simple. Joey was chasing either livestock or chickens and a local "farmer" had tried to spare his herd or flock. The vet would not or could not allow a dog to be running about doing that.
It wasn't Joey's first visit to the vet either, he had been there before after his first encounter with a porcupine. Having never seen one, he went up to it, sniffed and then tried to bite. Needless to say it was painful. They put him out and pulled all the quills from inside and outside of his mouth. It was the LAST time he ever did that. There was also the time we were down at the canal working around the pump house or gathering blackberries (my memory fails me why we were there) and Joey took off in the blackberry bushes only to come RUNNING out faster than he had gone into them. A few seconds later we knew what he had seen as the scent of skunk waifed in our direction. Good thing Joey was fast, the skunk missed him and he only had a "slight" oder attached to him for a week or so.
After the shooting however, Joey stayed close to home. He would go with us for walks, but not on his own. A year or so passed and Joey wasn't there one morning. The old, "He's off to the pool hall" lines were said, and we waited. Joey didn't come back. We never saw him again, and this is the only photograph of him that I have now. Thanks for posting this David. It brought back a lot of happy memories and the people who surrounded me at that time.
Oh..the name "Zukalator" was one of a few nick names that Brother Vincent gave to Joey. There was Zuk, Zukey, Zukalator and "The Zuk". I believe he took the name from zucchini, of which thanks to Brother Baldi we had a LOT. Again, the picture is from David (and it is scanned) but here is Joey.
