Endless Summer: Dog Days

I left the campground Thursday morning and arrived at Matty's around 7:30am. I thought that Matty would be leaving for work, his office is at Grace Lutheran, and I would just hang out at his place, do some work and then tour the town. Instead he was “ordered” to take me to breakfast at Joey’s. If you ever go to Rural Retreat, go to Joey’s. You’ll meet all the important people in town, and they have great breakfast with silly names at great prices. Not that the prices mattered. Pastor Jonathan was sitting in a corner when we got there. We didn’t sit with him because he had his laptop out, but when it came time to pay for our meal (Matty was going to pay for mine, too.) we suddenly had no check. The waitress just shook her head, and said, “don’t worry about it!”

“Are you responsible for this no charge for breakfast nonsense” I asked Pastor Jonathan once he was within hearing range out in the parking lot. He said, “no,” I said, “thank you,” and we left.

Back at Matt’s the lack of sleep and a full stomach took hold but I first had to find a place for this dog. It took the amount of footwork I hadn’t done since my days of beat reporting in college. Phone call after phone call I would get leads on who to call. Did you know that in Virginia it is legal for government dog pounds to euthanize after just 7 days? If you’re a dog lucky enough to be running lose while wearing a color they’ll be so kind as to let you life for at least 10 days. No one could help me! The pound would put him down, and the SPCA and Human Society of the area lack any sort of holding facilities. Thank God I’m from Maryland. My girl Selah had been in the Anne Arundel Co pound for 18 days already and was about to be the featured pet of the week. If in Virginia, she’d be dead.

Well, God bless him, instead of working at his office, Matty was sending out emails to the prayer circles and making phone calls, all in an attempt to find a home for this dog that I’d brought to his doorstep. I was so excited to hear that a woman from Grace named Louise had agreed to take him in for a few days (the dog, not Matty) while the Human Society tried to find him a home. I took Buster, as Louise called him, (“Loose” was Matty’s idea but I decided it sounded like he was sexually promiscuous) to Louise’s house. I made it back to Matty’s and fell asleep immediately. 20 minutes later he called to see if I wanted lunch. I said no, and passed out again.

I slept for a good long time. It felt great. I hadn’t been able to sleep in the middle of the day, and with no alarm clock, in a very long time.

Pastor Jonathan invited us over to his new house for dinner. They hadn’t moved in yet, but his kids got a kick out of showing me around the place. Its on the top of a mountain surrounded by much acreage where their goats and chickens have already been living. I played with the kids, more so than Matty and Felici. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention. I had no idea until that night but Jason Felici, another seminarian on internship, is serving in Wytheville, Va. Since he is just 10 minutes up the road he joined us for dinner. After having a pleasant time at Pastor Jonathan's, Matty took us on a whirlwind tour of little Lutheran churches in the area. Some were one’s he was serving, others were closed. I love the architecture of old churches and one of them in particular I would love to convert into a home. We made it back to Matty’s wasted our time catching up for a bit and then called it a night. It was an exhausting day of raised blood pressure between getting angry over euthanization laws and playing with four never tiring children. I got a good night’s sleep. I had to. The next day meant driving to Chattanooga and getting ready for Mike and Elizabeth’s wedding!