Mount Shasta, May 9, 2003: “Because they have beauty, and they’re friendly. And also,” Adrienne told me this morning, “Because they have that … that wildness in them.”

I agree. I think that’s why men generally like dogs. Dogs are friendly and, no matter how domestic, there is a wildness in them. And isn’t that exactly how every man, including myself, wishes to be?

Our dog Tulip is female, but the dog nature is unvarying. And here’s why I like dogs …

Dogs are friendly. Unless you are an intruder, and need to be killed, generally a dog assumes that you are good, that you are likable. So already, we’re off to a good start.

Dogs are enthusiastic. No matter what’s going on, it’s the dog’s favorite. Food? His favorite! The woman comes home? His favorite! The man comes home? His favorite! Play ball? His favorite! Go to the post office? His favorite!

Within their compass, dogs are loyal. Sure, things there are that will make any dog run. Can we say less for ourselves? I think not. But, short that ungovernable terror, the dog is in the game on your side completely, totally, utterly.

Dogs are beautiful. Further, every dog is an athlete. Further, they move with grace. When they grow older, one of the reasons it touches the heart is that we see in them, as we see in ourselves, the loss of grace.

Dogs have a wildness. Domesticated, sure. But civilized? Never. Not now, not later, not ever. They are animals!

And I figure that makes them …

Much more honest than ourselves.

I am reminded of a story. This monk, call him Joshu, always had difficulty being serious like a monk is supposed to be. And so every morning he would wake up and say to himself, “Joshu! Today … be serious!”

And then he would answer, “Yes, sir! Yes, sir!”

Ha, ha, ha! Today is April Food Day! April Food!

Two Bird Cafe, San Geronimo, Mama Day, 2003:

From Tulip the dog and Percy the cat, my dear Adrienne got new sneaks yesterday, and a card today. There was a 37-cent stamp drawn on the envelope. They thought that would make the card look real classy.

Adrienne has breakfasted on Pannatone French Toast, here at Two Bird Cafe, at an outside table, in mottled sunlight through the willow. Tre sportif she is, in green pants and stylish pale yellow sweater. The air is crisp and clear. The waitrii are jumping, the place is packed.

In a moment, since nearby, we briefly visit the Celinas, where the children in jammies come to excite Tulip. Percy has not come with us, pleading a prior appointment with a patch of sun upon the deck.

Did you phone Mom today? If not, don’t you wish you could?

I know I do.

From time to time, I miss that Mogo.

Looky Back: San Francisco 1988. Charlie was a thin gay guy with black hair, manager for a time at Network Answering Service on Geary Boulevard. One day our operator Anita came to work with a small paper bag. Inside a kitty. Someone had abandoned it on the street; she’d found it near the bus stop.

It needed nursing, from a tiny bottle. I did that. But couldn’t really keep another cat at Network. We already had Rosie, who had founded Network, and Cosmo the wild refugee hitchhiker from Mendocino. So Charlie said he’d take her home, and named her Morgan.

Just a few months later …

Charlie got the bug to travel; and, giving away excess possessions, said he had some nice towels for me. He insisted; he arranged that I’d pick them up after he’d gone, a Saturday I think. I showed up at his ex-apartment. His ex-roomate led me in and said, “Here are your towels. And here is your cat.”

Mogo outlived Cosmo, moved from Network to Lyon street, where she and Rosie would block the hall so little Holly had to leap over them to avoid swatting with kitty claws. Mogo outlived Rosie, who just one day wore out, and could walk no more, sweet modest little thing. True of heart Rosie was, and uncomplaining.

Mogo moved to Marin and became a tough trailer-park kitty, where she and the new kid, Percy, formed a gang. Later, becoming genteel, they moved to upscale San Anselmo, and claimed to be members of a literary society. But of course they were just the same gang members.

One day in October 2000, Morgan wasn’t so well. The vet made some tests, gave her a cortizone shot. That day she came up on the deck, and just started talking to me. Talking and talking and talking. That night, for a time she was missing. I searched. Finally Adrienne spotted her. At great leisure, Morgan was rolling around in a patch of moonlight, taking a little moonbath. What a scamp.

But the test result was grim. She became unable to move around much, and lived only a couple more days. I would place her on a pillow near the window, but she lost interest. Finally, one day she went to the vet. Then she was gone.

Durn ol kitty.

Wichita Falls, Texas. Fall, 1970: At 26 I returned to school. The philosophy professor, a thin-veneered communist, resembled Robert Redford’s half-brother sired by John Denver, with round spectacles and curly blond hair.

The reading list covered the Chinese Revolution, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. One day while blondie professor waxed poetic about the “beautiful street language” of Malcolm X, I pointed out that Malcolm hadn’t written the book. Prof was stupified.

I explained. Right on the cover, it said ‘As told to Alex Haley’. That meant Alex Haley was hired to write the book because Malcolm X either wouldn’t or couldn’t write the book. So, beautiful street language? More likely, contrived gutter talk.

Prof was stumped by that. From then on, we weren’t pals. He regarded me with deep suspicion. He knew something was wrong, but not what.

On the other hand, he couldn’t fault me. I did the work, I took the tests, I even showed up at his house when he was showing an italian film called “The Bicycle Thief.”

Now this is great cinema, about a little boy whose factory-worker father’s bicycle was stolen one day. The father couldn’t get to work so he was fired. He fell on hard times and things went from bad to worse. One day, maddened, the father stole a bicycle and peddled away, but was caught and hauled off the bicycle by an indignant mob who dragged him off to the police and jail, as the boy watched.

Of course, it was just more grist for our Communist education. I didn’t much care, because I’d written a paper in high school called ‘Altruism and the Communist Manifesto’.

That sounds very grand, but my step-father had bought Brittanica books with many old and famous writers, and my papers had taken a turn for the learned. Since I knew everything in the world about Altrusim, I wasn’t buying it. I was a big flop as a Communist.

However, I got my grade, as needed. I graduated, and moved on to graduate study at San Francisco State.

A few years later, in North Beach, one Sunday I walked to the park on Columbus, to hear the free music and soak in the sun. I was sprawled on the grass, when, looking to my right, there was blondie professor.

“Well, hello,” I said.

He seemed very surprised to see me. He was visiting, and wasn’t San Francisco wonderful. Asked me how I happened to be visiting. I said I lived around the corner.

Blondie was clearly disappointed. Somehow, I had stolen something from him, just by being there. Some magic or enchantment evaporated. It showed in his face, or in a pause of speech. The conversation languished. Soon he stood up and said he had to go.

I never saw him again.

That’s what wrong with these Communists. They fade in the home stretch.

Henrietta, Texas. Summer, 1956. My cousin Dan and I were helping my grandfather, Frank Hurn, on his farm near Hurnville, named after his father. He’d just had the hay baled.

I don’t know how it’s done; some machine cuts the grasses, and packs them into large rectangles. Somehow two wires are fastened around. Now you’ve got these large rectangles of bound hay. Heavy rectangles of bound hay.

Stern-faced, my grandfather had the tractor pulling a flat-bed wagon. Our job was to pick up the bales and heave them onto the wagon. Once loaded, some went to the animal’s shed for storage. The rest we stacked in one corner of the west field, because every farm must have a haystack.

In the hot, Texas summer, the straw hat helps, but not much. The fine splinters of hay work up your sleeves and down your collar, stinging like needles.

I thought we were doing a great job. My grandfather, usually taciturn, said little. My cousin and I worked and chattered, sweated, chattered and worked.

A cloud floated lazily across the sky. The patch of shade gliding across the field toward us, and then- Heaven! Oh, that felt good.

But now it’s gone, and the sun like a hammer. Even through the tough leather gloves, the wires dig into the fingers, and even teen muscles ache. A slow, hot afternoon.

Finally it was done.

We boys rode back on the empty wagon, bone-jarring on its metal-bound wooden wheels. Oh, it felt good!

At the feedlot, using the metal dipper that hung from the fence, we took deep drinks from the horse trough. My grandfather went last. I pushed my hat back, an old ranch hand.

“So how did we do?” I asked him.

He finished his drink of water, and thought a while. He said, “One boy is half a man. Two boys is half a boy.” He paused. “And three boys is no boy at all.”

In consternation, we looked at each other.

He went on. “You did pretty good.”

He looked off into the distance, far away. There may have been a faint trace of a smile there.