San Francisco, 1977: Last Fall, after I’d started Network Answering Service in my studio apartment at 495 Third Avenue, the company began slowly to grow. I’d hired Bob, first just to relieve me, but as clients increased eventually I had to increase his hours, and then we began hiring Operators, which we called “OPs.”

During that same time, Doug Faunt wired up my new Cromemco computer, and I wrote a new bookkeeping program, for sending out the bills to this growing number of customers. One of my OPs named Hugh, a lanky jazz pianist, came in all excited about a dream he’d had, in which our Cromemco computer was called “Mr. Suitcase.” And from then on, Hugh insisted on referring to the computer as Mr. Suitcase. Soon everybody called the computer Mr. Suitcase.

And before long, I needed to hire a bookkeeper to operate Mr. Suitcase and my new bookkeeping program.

When we advertised, in walked Pankaj.

He was a young man, dark and serious, from India. He seemed a bit apologetic and uncertain in the rough humor from Texas and Tennessee with which Bob and I taught him the job. Pankaj was an accounting student, sent by his father to get a degree in America, because, he said, “you get the better job if you have a degree from the United States.”

The odd thing to me and Bob, thinking it over, was that he was attending a tiny trade school then located on Masonic Boulevard, called Lincoln University. It had about three buildings. The main building might have been a large restored victorian, or even a converted mortuary. We couldn’t imagine that the school had more than a few hundred students. So what would be so prestigeous about attending a small trade school in San Francisco?

Pankaj did just fine with Mr. Suitcase, and had no difficulty with the bookkeeping. He was by nature incurious, somewhat passive, and a bit gullible to the stories clients told, but he grasped the concept that his job was to make the money come in, and did his best with collections, though being pushy made him nervous. He lived with two other Indian students, in a dump in the tenderloin area, which is a rough part of downtown frequented by hookers, pushers, hoodlums, and the eternal poor.

We found Pankaj a bit mysterious. For example, he always fasted on Tuesdays. When asked why, he said evasively that it was a religious thing, that he’d always done it. On certain days, his forehead broke into beads of sweat, as if he suffered fevers.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

His full name was Pankaj Sewal, and given our egalitarian presumptions we therefore called him Pankaj. We told him to call us Bob and Richard (my name before I changed it), but the closest he could bring himself was to call us “Mr. Bob” and “Mr. Richard.” Soon, we also called each other Mr. Bob and Mr. Richard.

Finally, one day Mr. Bob asked him why he’d gone to all the trouble to come to this side of the planet to attend Lincoln University. Pankaj smiled ruefully.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “You see, there is another Lincoln University, and it is a famous school, very prestigious. My father intended that I go there.

“But when I applied, I got the wrong school, and sent off my application to San Francisco. Then, when I got here, I saw that it was the wrong school, but what could I do?

“When my father finds out,” he said mournfully, “I don’t know what he’ll do.”

June 10, 2004, but thinking back to Henrietta, Texas in 1960: My basement hippy pad had three walls painted a cool blue, and the fourth a burnt orange color. I’d painted them myself.

Then, Donny Burkman and I had made paintings

of abstract art by the simple expedient of floating oil-based paints atop the water in the bathtub, and dragging large cardboard through the oils. Donny and I were considerably happier with this art than was my mother, whose bathtub we’d used.

The first appeal of my basement hippy pad was that it was not in the house, so teen angst and sensibility were hidden, as is proper. Gone to ground, you might say.

The second appeal was that I could listen to records without comments or volume requests, as is cool, man.

Ray Charles and the Raylettes were a favorite. Boy, didn’t they shake that thing?

Ray today, gone tomorrow.

Ray Charles died today. Damn! First Miles, now Ray.

What’d I say?

San Anselmo, 1994: Adrienne’s border collie Tulip showed no signs of slowing down as she matured. Three trips daily to the Port Isabel dog park wasn’t enough.

After her Chinese landlord said dog goes or move, in Adrienne’s new apartment, the Danish landlord was cool, but the loony tenant downstairs first harassed Tulip in the yard, and then complained when she barked at him. Phone calls went round and round.

Moving again. To a house in San Anselmo. It had no yard, but it was quiet, though that would change later.

But still, what to do with the bouncing, energetic Tulip?

Adrienne pondered again and again. She says she wept at night for nine months, worrying how to give the dog the exercise, while working at the Larkspur vegan cafe, The Garden of Eatin’. Somehow, the answer came to her.

Adrienne’s All-Weather Dog-Walking.

Since she had to go a-walking with Tulip, why not take other dogs, too? (Why does this remind me of The Thumbtack Bugle early days?)

I was tapped to design a poster, something I’ve done in my postering days. I chose a deco woman in silhouette, dancing along, followed by four dancing dogs. Best poster I’ve ever done. Damn it was good!

And stapled outside College of Marin and Woodlands Market, it found customers immediately. They called into Adrienne’s new voicemail number. “Hi,” it said, “This is Adrienne of Adrienn’e All-Weather Dog-Walking Serivce. We offer …”

At first, timid, Adrienne said she’d walk one dog at a time. That would give them more individual attention, she said. After a few months, reason prevailed. She discovered that she could handle two to four dogs at a time. By a strange coincidence, that’s how many would fit into her car.

In the beginning, Tulip, a herding dog by nature, fit right in. She herded the dogs into the car, played them to exhaustion at the park, then herded them home.

After a few years, Tulip’s puppy nature matured, and as she grew beyond the need for day-long exercise, she became more alpha, tougher, more aggressive, and finally Adrienne could no longer trust Tulip not to fight at the dog park.

The dog business went on, now Adrienne’s bread and butter. Six months had put her full-time into walking dogs. Her heart easily ran to dogs over tofu pups, and the cafe job was left behind.

So now the dog business, started so she could spend her days with Tulip, went on … but without Tulip.

Adrienne and I lived then in San Anselmo, and I took Tulip to the office with me. On went the dog business; Tulip stayed behind, assisting me with the voicemail business.

Early in the morning, before work, Adrienne walked with Tulip, in the early light. Late in the afternoon, as the light waned, after her long day walking the dogs, Adrienne walked Tulip.

Oh, Adrienne tried various strategems to get me to walk Tulip. How it would be good for me. How it would give me a break. Few worked. Fact is, I did have other things to occupy my time.

Over several years, as Adrienne began to feel the wear from the walking, driving in smog, trying to get around road crews and traffic and contractors, and time as a constant pressure, the bloom wore off the business. She loved the dogs, loved to spend time with them, had a special touch with them. But she was getting tired. It was wearing.

I told her we were moving. She didn’t believe me, was all surprised when it came time to advise the clients: she was leaving. So long to her puppies of all these years. So long to the clients. So long to the friends in the early-morning dog park. So long to Adrienne’s All-Weather Dog-Walking service.

Now, she walks in the mornings. Our new dog, Lizzie, and ever faithful Tulip, walk beside her.

There they go.

Spring in Mount Shasta, 2004: More than anyplace I’ve lived, the seasons here arrive with a flourish. In our yard, the pear tree already sports thick white blossoms in the chill early air. The sunlight peeps over the mountain and slants down into our back yard.

The apple tree sprouts tiny pink flowers above the deck, the birch on the corner shapes itself into a shower of green, and the lilac outside the big window grows leaves and white blossoms as you watch. Time flows. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.

Spring. And I’m 60 today.

My life looks like seasons now.

This morning Kyle and Jeremy arrived at 7:30 up to the front door, alarming Lizzie most wonderfully. They’re stringing tough networking cable from my office by the garage. Under the grass, beneath the earth and around the side of the house, to include Adrienne’s computer. She’s building her Bandana Canyon website to sell bandanas, dog toys, and K-9 cookies.

SEASONS IN LIFE
Kyle and Jeremy are around 23. When you’re a guy at 23, you’re starting to know stuff about the world. You just get stronger and stronger, up to about 35, coming into your power. Your power in the world continues to grow till at least 45, but your bounce and energy level off, and perhaps begin to fade. Now, at 60, I’m starting to have some creaks. Moving more carefully.

You get smarter. But I’ve heard it said, and believe it true, that it’s amazing how much ‘Mature Wisdom’ resembles just being tired.

I’m not tired yet, but I can see how it might come to pass.

Some day.

Oakland, CA 1976: I sped over the Bay Bridge on my shiny Yamaha motorcycle, very sportif in my brown motorcycle jacket, jeans, and high boots. I needed to register my Thumbtack Bugle business name in the East Bay.

I found the Oakland courthouse perched between one-way streets, and wrapped inside a freeway exit. It was kind of hard to get there from here, if you know what I mean, but I wrestled the motorcycle around in the parking lot after a couple of wrong turns, and pulled out onto the street, and at just that moment a city bus swept down from the freeway.

No problem for active me.

I swooped myself and motorcycle over a traffic island, and let him pass, then pulled out in his slipstream.

At the red light, I pulled up into the left lane, and the driver, sitting behind the open window just above me, grinned down at my quick maneuver. I grinned back.

“Do you get the same points for someone driving a car as for a pedestrian?” I asked him.

“Naw!” he said, “We get higher points for pedestrians, but you guys on motorcycles, you’re quick! So you’re worth three extra points.”

Mount Shasta: Our border collie Tulip is reaching the end of her life.

A year ago, tests said kidney failure. Normally, this never improves. In Adrienne’s dog-walking days, one of Adrienne’s dogs died this way. It’s not good. Tulip has lost weight, from 63 pounds down to 46. She’s thin and wobbles unsteadily, as her muscle mass fades away, her body trying to survive.

Clearly she’s uncomfortable, sometimes unable to lie at rest, shivering, weak. She’s eleven years old. Somehow we thought she’d be long-lived, reaching fifteen or sixteen. But no, it seems not.

We’ve known this day was coming.

Adrienne says she cannot imagine what life would be like, without Tulip. Tulip has been part and parcel of our lives, day in and day out, for the last eleven years. We’ve grown older, and along with us, she has grown from gangly puppy to a magnificent mature animal and now she diminishes toward that silent and eternal night, growing thinner and more frail.

Her eyes are not as clear as once, but her heart is loving as always. More these days, she comes to us for comfort, placing her head against us, waiting to be petted, waiting for us to caress her smooth fur, because we love her.

A border collie is a long-haired dog. For years, we find long black hairs blowing around the house. They gather into dust bunnies beneath the furniture, and crouch in the corners. It is difficult to prepare a meal without at least one black hair appearing as if by magic in the skillet, among the vegetables, or upon the plate. We’ve grown used to them.

Recently, since Lizzie came to live with us, with two long-haired dogs, the drifting fur has accellerated till it was making Adrienne crazy. She sent Lizzie to the groomer and had her shorn. Lizzie came back with a crew cut, looking very different, and the fur diminished.

So a few weeks ago, Tulip also went to a groomer, for the first time. She came back shorn and looking so thin, but the drifting hairs have almost vanished around our house. Then Tulip became weak and troubled, and the vet said her kidneys are failing badly. They’ve kept her the last three nights, feeding her fluids and medicines, in hopes that the flush will give her a few more weeks or months of life.

We’ve visited each day. She seems stronger, but so unhappy to be left there. She’s a good dog, but she so wants to come home with us. As we leave, she calls to us.

If we are lucky, tomorrow her new tests will say that she can come home again. If we are lucky, then she will be with us for some weeks, or some months.

Coming home, we ate at the Black Bear diner, and during the meal, on my plate suddenly there appeared a small black hair, falling from sleeve.

“Look,” I said, “One of Tulip’s hairs has got in the food again.” Adrienne looked at me, tears welling in her eyes. Her voice caught.

She said, “I wish they always would.”

McCloud, California: Today I knocked off building megatars early, and went home for a rest and a bath, because I’m being taken to dinner on the train!

McCloud is a former mill town, ten miles around on the south side of the mountain. Very scenic it is, and at the depot we checked in and got large tickets. After a spell of sitting and watching the other passengers milling around, the conductor came along calling “All aboard!”

The dining cars have names, like Trinity, Lassen, Shasta, and Siskiyou. Although in railroad tradition, parties of two may be combined with other parties, Adrienne had arranged a private table for two in the Lassen car. We entered past the galley, where lanky young chefs were preparing the first course. In the car proper, the interior was dark and polished mahogany, with carved shapes to decorate and fit the curve of the car, and old-fashioned light fixtures.

Our table had streamers and confetti and sparklers of stars and birthday cakes, saying Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday! Tre festif!

The couple across the way wished me Happy Birthday, and, seeing that their table had the same decorations, we wished them Happy Birthday as well, and asked which of them was having the birthday. As it turned out, both of them were. The husband said, “We were very startled to find we had the same birthday, twenty years ago. She didn’t believe me, and made me show her my driver’s license.”

Behind Adrienne, a larger group had lots of rowdy fun, and behind me, a very tall and stunning blonde was sticking the Happy Birthday sparklers onto her breasts. Her muscle-man husband said quietly, “Probably one is enough.”

The train clickety-clacked into the woods beyond McCloud, and we wound along the side of the mountain, to a switchback where the conductor dropped off the train as we slowly passed. We stopped, he threw a switch, and then the train started in the other direction, with the engine pushing our dining cars, as we climbed up a slight grade and wound further up the mountain.

The deep pines began to yield to spruce, thin oak trees, and manzanita scrub, and from our higher position we could see distant ridges of blue mountain, and beyond them, faint white peaks further still. The light was lowering as we wound around the mountainside. On the way to Mount Shasta we were served appetizers of sauteed vegetables in filo dough, fancy breads and spiced applesauce, and we’d selected a dry Sauvignon Blanc which turned out quite pleasant.

As we passed through the twilight pines, a sadness came over me, as did the fancy that I could imagine our dog Tulip running and running through these wild woods, somehow happy and in the wild. Tulip died not long ago, and I miss her bitterly. Why these woods? Why did I picture her so? I don’t know, but somehow I saw her there, and felt her loss.

Our train wound higher and emerged on the west side of the mountain, and we found ourselves above our town of Mount Shasta, looking west where the sun in a huge sky had dropped below the Eddys mountain ridge. Looking down through flowering trees and shrub, we could see into the fields of Shastice Park, where we once walked Tulip and Lizzie, and now walk Lizzie alone.

The train slowed to a gentle stop, and paused for a few minutes, there on the mountainside above our town, and then slowly we reversed direction and started back along the way we’d come. The light in the sky was failing, the darkness gathered beneath the trees.

We passed a few outlying houses, lit windows looking warm and cheery in the woodland. In our dining car, piped music brought us saxophones and country ballads, and old songs like Love is a Many Splendored Thing.

Rosemary our waitress brought us warm dinners of salmon, asparagus, and new potatoes. The woods grew darker and darker, and our dining car grew louder as the wine bottles were emptied.

At the table just beyound the couple who had the same birthday was a young couple. He was probably a soldier, and had seemed kind of nervous back in the station. She was a tall and somewhat gawky girl, who seemed to think the world of him. Along the way, he left his seat and knelt on one knee in the aisle beside her. Opening a small box containing a ring, he was asking a question.

She said yes.

Deep in the dark woods, Rosemary brought desserts of cheesecake and berries in whipped cream, and coffee. We listened to the clack of the rails, watched the dark trees passing our window.

In the fullness of night, we pulled slowly into McCloud, past the illuminated hotels and into the station. “Good night,” we told Rosemary. “Good night,” we told the wine steward. “Good night,” we told our neighbors.

Good night. Good night. Good night.

June 5, 2004: Today Ronald Reagan died at age 93. Although my friend Donny Burkman met Mr. Reagan once upon a time, I never did, although I shot him the bird one evening, which could have got me shot by secret service guys, but it didn’t.

I recall little of Reagan’s time. I recall only a sunday comic where an aged hippy referred to him as “Ray Gun,” and at the time of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, it was cool to act contemptuous of the president’s foreign policy.

As if us young folks with no experience in anything somehow knew more about how to run a country. Now, older, I realize that I don’t even know how to act in major motion pictures.

So long, Mr. Reagan. I apologise for my poor behaviour.

But I was much younger then, and knew everything.

Now I am older and wiser, and know far less.