Before Yoc-Town There Was West-Sac (Part 2 of X)

One of my earliest memories as a child comes from the house of my friend/accomplice Bryan Goddard. One day while playing, we decided to find out if his small dog, Blazer, could fly like Snoopy. So we took him to the top of the stairs, balanced him on the banister, and gave a shove. It turns out that dogs behave more like rocks than birds, at least when it comes to flying. Included below is a picture of my reunion with the beast, taken before my senior year of high school, roughly 13 years after the incident just mentioned. Blazer has since passed away, but he lived to be well over 100 in dog years. Clearly what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.


For some reason a lot of my childhood memories were with dogs. My neighbor Andy had a dog named Duke, who was just as mean as Tammy was (see previous article), only more powerful. I don’t remember what kind of dog he was; must have been a Rottweiler, or maybe a pit-bull. Anyway, one day Duke got out, and Andy was trying to find him. For some stupid reason, some of the neighbor kids and I were helping him. Andy ended up leaving us and going around the corner. Next thing we knew we all heard a scream, "DUKIE!!!" and saw Andy running back around the corner, with Duke the savage rot-bull hot on his trail. We quickly joined the fleeing Andy as we looked for the closest house to enter to avoid being eaten by Duke. It was like the Sandlot, but real life. We entered Andy’s next door neighbors house until the moment had passed. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I am still alive to tell the tale and that is all that matters.