Post #24

 

Here's The Mitzi taking a bath, and Professor Mitzi chillin' on the couch.  
Every once in a while we'd have to give our lovable little mutt a bath because she wasn't smelling as pretty as she thought she looked.  The only trick was to get her in that tub, because she didn't quite have the dexterity to leap out of it once she was in there.  I still can smell those Hartz shampoo bottles that we used for her.  Not the loveliest of scents, but better than obese dog sweat at least.
For the fun of it, I thought I'd take a picture of her with my windshield-style glasses.  Of course, everyone was wearing those back in the day.  In some corners, they still do.  
In that bottom picture is that classic colorful afghan covering up my Dad's favorite old chair.  I'd held onto that until it just fell apart too much to make sense to hang onto.  Dad would sit in that chair on Sundays and read the weekend paper, or watch Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling on Saturdays.  Saturday nights, the Cook boys would often go to Brunswick Downs harness racing track (I also remember fondly seeing Henry Cormier there, and he actually got me into a horse called Perry Lobell that I took a liking to because he was always the underdog that wasn't supposed to win).  We'd come back from the track on a lot of those Saturday nights and Grand Prix Wrestling would be on, and Dad would make his family-famous fried clams.  I wish there were pictures of those particular times, but at least I have my recollections - which many in my family are amazed at how detailed my memory is about.  I am too, if I'm being honest.  With how my head was knocked around so much in my early teens.  
This might be handy to '83, and Mitzi's time with us was coming to a close when she couldn't keep anything down.  I came home one day from high school with Mom and Cindy giving me the inevitable news that she had to be put down.  I still remember that day.  It was a sad, somber, reflective time.  Because Mitzi was family.