“Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.” – anonymous online compiler • #6 in a series: The 12 Sayings of Christmas 2014, aka One Liners I Have Learned From…
In the early 90s when the personal computer was making a profound impact on our culture, and the introduction of email had redefined communication convenience, I was inundated with lots of clever compilations of one-liners, some memorable, most not. The text featured in todays posting was one such list that caught my eye, and proved interesting enough to design a letter-size graphic incorporating the text. This early experiment provided practical experience in working with the tools of both QuarkXpress and Photoshop, the major programs I was learning to manipulate as a production artist working for an advertising agency. Like most of those early electronic experiments, I filed them away and virtually forgot about them. Today’s ‘doggone’ subject matter reminded me of this particular piece’s existence, so it seemed like an appropriate time to air it online.
Left and below, five snapshots from 1948 of long-gone dogs of yesteryear, dog-gone!
1. Winter out in the front yard with two frolicsome doggies whose names and faces I can’t even remember. Photo by Lois Cole.
2. & 3. 1948: Posed in front of the Big Barn up on the hill at Cole Farm Dairy with two puppies in a wheel-barrow. Did those cute little pups make it to maturity?
Possibly they meet the fate of other mouths, both feline and canine, that were judged excessive as their populations occasionally blossomed with no birth control except human intervention. Photos by Charlotte Cole.
4. 1948: Wallace, myself and Clark with a young German Shepherd named Blackie. Was this avant-garde composition by Lois Cole intentional or an accident, focused as it is on a pillar supporting the porch rather than us kids?
5. 1948: Summer Time and the living seemed easy. Myself in shorts out on the front lawn with a more mature Blackie, our sleek German Shepherd. She died young, leaving a relatively beautiful corpse; fatally damaged from colliding with the tires of the car she was chasing avidly. Doubly sad was the fact that she had a womb full of pups that were too young to be saved. Dad only kept one other dog after the demise of this beautiful animal, an event that darkened my summer days that year, bringing in its wake an increased understanding of mortality and the danger of attachment. Blackie was the last dog I gave my heart to. Photo by Lois Cole.
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