A recollection by David Julian

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It was a lovely fall day in suburban Massachusetts. My parents Rosalie and Fred packed up the family's monster-powered Oldsmobile station wagon and announced a trip to pick apples in the country. My sister Jenny, her friend Laura, my best friend Jeff and I grabbed our mutt dog "Pepper" and hit the back seats with adventurous zeal. Jenny and Laura chose to ride the tailgate section to play with their dolls. We then set out for a perfect sunny afternoon of care-free travel and the promise of homemade apple deserts to come. Jeff and I were an inseparable duo of strategic mayhem, pre-adolescent energy and curious minds; a combination that always meant fun for us but a tingle of concern from our parents. But this day was more of a family day. An American family day right out of a story book. Just a day in the life of a suburban New England family.

Down miles of sun-dappled roads we drove as the trim suburbs gave way to vast open pastures, quaint country farms and old hardware stores. Here, a larger scale of life was evident. The local merchants sold combines and tractors, not garden rakes and lawn sprinklers. Men sat and talked together on porch benches, not with telephones and open briefcases.

Dad's ever-present smoking pipe was thoughtfully poised in his jaw and Mom's floral print kerchief fluttered out through the top of the passenger-side window. The sweet, familiar smell of Dad's cherry-cured tobacco drifted past his wavy black hair, throughout the car and out into the open sky. A local radio station squawked big-band schmaltz from the speakers while Pepper's tail wagged slowly as she sneezed wetly out of the tailgate window opening behind the girls. She looked hilarious with her ears and lips forced back by the gale forces back-washing from our car's 60 mph wake. We all laughed and goofed around for an hour or so as we neared the sweet country orchards and pumpkin fields the stretched out endlessly before us. I shared a box of M&Ms with Jeff while the anticipation of pleasant fall views mixed with my daydreams as we cruised in the huge maroon car. We debated as to which M&M colors tasted best. As always, Jeff and I drew sick cartoons and caricatures of our teachers on scraps of paper to entertain ourselves and mischievously torture the girls.

The fruit and vegetable stands we passed were busy with browsing families, their kids getting caramel apples and pumpkins for Halloween. As we drove on, Dad was quiet and lost in the music and his inner world of deep thought while Mom chatted to whoever would listed about food prices and holiday travels. Jeff and I secretly plotted upcoming Halloween's mayhem opportunities, and Pepper repeatedly sniffed and panted wetly out the window while drawing in the sweet new smells of the countryside. "Are we almost there?" asked Jenny, and was assured that we nearly were.

The country air was cooler than back at the house, and mom's white cotton cardigan was lacking the appropriate thickness needed for the moment. "Fred, shut some windows, honey, we're getting cold." she requested, always using the "we" instead of the "I'm" in an effort to bolster her personal requests. I heard dad mutter a barely audible "Yes, Ro" as the hum of closing driver-controlled power windows reduced the strong breezes to a squealing little draft coming from the open tailgate window. Dad extinguished his pipe, and without a second thought hit the last switch on the console, reducing the tailgate's draft to a low whistling purr.
Hooray! Warmth. The sunny views and blur of passing trees was just superb.

But at that moment, Jenny turned around in her seat and her horrifying scream cut the quiet air like a high-pitched explosion. Mom whipped around and screamed too. So did Laura. Jeff and I were caught by surprise and were stunned by the volume of pure unfiltered treble forced into our ears by the screams. Dad also reacted to the sudden outbursts by swerving the car, nearly missing another family's oncoming sedan. In the milliseconds that followed I thought that we had blown a tire or something. Pandemonium was upon us! Mom screamed "Freddddddddddddd!!!!", but Dad had no clue as to why. Time stood nearly still, like a barely liftable weight. Mom's long pointed hand frenetically waved past me as she screamed and I turned around to note that Pepper's tail was no longer wagging, but was stiff as an arrow. Her scruffy black and white neck was now barely visible, compressed to the two inches still left in the opening of the tailgate power window. Her hind legs were taught, her back arched horribly, and her front paws scraped spastically at the window, scratching it visibly. I noted in that very instant that the people we passed at the road stands were staring at us agape, panning their heads swiftly with us as we sped past swerving— the monster car full of screaming people and a dog with alarmingly vivid eyes and a protruding red tongue.

A lovely day it was- a slow-motion nightmare at mach speed. Things were completely out of control. The girls were screaming in hysterical trauma. My ears were imploding. Pepper was caught in a power-window vise-grip. My Dad stabbed at the pedals in an adrenaline-fueled reaction, still not fully comprehending just what the problem was until the hurricane of female screams became the barely audible commands: "THE DOG! THE DOG! THE WINDOW! FRED! THE WINDOW! THE WINDOW! OHMYGOD!! PEPPER!! FREDDDDDDD!!! ...FREDDDDDDD!!!".

In World War Two, Dad had flown huge B-17 bomber planes 35 times over German anti-aircraft fire, so his reaction to loud and sudden danger was still deeply ingrained. Snapping out from his blissful driving daydreams, he instantly flipped the tailgate's power window's toggle switch. Bombs aweigh! As the car slowed down and the window hummed open, Pepper slumped onto the maroon carpeting and sucked air wildly through every available doggie orifice. Mom's face was a impressive distortion of fright and tears, and as the girls cried unintelligibly in syllabic staccato, Dad ran his fingers through his thick black hair up over the top of his head and got out of the car to assess the situation. He hurriedly opened the tailgate and helped Pepper out as she coughed and struggled to stand upon her quivering legs. Her pointed tail was thrust front wards between her quivering legs, a study in black and white furry confusion.

I remained there by the open tailgate, as Jeff did, somewhat paralyzed from the contrasting surreal aura of the moment. A freak occurrence in a beautiful settling. Dad's face was beyond crimson; a sign that his high blood pressure was at a new vein-popping pinnacle. Mom and the girls were in the roadway behind the huge car, hurriedly comforting the lucky hacking pup. Pepper's tail now wagged at unsure intervals. Her eyes darted from face to face recognizing the glory of such intense and sudden apologetic attention. Dad just walked down along the roadside away from the car, trying to regain his normally calm composure and lit his favorite pipe, puffing blue smoke into the crisp fall air. He knew that Mom would verbally murder him for this. Jeff and I watched it all from behind the car and chuckled nervously in secret. We soon piled back into the wagon and pulled into a farm stand to pick out some apples, pumpkins and gourds. On the way home, after all was a post-traumatic calm, and sniffles had long ceased, I drew a cartoon of a dog's head resting alone on the yellow centerline of the country road. I showed it to Jeff, who could hardly contain his reaction, and then snuck it up over the seat-back to "accidentally" float on the seat next to my mom's lap. That was a simple way of insuring an "Oh My GOD!" and playful scolding from her later when she found it. I would do anything to earn her attention, for better or worse.

It was just another wonderful day in the countryside, and it was not hard to smile.



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© David Julian