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Overview
The deep bond that developed between himself and the unwanted black Labrador retriever his daughter named Boomer confirms that there is much to the master/dog relationship, which is poignantly demonstrated when Boomer saves Stuart's life in 1996
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781452074825 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2010 |
| Pages: | 250 |
| Sales rank: | 667,968 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.57(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
BOOMER
One of the UnwantedBy Lee Stuart
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Lee StuartAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7482-5
Chapter One
The First Unwanted One
As a young Native American boy, I repeatedly witnessed people who were mistreated, disrespected and unwanted because of their race, creed, and color. Several family members were raped, murdered, and beaten by people of all other races because we were Native Americans. As Native Americans, we were not allowed to go to school with whites, blacks or other races until 1962. I saw many of my people treated worse than animals. The reason for this mistreatment and abuse was that we were unwanted.
Being unwanted was a concept that I could not understand. Our ancestors taught us three basic Native American fundamental values: 1-Respect for oneself and others; 2-Respect for the land, environment or Mother Nature, and 3-Respect for the Creator or Great Spirit. I was raised in a family of eight siblings with a multitude of uncles, aunts and cousins, but we all respected each other and always felt loved and wanted no matter where we went in our community. We learned very early on that "The Circle of Life" teaches us we are all children of the Earth, that we all share an equal place in the Circle, and that The Circle of Life is never-ending. So why was it hard for all other non-Native Americans to understand this concept? This is a question that has haunted me continually throughout my years as a young boy, soldier, and citizen and now into the silver years of my appointed time on earth.
Even though I knew I was loved and wanted within my tribe and family, I saw things within the animal world that I could not understand. As a child, my first encounter with the animal world was with chickens. We had more chickens around our house than I can remember. They were always hunting, pecking, and pooping all over the place. I followed them around for hours watching them scratch, cluck, peck, scratch, cluck, peck, looking for something to eat. One day Dad gave me the responsibility of taking care of the chickens. He explained that I needed to ensure they were let out, fed, watered and put up everyday. He also explained that I was to gather the eggs and to make sure no stray dogs or animals harmed them.
I was so proud of this responsibility that I would sit for hours on end watching over them like a shepherd boy as they scurried about doing their daily pecking, clucking, and scratching. Enthralled by it all, I eventually taught them to eat chicken feed out of my hand. I learned all of their mannerisms and mimicked their clucking sounds. I was so good at it that I could imitate the rooster calling his hens to come over and check out what he found for them to eat. I could mimic the hens calling their little baby peeps to come running over to them. I could imitate the roosters so well that they would get excited thinking I was another rooster challenging them that they would drop their wings down, go scooting across the ground and bump up against me like they wanted to fight me for challenging them.
It was a great experience for me as a mischievous young boy, plus it was an excellent way for Mom to know where I was if I wasn't around the house fussing with my other siblings. With all of the chickens we owned, there were always some that were setting and hatching baby chicks. One of life's lessons that I learned very quickly being "The Guardian" of the flock was that there was a pecking order of who ranked where within the flock of chickens. We raised several different types of chickens, but my favorite ones were the small Bantam ones. Being small for my age also caused me to favor the little Bantam ones. They had some of the most beautifully colored feathers and I loved the spunk of the old Bantam rooster. Even though he was the smallest of all of the roosters, he made the larger roosters run from him with just a feint in their direction. I loved his strength, respect, and courage to protect his harem of hens.
One evening as I was putting the chickens up, Dad came out to watch me. I could cluck and imitate the chickens so well that they ran to me when I called them; that's how I always got them back into the coop every evening. I was so proud to show Dad how well my flock of chickens listened to me that I was intent on getting them all in very quickly. As I closed the door on the chicken coop, Dad told me to grab one of the bigger white chickens we had so he could look at him. I opened the door and went back in to get the one Dad told me to get. All of the chickens clucked and jumped around because I had snatched that one from amongst them. As I handed the chicken to Dad, he pointed to another chicken for me to grab. So I chased it around the chicken house when all of a sudden, all of the chickens went absolutely bonkers. They were bouncing up and down, flying all over the place. I was a little befuddled why they were acting like that because I had never seen them act like that before. After I finally grabbed the second chicken, I turned around to see the first chicken jumping up and down with its head cut off! I could not believe my eyes - there stood my Dad with a shovel in his hand that he had used to chop the head off the first chicken. I was so stunned that I couldn't say anything, my mouth wide open and my eyes bulging out of my head. I could not believe this was happening.
Dad, being an old country boy himself just snarled at me and said, "Boy, why are you looking at me that way? Do you think we are raising these chickens to be pets? Where do you think that chicken comes from we've been eating these past few years?"
I was so shocked that I was in a trance-like mode as I handed Dad the second chicken. I was so honestly naïve and innocent about raising chickens as a source of food that the whole episode served to shut down my ability to talk about it for days.
A few days later Dad explained which chickens were raised for food and which ones were for laying eggs. He told me if I wanted to raise a pet, it needed to be one of the little Bantam chickens, because they were so small and they didn't have much meat on them.
A couple of months later while tending to my flock of chickens, I noted that the other chicks always picked on one particular little chick. At first, I thought it was just their playfulness, but after a few days of very close observation, I noted that all of the chicks, hens, and the rooster picked on this one individual chick for no apparent reason. The little chick was chased around no matter what he did. Beings how I was the official "Guardian of the Flock," I shooed the others away from him. Soon he began staying next to me like I was his mother hen. He really had the best position in the flock now because he sat on my hand and ate until his craw was full; and then he crawled up and down my arms and legs. I put him up on my shoulder and head and handled him like a baseball glove. No matter what position I put him in, he clambered to stay on me.
In just a matter of a few days, we bonded as best friends and I named him Teddy. The other chickens were all so jealous of him that they always tried to get at him and pick on him. In the evenings when I put them back in the chicken house, Teddy always lingered back as the last one. They all settled in for the evening and on the roost before Teddy would try to find himself a spot to sleep in, which normally was the lowest rung of the roost. For some strange reason, when the chickens finally roosted for the evening, they all had their own self-imposed sleeping order of who slept where. One of the things I quickly learned was they left Teddy alone once they all were in order; that's when I was sure they would not pick on him anymore. When I let them out in the mornings, they would all be bunched up against the wire cage, strutting back and forth, anxiously waiting for me to open the gate so they could start their foraging for the day. Teddy normally was the most excited of them all to see me because he knew I would protect him for the rest of the day.
One morning when I went down to let them all out, I noticed Teddy wasn't amongst them. When I opened the door and they all took off running, I went in to the chicken house and I found Teddy battered, beaten, and bleeding from his head. I was horrified, so I gathered him up and took him into to show Dad.
Dad helped me clean him up and tried to explain the law of nature that the chickens live by. "Son, it's only natural for them to cull out those chickens that, for whatever reason, they don't like or that are small and weak. They'll pick at 'em and peck at 'em until the weak one dies. That's just their way."
I could not accept this type of treatment towards Teddy so I became even more determined to protect him on a full time basis. That evening when I put all of the chickens up in the chicken house, I kept Teddy out and took him to my bedroom. During the day, I had made an easel for Teddy to roost on and I put newspapers on the floor beneath him because I knew he'd poop during the night, which would be Mom's number one objection to me keeping Teddy in the house.
That evening when Mom and Dad came to my bedroom to check on me, they were shocked to see Teddy at the end of my bed on the easel I had made for him. Mom never was much of a fan for pets; with eight kids around, she had enough to keep up with and didn't need anymore unnecessary house cleaning chores to do.
"But, Mom," I implored, "the other chickens are so unfair to Teddy. They only pick on him because he's small. I just can't let them to do that anymore," I explained earnestly. "I promise I will take good care of Teddy all the time. I will clean up all his messes. I promise!"
After much persuasion, they finally agreed and Teddy became my best friend.
It was only a matter of a few days until Teddy realized he was a rooster and that it was his job to start crowing early in the mornings before the sun came up. Mom was okay with the roosters down in the chicken coop crowing, but she was not to keen on being woken up in the house with a rooster crowing. I tried every thing I could think of to stop him from crowing. I even tried getting him to sleep under the covers with me to muffle his crowing, but Teddy had that genetic calling and he was determined to let it rip no matter how hard I tried to stop him. I finally had to relent to Mom's wishes, so we compromised and Dad helped me build a chicken roost for Teddy right outside my bedroom window. The funny part was he could also see in the other windows of the house and if anyone got up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom and turned on the light, Teddy crowed, thinking it was daylight and time to get up.
Mom and Dad taught us kids that we had to work hard to achieve the good things in life. I wanted a red Schwinn bicycle with butterfly handlebars so badly that I would do anything to get one. Mom and Dad didn't really have the money to buy me one, so I got a newspaper route to earn the money to pay for it. It was kind of a Catch-22, because without a bike I wouldn't be able to have a newspaper route; so Dad took me down to the bicycle shop and I agreed to pay the shop owner $2.50 every month for one year until the bike was paid for. I was so excited about it that I was determined to show everyone that I was able pay for the bike myself.
The newspaper route I was given was an early morning delivery route. We had to be at the newspaper station drop off point by five-thirty every morning. Teddy and I were so closely bonded that he soon realized I was getting up so early every morning to deliver papers that during the course of the night, he got down off his roost and sat on my handlebars when I came out to go deliver my route. I took him off the handlebars and put him on my shoulder; there he sat, clucking away, as I rode through my paper route. When the sun came up, Teddy crowed throughout the entire route as I rode throughout the neighborhood. I tried to keep him quiet, which normally would only cause him to crow again more quickly. My paper route customers soon gave me the nickname of "Rooster Boy" instead of "Paper Boy."
Teddy and I enjoyed more time together than most people do with any of their pets. Teddy never went back in the chicken house with the other chickens. When I walked with him out to feed or water the other chickens, he stuck right next to me and sometimes lunged at the other chickens if they tried to get close to me. It was ironic that earlier in his life the other chickens didn't want him around and they tried to kill him. Now they all wanted to be around him to enjoy the benefits he now received for being the "Unwanted One." A few years later I woke up early one morning to find Teddy still on his roost and barely able to open his eyes. I woke up Dad and asked him to look at Teddy to see what was wrong. Dad explained to me that Teddy was old and had enjoyed an exceptionally good life as a chicken being my pet rooster. He said he thought it would only be a matter of time before Teddy would pass away.
Sure enough, a few days later, as I was leaving for school, I found Teddy stiff with his eyes wide open. He passed away in my paper route canvas carrying bags that were wrapped around the handlebars of my bike. I got a shoebox for him and wrapped his body in some cloth material. Dad offered to give Teddy a proper burial while I went on to school. It was one of the saddest days of my young life. I cried all the way to school as I rode my bike down the road. It felt so lonely to ride down the road without my biking companion Teddy. When I returned home from school, I knelt by the grave that Dad dug for Teddy, and I told him that even though he was unwanted by his own, I always wanted him and that my love for him would never die. This was the beginning of my self-imposed calling to always be the one who would reach out to help those who were less fortunate, weak, beaten, and sick, down trodden or unwanted.
Chapter Two
Sparky
Being one of eight siblings, I never had the opportunity to call any of our collection of animals my own personal animal, other than Teddy the pet rooster. We were taught to share with each other, so throughout the years, we had about every kind of small animal a family could collect. We had rabbits, chickens, skunks, dogs, cats, hamsters, parakeets, lizards, ants, frogs, pigeons, and any injured or helpless animal within a five-mile radius of our home. The one rule that Mom strictly enforced was that no matter what kind of pets we chose, we were only allowed to have one of them, there was no compromising - other than the chickens because they were being used to put food on the table! Mom knew darn good and well what kind of zoo we would have if all eight of us were allowed to have our own individual animals.
We once had a rabbit named Puffy; he was a big ole buck rabbit that ran freely throughout the house. He not only ate rabbit food, but he would also eat anything we would offer him. His favorite food was ice cream. He grew to be one of the biggest rabbits anyone ever saw. When we went down to the local corner grocery store to get something for Mom, Puffy would follow along with us just like a dog. The grocery store manager always got mad at us and told us not bring the rabbit in the store because Puffy always headed straight to the produce section and to gnaw on a head of cabbage. He weighed about 27 pounds and was as big as a dog. He was house broken, and he'd go over to the door and thump against the door with his hind legs to let us know he needed to go outside. When we took him outside, he was always on the look out for any predators in the area. He was not afraid of dogs or cats. As a matter of fact, he once scratched up a German shepherd dog very badly and sent it yelping when the dog came over to try to sniff him.
One day while one of my sisters and I was out riding bikes, we came across a baby pigeon fluttering around on the side of the road all by itself. As was our normal role of being young animal lovers, we took the baby pigeon home with us. We used eyedroppers to feed the poor starving thing. It wasn't long before we got it to eat pieces of bread that we dipped in milk. Mom allowed us to keep him in the house as long as he remained in the cardboard box.
Dad helped us build a small wooden nesting box for it, which we mounted it under the ceiling of the carport. Dad told us it was necessary to keep the pigeon off the ground when we took him outside because dogs or cats might get him. My sister and I tried to be surrogate pigeon parents when it came time to teach him how to fly. We cupped him in our hands and then tossed him back and forth between us. We did this for hours on end until his natural instincts to fly kicked in and he became stronger and stronger by the day. We were so proud of our accomplishment with him; we saved his life and taught him to fly. During the course of raising him, we also learned to coo back and forth with him. He grew into a beautiful dark grayish blue-feathered pigeon with peacock type coloring glistening around his neck; because of these brilliant colors, we named him Sparky.
During our course of flight instructions to Sparky, my sister and I slowly increased the distance between us. Sparky eventually became stronger and stronger every day and before long, he flew to us when we called his name and landed on our hand, arm, or shoulder. My sister and I taught Sparky to play hide and seek. My sister held Sparky in her hands and, as I sped off on my bike, she threw Sparky into the air and told him to find me. As I pedaled down the road, I called out his name as I tried to fly away from him before he caught up with me. All three of us loved this game and Sparky would just coo and coo into my ear each time after he caught me. He got so good at finding me that I could go about three to four blocks from the house and he'd still find me. We boasted to our other siblings that we had trained him to be a homing pigeon, because no matter where I went, he would always find me when my sister launched him on a mission.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from BOOMER by Lee Stuart Copyright © 2010 by Lee Stuart. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface....................vThe First Unwanted One....................1
Sparky....................9
Basics of Life....................13
A New World....................19
Growing Years....................29
Boomer's New Home....................35
Running Partners....................39
To the Farm....................51
The Trials of Separation....................59
Sandy, Mac and Ms. Jean....................69
Canoe Trip....................73
Barn/Bread....................75
Birthday....................79
The Shooting....................83
The Recovery Process....................91
Reconsideration....................99
Shipping Out....................105
First Days in Turkey....................115
Moving to Guzelbache....................123
First Days in Guzelbache....................135
Brittany and Sonja....................143
Lover's Lane....................147
Ramadan/Bayram....................153
Boomer's Mistress....................159
Dive Master....................165
Ozlem & Oguzhan....................171
Two Litters....................179
Boomer's House....................183
Major Changes....................191
Operation Iraqi Freedom....................201
Top Dog 2004....................207
Islamorada....................213
The Attack On Boomer....................217
Native American Indian Management Organization....................223
Final Years....................225
Final Days....................231
Rainbow Bridge....................237
To Those I Love and Those Who Love Me....................239
Acknowledgements....................241