Southern Indiana Living Magazine - July/August 2024

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Discover What Makes Washington County a Great Destination! 3rd Junior Rodeo of the Season July 6th | 9:00AM-1:00PM This is a very kid friendly environment. The events are designed for grade specific children. • Pre- Kindergarten Division • Kindergarten—2nd Grade Div. • 3rd Grade—5th Grade Division • 6th Grade—8th Grade Division The events are designed to prepare cowboys and cowgirls for future rodeos. We look forward to seeing past participants and meet new ones! For more information: sijra.org Pekin 194th Annual Independence Day Festival & Parade July 3rd & 4th | 9:00AM-1:00PM Pageants |Contests | Food and Craft | Youth Activities | Fireworks The Independence Day parade will begin at 10AM on July 4th. Parade Registration Deadline: June 28, 2024 at 5PM 30th Annual Campbellsburg Country Festival Kick Off Event July 20th | 4PM-10PM Food, Music, Craft and Commercial Vendors | Fireworks Show 174 E Vine Street | Campbellsburg, IN 4710 216th Birthday Party at Beck’s Mill August 24th | 11AM Featuring The Corydon Dulcimer Society playing at 11:30am, birthday cake provided by Walmart, spinning, blacksmithing and tomahawk throwing. Parking Lot Activities: Blue River Fire Department will serve food (Pulled pork BBQ, Coleslaw, Baked beans and Chips). Craft and flea market vendors will be onsite. Beck’s Mill Moonshine History by Alan Bishop. Special adult admission of $2.16 Contact Judy: 812-896-3447 Be sure to check visitwashingtoncounty.org for more information and other events planned, or call 812-883-5533 to plan your trip! REMEDI PERMANENT MAKEUP & LASH EXTENSIONS BROWS EYELINER LIP BLUSHING LASHES LOCATED AT TAYLORD DESIGNS SALON & SPA 695 HILLVIEW DRIVE | CORYDON, INDIANA 812-267-2289 10 • July/Aug 2024 • Southern Indiana Living
A Note to Baby Boomers Man’s Best Friend I root through our nearest closet for a rawhide chew. Toby chomps the treat and I settle in at the desktop. Deadline looms. Every other month, the dog gnaws until his worn-out gums nearly bleed. While every other month this dog’s owner tries to write something readable. Journalism used to come easier. Then again, so did digesting food and hearing TV and everything else. I am old. Toby is older. I left out the part where Toby meets me at the closet door. He hears the beep of our relic coffee pot — only used, yes, every other month — and invariably recalls Dad is about to commit hours to emptying the dictionary. Toby just knows. He need not be beeped twice. I search for ideal adjectives and adverbs and Toby chews. I stop to check email and Toby chews. I get up for more coffee and Toby chews. Toby joined the family 12 years ago, not long after I retired from full-time newspapering. I was around and he was around and in no time, we fell in love being around together. Mostly black, mostly herding dog, Toby was a rescue, a bit older than a puppy. He already had been through way too much, it seems. Move the wrong way, touch him at the wrong time, Toby might growl, possibly nip usually at the nearest foot. Not every day, not every month, but it happened from the start. It still does. Toby has his moments, his moods. For instance, no dog digs a vet visit, I figure. Then there’s Toby. He is on his way to being blacklisted at every clinic this side of Seymour. Toby is a dog who needs a therapy dog. Relatives think twice about visiting, though they shouldn’t. The grandkids likewise love Toby but love him more from across the room. To be groomed meant to be anesthetized. My last Toby mark — a thumb scrape — long since healed, I never hesitate to rub noses, to scratch ears or stop for a second believing this dog remains this man’s best friend. Toby is at my side not just through writing but through lunches and naps and book-club reads. His routines sync with mine. I feed him too much people food because he loves too much people food. Guess what, Toby resembles a beached manatee. But it makes me happy to make Toby happy. Sharing sandwiches and pizza and popcorn and animal crackers makes him happiest. He no longer can jump on our bed, which he also loved to share. He struggles to climb steps. He gave up taking neighborhood walks with my wife. Trimming nails is a dream. Hobbling even on his best days, the hips, the legs, they are not what they used to be. Whose are? I grew up an only child, officially. Reggie, our dog, was my brother, my confidant. Not all my friends’ families owned dogs. I did not understand why. I still do not. Dogs are absolutely, positively, always worth it — whatever it proves to be. Sure, they are costly and messy or sometimes do not fit every life situation or plan. And once in a while, a dog comes along that, yes, won’t always keep his teeth to himself. No matter, I can manage an occasional Band-Aid. Toby remains as loved, as welcome, as the first time he chewed through his leash. I hate that he does not have another dozen years to perk up when the coffeemaker beeps. I have written column by the thousands. Among those most memorable — to readers as well as to me — were ones honoring Toby’s predecessors. They, too, had their quirks. They also tested the Moss family hospitality. Suzi, Scarlett, Christopher, Duffy, Hershey, George, Friday, each became my favorite until the next came along. One after another after another, the family dog greeted me at the door, licked the dinner plates, shed until vacuum cleaners wore out. My children are not like me in a way or two or 37. But both likewise love dogs, have more than one. Neither kid considered the alternative. Like now, I wrote then about my dogs so readers would be reminded of theirs. I shared the anguish of that is-this-the-end decision. Readers, strangers, called me in tears to relive their own heartbreak. Adopt again when ready, they urged, I urged. For every void there Toby joined the family 12 years ago, not long after I retired from full-time newspapering. I was around and he was around and in no time, we fell in love being around together. is another dog — too many — every bit as lovable as was the last. I offer decades of proof. Toby is part of the proof. He is far sweeter than screwed up. He cares far more than he threatens. He leaves be the cat. I feel blessed for every day Toby wakes up from my bedside. I want that feeling to go on and on and, of course, it will not. He still eats like crazy, though. He still lets himself in and out of the dog yard’s door, still hoots and hollers at the barks of neighbor pets. I relish these signs. I want to grow older with Toby, grow grumpier and slower and grayer. There are more columns to write, after all, more bones to chew and more coffee to drink.• After 25 years, Dale Moss retired as Indiana columnist for The Courier-Journal. He now writes weekly for the News and Tribune. Dale and his wife Jean live in Jeffersonville in a house that has been in his family since the Civil War. Dale’s e-mail is dale.moss@twc.com Southern Indiana Living • July/Aug 2024 • 11
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Southern Indiana Living Magazine - July/August 2024

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