Brutus and the Bear--The World from my Balcony

A couple of weeks ago, I saw my neighbor Tony head out with his large dog Brutus for a morning walk. Tony wanted to turn either left or right down the sidewalk. Brutus didn’t.

But Brutus is about the most even tempered dog I’ve ever seen. He didn’t bark or growl or anything. He just refused and stood there. He wanted to cross the street to take his early morning pee on the corner of a retaining wall rather than take that pee anyplace else.


So what did Tony do? He walked across the street and waited patiently while Brutus lifted his leg and did his morning business. Then they walked down the street together. Brutus with his curled tail high and waving from side to side, Tony ambling with him. Just a couple of “guys” on their morning rounds.

Carolyn has known Brutus since he was a tiny puppy. She’s always referred to him as Mr. Puppy and not the more regal title he is known by in his own home. This also comes from the day when he greeted her by rearing up with each front paw on one of her shoulders promptly knocking her on her behind.

Brutus lives a life of being cared for by a loving family. The family is “Brutus and his Humans” for they belong to him more than he belongs to them. In addition to Tony there are 4 females in the household, the youngest about 11. His “girls” take him out quite often and he walks proud with them rarely tugging at the leash—for when he does, whoever is holding the leash is going for a ride, he’s that big and strong. Woe be unto anyone who would threaten any of his humans. We’re sure that Brutus, who’s starting to get up there in age, would tear them apart in defense of his family.

Brutus will even suffer the indignity of getting a bath out in the open when he looks like a long suffering derelict being scrubbed and rinsed. But, he always seems to be just a bit prouder of his clean, glossy coat with just a bit of extra swagger on his next sojourn.

On the other side of us lives Bear. Now Bear has his own yard. But he basically lives inside a 3 x 2 large “pet carrier” sitting on the front porch. And his yard—well from about April on, it’s dirt and sand. In the “rainy” season of December & January the yard turns green and by February it’s green—but overgrown to a height of about 2 feet with trails worn in it from the limits of the rope used to tie Bear to his yard. At least when there’s grass the feces left in the yard for weeks on end are hidden. This time of year they cover the ground. It’s not Bear’s fault. It’s that his “human” just flat out doesn’t pay any attention to him.



Bear will come dancing out to the end of his rope wagging his tail and barking (a friendly bark) when skateboarders come down the sidewalk or sometimes when people are walking. Occasionally, his bark and end of rope dance causes shrieking (I love it when teen boys are the ones shrieking like a 12 year old girl scared of a spider). Come on kids; check his body language and tail. He wants to say “hi” and make a friend.

To me, Bear is lonely and could really use a friend. I have often wished that I knew his “owner” and could take him out on walks to explore the neighborhood. There have been a number of times when I’ve made it a point to grill up some steaks with bones (like a t-bone or bone in rib eye) and then made it a point to leave plenty of meat on the bone so I could toss it to Bear for a treat. I swear, that the first time I did that he didn’t know what to do with it a first. He sniffed it suspiciously several times then ignored it. Until later, after dark when I could hear him crunching on the bones. I’ve even bought him rawhide chew bones for Christmas and tossed them to him.

All dogs deserve at least a little bit of love. But unfortunately, many is the time when I have seen his “human” come home and walk right by him saying nothing, not even delivering a scratch behind the ears and disappear inside his house ignoring the welcome home greeting that Bear was trying to provide. What a jerk.




I’ve wondered about this dynamic many times. If his “humans” are out playing and Brutus is left out, he’ll let them know with a loud bark that says “Hey! I know you’re doing something fun and you’re not including me! What’s up with that?”

And Bear dances at the end of his rope. Sometimes, Tony and Brutus will stop so that Brutus can go over to Bear and they can say “hi” but doing that decidedly male dog thing of sniffing noses and butt thing. Then Tony and Brutus continue their walk while Bear looks forlornly after them as if he would dearly love to join them.

So what’s the point to this? Well there are a whole bunch of different twists that can be put on this allegory. I'll let you come up with your own.

Suffice it to say, Brutus is part of a family and loved. He takes care of his family and would defend them to his death. Surprisingly, I think Bear would do the same for his family—whoever they are. Brutus is content in his family and belongs. Bear is content too for he knows nothing else but yearns for more. Like so many, he has much more to give. And if I had to choose between the two, I guess I’d choose the Bear.

You Have to Love Your Kids; It's Even Better to Like Them!

You don’t have to like your kids, but you do have to love them. I heard that or read that a while ago (maybe it was from John Rosemond but I’m not sure of the source).

Think about it. There’s a lot of time when you don’t really like the little crapperheads based on something they may have done or some quirk of their personality or behavior. But you absolutely have to love them.

I’ve made several postings lately about my children, things in their childhood and small things in their lives which say something about my feelings or which bring on a smile. Today, I’m going to touch on the best thing. The absolute best time I ever had with my kids.


Mike and Susan at Mike's Wedding Rehearsal Dinner

It was 2004. I had been living in Southern California for 6 years and my kids lived in the Midwest. Mike was 22 and Susan 20. Mike lived with his fiancé in Ames, Iowa and Susan 30 miles away in Des Moines, still at home with her Mom.

I had to travel to Detroit for a weeklong training meeting and decided to take a couple of extra days and stop over in Des Moines to see the kids. I was able to spend some time with each of them individually and on Saturday night have dinner with them, with Mike’s fiancé and with Susan’s boyfriend in Ames.

I cooked steaks on the grill at Mike’s apartment and we had dinner together, talking and chatting, getting to know Susan’s boyfriend and getting better acquainted with Mike’s fiancé, Katie. We played some cards and all in all had a terrific evening.

It didn’t dawn on me until the next day when I was flying on to Detroit and thinking on the airplane about my kids and how much I missed them and loved them. This grand epiphany was that I genuinely liked my children. I really liked them as people, not just my kids. I really enjoyed their company, their personalities, their outlook, the way they thought and conversed and laughed. I LIKED them!

And I admired them. I admired the young adults they had become. Self-confident, articulate, responsible adults who you would be proud to call your friend.

It didn’t make any difference in how much I loved them. But I was proud of my kids. And how they had turned out OK without their Father in their everyday lives (obviously their Mother had done a good job).

We all know what a pain in the butt kids can be—particularly teenagers. It perhaps shouldn’t amaze us when they turn into great adults. But, to me it’s fantastic to really like the person that they’ve become and to know that, no matter what, they’re going to be all right.

And, to quote Forrest Gump: “That’s all I’ve got to say about tha-at.”

Harold Reit's Doughnuts

In the early 80’s, I lived in a small city of 6000 in northern Iowa. It was a nice town, a regional trade center with a downtown, small mall, public and Catholic High School, hospital, etc.

We had a small “mom and pop” bakery called Reit’s Bakeshop. It was owned by a man in his early 70’s named Harold Reit. Harold had been lured out of retirement from having owned a bakery for years and years in a neighboring town when local community and business leaders convinced him that our little city could benefit from a bakery of its own. Harold agreed to come out of retirement for a while to start the bakery and then to try to sell it to a younger person who could keep it going and make a living from the bakery.

Reit’s Bakery made the most wonderful baked goods. It was the best place to go in town for donuts or cinnamon rolls or bear claws or cakes or pies. His prices were incredibly reasonable, about $2 a dozen for donuts and never more than $.75 for his best and biggest cinnamon roll, dripping with butter and icing. Reit’s was the best place in town to go in the morning for “kaffeeklatching” with business people and other movers and shakers in the town. Plus, Harold always had a few minutes to stop by and chat, putting his 2 cents worth in and refilling our cups as we shook dice to see who would pay for the morning’s coffee at a quarter a cup.

After about 4 years, Harold found a young couple to buy the bakery from him. He even helped them finance the bakery using a combination of SBA guaranteed financing and a 2nd mortgage that he carried. He also provided the couple with all his recipes and trained them in the art of baking continuing to work alongside them for about 6 months.

After that 6 month break-in period, the new owners were on their own. Harold and his bride of more than 50 years took off for points south for the winter. The quality stayed pretty good for a while under the new owners. They would even chat at bit. After a while though, the chatting would often turn to pessimism over the business climate or mild complaining over having to get up to start baking at 3:30 a.m. We noticed that the baked goods didn’t seem to taste as good anymore and we would discuss it occasionally at our afternoon “kaffeeklatch” at the “BackDoor Café”.

There was only one conclusion and, Irv Wiltgen, the local Jeweler; Phil Diamond, who owned a men’s clothing store and I (who ran the local Chamber of Commerce) came up with it one day. Harold had provided the new owners with all his recipes which they were following perfectly. He taught them how to bake. But there was one ingredient missing—an ingredient that he couldn’t provide. The missing ingredient was simple. Every donut, cinnamon roll, cake or pie that Harold made had just a little bit of love in it.

You could tell by how he smiled at a youngster, nose pressed to the glass of his display case. You could tell how he volunteered each year to play Santa Claus the day after Thanksgiving, arriving on a fire engine and handing out treats. You could tell by how he was always positive about the future of the town. You could tell from his lusty laugh when dealing with the ladies who would come in to buy cakes. All of which was missing in his successors.

I moved on a couple of years later to another community. But, the last time I was back, I noticed that the bakery was no more. A close friend told me that Harold had eventually taken back the bakery and ultimately closed it when he could no longer work. The bakery closed for good when Harold passed away. But, the same friend told me that which we both knew. “You know,” he said wistfully, almost as though he could taste those rolls, “Harold always put just a little pinch of love in everything he baked.”

Michael's Blue Worm

Michael just turned 27. He's a dad now himself and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. I admire and respect him for the man he’s become.

I remember the little boy though--especially the little boy who taught me to slow down and relax and see the world through his eyes. When Michael was about 2, we lived in a beautiful turn of the century frame house in a small town in Iowa. There were at least 8 or 10 full grown maple trees on our lot which made for some serious leaf raking in the fall. The house was only 3 blocks from the downtown of this bustling small, regional retail center and I would often walk the 5 minutes back and forth to my office if I knew I wasn’t going to be gallivanting around town that day and needed my car.

Each evening when I would get home, I would be met by my irrepressible blond toddler holding onto his “Blue Worm”. The “Blue Worm” was a little plastic toy with a seat and 4 wheels that he would sit on and scoot with his feet. He was waiting for me to take him on a nightly adventure around the block with me walking and him riding his Blue Worm. He’d have a grip on the handle bar of the Worm and a big grin on his face. I’d stop and squat down, still in my suit, and tell him, “Give me a minute Mikey to take off my tie and change jackets, OK?” He’d nod, I’d step through the kitchen door, pull off my tie and suit coat and put on my old college fraternity jacket, say “Hi” to my wife and be ready to go because adventures with a 2 year old never wait.

We’d take off down the driveway with its slight slope. Michael would lift his feet and coast until I stepped up and stopped him from going all the way to the street. He’d giggle because he was testing me, playing a little joke on Dad, seeing if I’d let him get all the way down to the street. Sometimes we’d even take our Springer Spaniel, Shorts, and I’d have the thrill of shepherding both a dog and a 2 year old. The dog would stop and sniff every smell he’d come across and lift his leg at nearly every vertical object. And Michael would stop just as often picking up a rock he’d spotted, examining it, offering it to me for my examination then discarding it just as quickly so as to move on to the next item that caught his attention. He’d pick up fallen maple leaves of the brightest hues and give them to me so that he could present them to his mother when we got home—his latest trophy from his most recent sidewalk safari with Dad.

On these nightly sojourns, I quickly learned to slow down, to leave my office and work behind and enjoy the world from the perspective of a 2 year old boy. Stop. Slow Down. Bend low. Look at the treasures that a 2 year old finds in the simplicity of nature that surrounds a residential sidewalk. Listen to the wind rustling in dry leaves as late summer turns to fall and fall marches towards winter. Stoop low to see the light in a little boy’s eyes as he encounters a magical world from much closer than you or I.

As we stoop low we see the wonder, we feel the joy of loving another human being that is a part of us and we learn patience. Because our world moves more quickly, we’ve seen every bent, broken twig we need to see. We’ve raked more leaves than we could ever count. But that 2 year old shows us 1 leaf. Just one. A leaf which to him is perfection in color, in shape, in texture. A leaf worthy of taking home to Mom. So we force aside the impatience we feel rising in ourselves because this is a far more important mission that we’re on. Much more important than sitting back in a recliner and watching the news and getting irked at the cacophony of children. Far more essential to living than sorting through today’s stack of junk mail.

The light of day would be fading as we turn the final corner of our one-square block safari. The temperature would be dropping. I’d have to stop to wipe the double runners oozing from Mike’s nose. And we’d slowly finish our trip. Sometimes with me carrying Mike in one arm, holding the magical Blue Worm in my hand and hanging onto Shorts’ leash with my other as we walked up the driveway. Then I’d deposit Mike on both feet and open the kitchen door handing him today’s treasure for Mom. He’d scamper up the landing, face red from the brisk outdoors while I put the Blue Worm in the corner under the coat hooks, ready and waiting for tomorrow’s grand adventure.

It’s surprising what you can learn from a 2 year old. They’re an open book, filled with unique insights. We just need to remember that there are many times and many circumstances in our personal and professional lives when we can do more and be more by slowing down and stooping low to find the treasures hidden right out in the open. A 2 year old can spot them in an instant. It takes us older folks a little more work.