Uncle Morris and Ginger
After the discussion about Major (last week’s blog post), a memory of a dog from my youth popped into my mind. I couldn’t remember the name of my Uncle Morris’s dog up in Hancock, New York. We would visit my aunt, uncle and cousins every summer, a shorter jaunt from the bungalows we vacationed at in the Catskills, than from our home in New Jersey.
Life went on, and the question of the dog’s name escaped my mind. Before I thought to ask my dog-loving older brother Al, in comes social media. “What in the world are the chances?,” I always say to myself, just like when I go to turn my car around and the very driveway I select has someone pulling in or out. This time, the answer was unexpectedly announced in a morning posting on Facebook, by my cousin who was reared in Hancock.
What was his post about? You guessed it…the family dog. In his blurb, he even called her by name. “So far we have beaten the snow records in the area by some 17 inches this year. I remember loving winter when I was a kid. My Ginger dog loved sleigh riding with me. Had so much fun being outside exploring the woods and the river especially down by the old fireman field. Once found a row boat in the ice flow. Tied it up thinking it would be there in the spring. Well it was there but in splinters. Thank goodness for the Eskimo coat my uncle gave me. Now my memories of good times still keeps [me] warm and smiling. Enjoy each day.”
My immediate response to my cousin’s post was, “So funny that you wrote this now...just this week I was trying to think of Ginger's name!!” Even better, my cousin Alan’s reply was, “Ginger was a loving family dog. My brother David got her as a pup from our neighbors on Peas Eddy Road. Dirt Road. We lived right next to the Delaware River. No telephone, one central heating vent. No running water in house. I had to get water from mountain artisan spring…My Uncle Louie, Mom's brother, helped us buy a house in the village. Anyway, Ginger was special. Kept my sick mom from losing her way. Loved to fish for salamanders and boat on Summer Set Lake on rt 97. Many good memories even if we had no money. Pics of my dad, Morris and Dad with Ginger.”
Unexpectedly, the mystery was solved on Facebook with communication from a first cousin, which surprisingly yet happily included a black and white picture of my uncle with the family pet that I remember from my youth. Now, I’ll always have a record of her name…Ginger, and a telling photograph of a dearly loved uncle and his best friend.