The Beagle Connection

The Beagle Connection part 1

Fred was a veteran teacher at the middle school when I first started teaching.

My wife described Fred as a throwback soldier from WW One. 

Think of stiff button up uniforms of the German officers and stiff rigid straight spine, 

but the coup de grace was the flat top that was on top of a rapidly declining hairline.

 Add the huge biceps and you would nail how Fred looks like.  

Fred taught 6th grade math;

He was good at making small talk, never really talked shop (work) or like other teachers and complain about kids. 

Fred lived with his wife Jo, just on the outside of Bexar county in a little parcel of land. 

They had a nice trailer home with fruit and nut trees surrounding the home. 

They also had a beagle.

Now Fred and Jo’s beagle was their life at home. 

He was king of the roost and he couldn’t have better owners who loved him so.  

When my dad bought a few acres nearby Fred’s place, my wife and I would drop by Fred's place and visit for a few minutes.  

That beagle would get so excited at having visitors and and would bark and bark.  

 Barney1 as he was referred to later on would just be as excited to receive visitors as if they were visiting him.  He would just wag and wag that tail and try to lay on one’s lap as would expect and ear rub or someone to give him special attention. Fred normally would get embarrassed at the antics Barney would do, and offer to take him away to and lock him up in the bathroom. I’d say  “No, he’s fine”and we would continue with our visit, and Barney 1 would just be naturally part of the conversation.

Barney 1 met his demise by getting shot by some burglars.  Fred and Jo were not at home at the time.  I later heard about the incident and asked if everything was ok?  Fred did have a very, very sad look about him, but assured me that he and Jo were just fine.  

Call it coincidence, call it Karma, call it whatever some time went by and our school secretary was bragging how she was going to get a Basset hound (mix) from a friend of hers.  I was just passing by when I heard the conversation, and budding in I joined in on Gladys new pup talk. She told me that she was getting the dog free from her friend because she raised pure bred Bassets and this one female mated with a beagle... Gladys would be getting the one that looked most like a Basset and that her friend would deliver it a couple of days later.

Hmm? I thought to myself, “What about the other pups”?  I asked. Well she is selling them for about $200.  “$200?”I asked and she went on to explain that even though they were mix pups she could get a very good price for them. “Oh, well you know Fred lost his beagle and, I never finished that line. Gladys got all excited and said that she would call up her friend and secure a pup and maybe get a discount.

I collected money from the faculty on the “down-low”, we got over $200 hundred dollars. The trick here was to keep Fred from finding out, which was not hard since he pretty much kept to himself. (also teaching out in the portables which were located on the school grounds but not in the campus proper)

Now a couple of days later, Glady's pup arrived, and it was a beauty. She put it in a box and showed it to Fred and the look on that face of his was just something else. He held that pup real close and just cooed over it for the longest time. He finally put the pup back in the box, and since out bell rang  for classes to begin we left. 

 That Friday we had a workday at school with an in-service in the morning with a celebration right before we started our Spring Break.  This year our spring break in-service was going to celebrate some birthdays for the month and we needed to buy some cards so that all the faculty members would sign it and presented to the teacher's celebrating their day.   So I took Fred with me to look for cards at the local store, and found some nice ones but the nicest card he found had a picture of a beagle on it..Well, he bought them and went around getting the teachers to sign them, when I got word that Fred's beagle had arrived.  So that afternoon, when we got together we presented the cards out to the faculty members but held back one, the one with the beagle picture.   We called Fred up to the front of the room and presented him his puppy with his own card that he went around getting everyone to sign, not knowing he was to be the  recipient.   Funny it paled in comparison to his face when realized his biggest gift was Barney 2.