My $45 Ass

In a March 28 posting my friend Eddie's blog, Chicken Fat, mentions him riding into a strange neighborhood on a bicycle, being wary of dogs. Nowadays with ordinances regarding animals you don’t expect to see dogs that aren't kept restrained, on leashes or behind fences, but occasionally it happens.

When I grew up in suburban Salt Lake City in the 1950s and early '60s there might have been laws, but no one observed them. In our neighborhood it was a rare homeowner who had a fence, and when walking the dog forget about a leash. Our dogs were free to roam around, shit on the neighbor's lawn, smell the bushes and telephone poles, chase a cat or even another dog.

In July, 1960 we were having a hot spell, over 100º for about 10 days in a row. That's fine in Tucson or Phoenix, but not Salt Lake. Our house was so hot inside it was cooler to be outside on my bike, with a bit of breeze from riding drying off my sweat. I was riding past the neighbor's house--I'll call them the Juneaus, although their last name is really the name of another city in Alaska--when they were coming out of the front door. The Juneaus, mom, dad, two kids including Larry, my age, were getting into their car to go somewhere. Their big dog, Legion, bounded out of the door, into the street, bit me, turned around and bounded home. In retrospect I think Legion was crazed from the heat. It happened so fast I don't think the Juneaus saw it, or if they did they claimed they didn't. I didn't even have time to react. I just looked down and saw blood spreading on my shorts. I rode my bike into their driveway which meant Mr. Juneau had to stop his car and ask me what I was doing. I pointed to the blood and said, "Your dog just bit me." Mr. Juneau looked at the blood and said, "We're late for an appointment," impatiently waved me out of the way and they drove off.

I pedaled home and my mother went into Mom-action! She wrapped a towel around me, got me into the car and off to the doctor's office we went. The doctor swabbed me with an antiseptic, then put stitches in me to close the bite holes. I might mention the dog bite was right in my butt. It was embarrassing to be face down on the table with my butt in the air while a doctor sewed me and a nurse assisted. I guess a 13-year-old ass wasn't all that new to them, but exposing it was new to me.

Mom was pretty mad about the whole thing. She called someone at County Animal Control (we called it the dog catcher) who said the dog who bit me would have to be kept inside for 10 days to see if it showed signs of rabies. I remember Mom carried that news to the Juneaus herself, so it had no weight of law behind it. They denied their dog had done anything, they didn't keep Legion inside for even one day, he didn't have rabies and I healed up.

My mom was pretty steamed for a long time. It was one of those situations where you don't want to say too much and risk the neighborhood turning against you. The Juneaus were good church members in the local Mormon ward, and we weren't. There was a class division there…they were "good," and we were "bad." I'm sure that class distinction still exists in Salt Lake but I'm way past caring. Nowadays if a dog bite happens, forget about church, someone will probably get sued. I don't remember my folks ever even mentioning the word.

A few weeks later Larry Juneau, his buddies and dog Legion were playing in the street in front of my house and Mom was still mad enough about the incident to go yell at him in front of his friends. She said, among other things, that bite to me had cost her $45 to have stitched up. She indicated with her hand that the bite was in my butt.

Dear, dear Mom…moms mean so well and sometimes do such damage instead. From that time on when I would encounter Larry and his posse in school they'd yell out, "How's that $45 ass?" "How's your $45 ass doing?" "That $45 ass feeling OK today?"

It probably wasn't even that Legion had bit me, or that the neighbors had blown it off and done nothing, but that she had to pay $45 to have my fanny stitched. That was the thinking of my mom at the time. We had no medical insurance and doctors were expensive! Naturally the other kids seized on that as a way of torturing me by adding, literally, insult to injury.

Ciao for now.