Beagleman – Page 34

Really Lame Excuse

“Sorry, I had to give Robby a ride to practice.” How many times did I hear that line, or some variation of it, when Beagle Man would be running late for a doctor’s appointment or a dinner with friends? And when he really screwed up, he’d play the sympathy card. “Had to take Robby down to Greenwic…

Ricky? Ronnie? Reggie?

I must have told the story about how Ricky came to be “Ricky” a thousand times: How Robby, then 9, named his beagle puppy for Ricky Williams, the Miami Dolphins running back, and his ultimate hero at the time. How when Williams retired unexpectedly at age 27, two days before training camp, Robby…

Smarts

Last month, another of those “10 Smartest Dog Breeds” lists came out. This one had beagles at #4. Now let’s think about this. Dogs don’t take SATs or ACTs or Wonderlic tests, so what, exactly, are we going by? How easily we can be trained? Border collies and German Shepherds are ranked ahead o…

Ricky the Beagle for RTM!

Remember my friend Gustav? He’s a Norsk Buhund (yes, some of my best friends are Norsk), and I wrote about him last February. He belongs to Eric, who works with Mrs. Beagle Man. In a lot of ways, I look up to Gus. For one thing, he has an actual job at Mrs. B’s office. You don’t believe me? J…

Andrew’s Army

Something a little different today. One of Beagle Man’s very favorite kids in the entire world, Andrew Accardi, passed away last week at the age of 20, after battling pediatric neuroblastoma for 15 years. My own personal remembrance of Andrew will be in tomorrow’s print version of the Westport Ne…

Depart From Beagle Man’s Plan? I Don’t Think So . . .

So it turns out we did hike the Lye Brook Trail after all, even though Beagle Man wrote in his last post that we couldn’t. About an hour-and-a-half before we were supposed to leave VT on Friday, the sun broke out — and you know what that means. If it’s a nice day . . . And since Mr. Obsessive…

Why Ricky Gets Dragged Along On All My Hikes

Am up in VT. Came here Wednesday night, straight from teaching my writing course in Hartford. It always occurs to me when I reach Trinity that I’m 1/3 of the way to VT and pointing in the right direction — so this time I continued on. According to my internet weather site it was supposed to rai…

Beagles and Bantams and Bears, Oh My!

On Saturday I went to Hartford to see my real good friend Rob G. play football, Trinity against Bowdoin. Trinity won 40-21, but honestly? I wasn’t all that into the game (see photo, right). What was cool, though, is that there were dogs all over the place. In the parking lot, on the grounds ne…

Myself As Muse

Mary Oliver’s a famous poet, and she just came out with a book called Dog Songs. Here’s what she has to say about dogs, in general: “They are a kind of poetry themselves when they are devoted not only to us but to the wet night, to the moon and the rabbit-smell in the grass and their own bodies…

LA/XC-3: Still?

LA/XC-3 SUMMARY Total state tally LA/XC-3: 24 (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware); l…