The drive, I’ll admit, is long. At least an hour up 95 to Hartford. Then another hour up 91 to Brattleboro. And then still another hour — if we’re lucky and don’t hit snow/ice/fog — along 30, which is a twisting-and-turning two-lane blacktop. But even if I’ve been zonked out in the back seat, I can…

Nope, that beat-up ball in my Chuckit (photo, right) is not the one we had when we started out at the dog park. It is the one we ended up with, though. Here’s how it goes. I open the front door of the Jeep and Kemba barrels out as if his life depends on it, dashes to his spot on the dirt at the ed…

Note:  Other than the fact that my dog, Kemba, is named for Kemba Walker, and the somewhat peripheral mention of the UConn “Huskies,” this post has little or nothing to do with dogs.  Okay, nothing. “I hope the Knicks get destroyed tonight,” I said to Carol. That’s a verbatim quote — from a lifelon…

Go, Dog. Go!, the kids book by P.D. Eastman, is, and has long been, a Herman family favorite.  I’ve read that book to my three sons, and now all my grandsons, at least 9,000 times: . . . look where those dogs are going!  To the tree! To the tree! Up the tree! Up the tree! Up they go to t…

He waits. And waits. And waits. Come on, Kemba — you snooze, you lose! Yum. That was delicious! Punishment be damned. Conventional wisdom says I was the one who lived to eat, and Kemba’s the one who lives to fetch. That may have been true at one time, but I’ve be…

This is Kemba during the Jets game yesterday saying, “Can we please do something?!” It was Saturday, September 25 — first full day back in town after spending the summer out in Montauk. Kemba, still in thrall to his beach addiction, dragged me down Soundview (yes, he had me on a le…

Ricky was my co-pilot on the first 3 of my 5 cross-country road trips. (Here we are in San Fran in 2011) Last weekend we hosted Carol’s book group out here in Montauk. While Kemba was the only dog present (he liked, did not love, Moonglow by Michael Chabon; complained that the only pet who…

Who’s this handsome dude named for? Kemba. KEM-ba. K-E-M-B-A. Seriously — is that so hard? Robby named him. For Kemba Walker, of course — the ex-UConn star who is now, I’m thrilled to say, a member of the New York Knicks. It was Robby who also named Ricky the Bea…

To honor Kemba on this, his 7th birthday, here’s a poem celebrating his life on the beach. The verses that follow should be recited to the rhythm and meter of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.” It’s my favorite poem. It’s also the only poem I know. Happy Birthday, Kemba…

A video my oldest son Matt sent me of his 16-month-old son, Cole, eating a stick, reminded me — for maybe the thousandth time — how similar little kids are to dogs.  And I’m not the only one who’s made this observation.  My middle son Greg, who has three little boys (ages 4, 2, and one month) and…