I don’t know where Jaime Buckley finds the time to send random doodles to my mother. With 13 kids and 29 grandkids, you’d think the guy would be slammed 24/7. On the other hand, when you’re a gifted artist with access to pen and paper, I guess there’s always time to doodle, and Jaime’s really good at it.
As some of you might recall, Jaime did the cover of my mom’s last book, as well as her most recent, “Oh No, Not the Home!” (If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, you can do so at mikerowe.com/momsbook.) But more recently, he heard my mother talking about our old dog on the podcast and felt compelled to bring a particular scene to life.
Shim was an extraordinary dog – one of the greatest mutts of all time. Smart, attentive, fiercely loyal, and just good company all around. We’ve never owned anything but mutts. I appreciate the value of a pedigree, and the many fine attributes of all those individual breeds, but when it comes to canines, (and bipeds,) I prefer the melting pot. I named her Shim, incidentally, because as a puppy, her sex wasn’t readily apparent. (In my defense, it was the seventies, and I was just a kid.)
Anyway, Shim’s only real flaw was a strange attraction to horse crap. She loved to eat it. The fresher the better. Growing up around horses, my brothers and I witnessed this on many occasions, and were occasionally nauseated by the sight. Something about the way the steam wafted off a fresh pile, as she wolfed it down. And the way she followed them around the pasture, waiting for them to crap so that she could snag the turds in mid-air, hot off the rectum.
Mom and I were reminiscing about that, when she said, “Gosh, Mike, I wonder how Jaime would draw that?” Jaime was listening, and immediately sent her an email with the attached doodle. Genius, right?
I only wish he’d been listening when my mom told the story about the time we had one of our horses castrated. The neighbors gathered to bear witness, and saw the vet remove the testicles and toss them into the creek. People gasped. And then, they gasped some more, when Shim quickly retrieved them and ate them.
Gosh, Mom, I wonder how Jaime would draw that?
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