walk on the wild side

Back now from taking the dog girls (Mrs. Beasley and Bunny Shmenkleman) to Fort Ord, a local mostly-abandoned army base, for our nice relaxing walk. There is a road that has been closed off, flanked on both sides by softly rolling hills and live oaks. I stick to the road while the girls dart in and out of the scrub in a futile hunt for the pheasants, quail, wild turkeys and deer that never quite get caught but continue to tantalize. Once we ‘saw’ a skunk, but I’m really, really hoping that won’t be the case ever again.


Only moments into it, as we ambled along the deserted stretch of road barricaded with huge OFF LIMITS TO MOTOR VEHICLES BLAH BLAH BLAH signs, sirens began to wail, accompanied by urgent honking. And continued. And continued. My shoulders started to rise to meet my earlobes. More sirens. Three huge roaring, rude SUVs defied all roadblocks to tear past us. Finally, after ten minutes or so of screaming sirens, down the hill raced a bellowing, UNMARKED fire engine followed by three more rugged uber vehicles, spewing diesel fumes and testosterone in their wake. No, the pastoral euphoria thing was not unfolding as I had hoped.


Shortly after passing us the sirens faded into silence, allowing the subtle dancing and whispering of leaves and swaying of grasses to be heard once again, mixed with my percussive footfalls and the dainty tapping of dog toenails on asphalt. Soon we were miles down the road, far from the harshness of civilization. My tension level was almost back to barcalounger mode. My shoulders had left my ears and returned to join my back. Under my bald dome, pleasant thoughts were seriously considering a return.


Mrs. Beasley and I heard it at the same time. No... Yes. Machine gun fire. Ratatatatatatatatatat Ratatatatatata Ratatatata. They must be training. Mrs. Beasley is terrified of gunshots. Her ears went up, her tail tucked and she about-faced and broke into a run. Then the mortar fire began. Kabooooom. Kabooom. Ratatatat. How delightful, our own private war movie. It was time to turn back, very, very quickly. The sounds of battle followed us for another quarter of an hour. We made it back to the camp, er, car, exhausted and overwrought. And that concluded our healthful, tension-reducing constitutional for the evening. Next time I’ll just take the holodeck to Viet Nam and get it over with.