Chivalry, Thy Name is Bubba
What’s everybody laughing about?
“…the country Seinfeld. Read this book, whoop and hollar and have a great time!”
-- Sneaky Pie author Rita Mae Brown
“…a humorous touch as light as a good soufflé…”
-- syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick
“…the only time I stopped smiling was when I broke out laughing…”
-- syndicated columnist Guy Friddell
A favorite at Christmas, Hanukah or other gift-giving occasions, the “Bubba” book is a collection of smart, funny essays about everyday life in the mode of Dave Barry-meets-Erma Bombeck.
Available from online booksellers and from the publisher, authorhouse.com.
Also available by order through any bookstore.
Autographed copies available in Richmond, Virginia, at the Hampton House and in Lynchburg, Virginia, at Givens Bookstore and the Farm Basket.
Excerpt
The Occasional Great Crozier Dog Races is one of those events destined for a two 'graph filler in the back pages of the Goochland Gazette. Actually, that would be stretching it. A casual account delivered by the water cooler (does any office still have one?) is probably all the notice the races will get unless I can talk somebody into publishing this.
As you might gather from the title, the OGCDR is a sort of ad hoc affair. We just had the third Occasional Great Crozier Dog Races. They were held about 10 o'clock Saturday night after two hours of preparation and discussion by the race committee, which met for drinks and dinner (mostly drinks) at our house.
Actually, my husband, Cricket, who is the race committee, was having drinks and dinner at our house anyway. Joe Smith, whose dog, Raoul, is the reigning champion, was there, too. Joe's wife was out of town, and it seemed like a good time to have the races.
Crozier is a wide place in the road here in Goochland County, about 15 miles outside Richmond. Everybody gets it confused with Crozet, a little bit wider place in the road on the other side of Charlottesville. There are about 20 houses on Lee Road, where we live, and Joe Smith says everybody who lives in them is weird, but in a nice way. Lee Road is a good place to hold the Occasional Great Crozier Dog Races.
This dog racing business all started one Sunday afternoon a few years ago when Joe Smith and my brother Bo got to arguing over whose dog could run faster. After they had a few beers and showed each other the color of their money, we went out to race the dogs.
Raoul was mostly yellow lab and didn't look fast. But I'd lived on Lee Road several years, and I'd seen Raoul run along the shoulder, not chasing cars, just running with them, and I'd clocked him at 25 miles per hour, so I knew he could run.
Bo's dog, Will, was the stranger who rode into town for the showdown. Will Rogers was a brown dog whose mother evidently shared a dog biscuit with an Airedale one time. He was little but he could fly. The smart money was on the stranger.
There was, as I recall, little discussion of how to make the dogs race. All it took was five people and a pickup truck.
There's a straight, quarter-mile stretch of road between Locust Bend, where Joe was living, and Contention, where I was living. After some arguing, we took the dogs to Contention and lined them up. Joe's wife took Raoul's collar and I held Will's.
Cricket stood by the mailbox at Locust Bend to judge the winner.
Then Bo and Joe got in the pickup truck and took off, both of them hanging out the window hollering at their dogs. "Come on, dog!"
Raoul and Will took off after the truck, their legs a furry blur in the grass on each side of the road. At first, Will seemed to be getting the best of it, and the little brown dog cheerfully crossed the road several times to twit Raoul.
His uppityness cost him the race. Head down, ears flapping in the breeze, Raoul drove straight for his own driveway, nosing Will out at the finish. Bo and Joe managed to stop the pickup truck in time to see the finish and Joe whooped. Chagrined, Bo vowed his dog would take Raoul in a return match.
To give everybody a chance to win his money back from Joe, we had a shorter race for crippled old dogs (since Joe and I each had one) called the Hundred Yard Hobble.
However, Hot Pants and Rally were not quite as keen about racing as the other dogs. As Joe and I stood by the mailbox, shouting ourselves hoarse at the two old gyps, Hot Pants crawled under the pickup truck and Rally sat down to scratch fleas.
The second Occasional Great Crozier Dog Races was held some time after the first. This time we had a couple of kegs and about 100 people. Some of them even borrowed dogs to bring. Raoul, who likes to fight even more than he likes to run, tried to pick a fight with most of them, and we ended up with dogs tied to every tree in the front yard.
In any case, we never got around to running the dogs. Will had been dognapped in the meantime, and since he wasn't there for the rematch, we declared Raoul the winner of the Contention Quarter-Mile by default.
This last time, for the third go-around, we actually ran the dogs in an experiment with night racing.
I must say I wasn't too crazy about running our young dog down the road after a pickup truck in the middle of the night. Pigtail's got enough bad habits as it is. But when it was clear that Cricket was determined to have the races, I decided the best thing for me to do was go along and drive the pickup truck.
We put Rally, Pigtail and Raoul (who's almost old enough for the Hundred Yard Hobble now) in the back of the truck and drove down Lee Road, rousting people out in their pajamas for the races.
Naturally, we only went to the houses that had lots of dogs, and naturally, there was a terrible ruckus when we drove up with a truck full of dogs. Cricket wouldn't let me drive away until we had another entry for the OGCDR. It worked pretty well. Folks would do anything to get rid of us.
Leaving each house was a routine worthy of the Keystone Cops. We'd let the tailgate down to add the new people and dogs and immediately some of the ones we had in there would jump out. When we finally had a truckload of people and dogs, we drove to Contention.
Jay Carpenter said his dog wouldn't run away from home, so we agreed to start the race at Locust Bend and let Jay's dog run for home.
Raoul would run any direction, and Pigtail didn't know where she was anyway.
The new handlers didn't know what to do, so Cricket, Joe and I all told them at once how it worked. There was lots of shouting and gesturing and barking.
As a reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Robin was once held in contempt of court for refusing to reveal confidential sources. She narrowly avoided the slammer – but not the $100-per-day fine.
"Stand over here. Now you hold Raoul."
"I can't. Biscuit'll get jealous."
"Well, you hold Raoul."
"All right, now what do we do?"
"Catch that dog! He's slipped his collar!"
"Watch out! Rally's getting out of the truck!"
"Here, Biscuit. Come back, Biscuit."
"Quit biting, Pigtail."
"All right, get in the truck, get in the truck."
"Shut the tailgate. I'm not driving off with the tailgate down."
"It won't shut."
"It shut coming down here."
"Catch that dog! He's slipped his collar!"
In the end, the race went off before the truck did. The driver wouldn't go but 20 miles an hour for fear of running over one of the entries, and Raoul beat the truck. Pigtail trotted off then went back to the starting line to ask for directions. Biscuit dogged the back of the truck while his owner screeched, "Go faster!"
Editor's note: The newspaper has learned that the race committee of the OGCDR will be filing an application to have pari-mutuel betting at the next race meet.
Copyright © 2000 Robin Traywick Williams