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Like most kids, I was all ears and picked up a lot of things that I did not fully understand. One of those was hearing about how rose hips were full of vitamin C and good for you. I did not know what part of the roses on Mama’s bushes constituted the hip, so I simply fed the entire rose to Billy.
Each morning, I would sneak out and bring Billy around to the front yard on a length of rope attached to his collar. I would stand there letting him eat the roses so he would get lots of vitamin C.
Mama remarked to Papa at dinner one evening that someone was stealing her roses. I tried not to look guilty as I realized she was talking about me. Now, Billy needed his vitamins, so I continued to feed him the roses. But I began to get a feeling that she was onto me, but could not figure out what I was doing with the roses. One morning she watched out the window and caught me and Billy.
I got a severe tongue-lashing and promised to stop.
We moved around a lot. I went to three different schools in fourth grade. Papa would change jobs and we would move. The day came when we had to leave El Monte. That meant giving up Billy, the rabbits, the chickens, the ducks, and Bebe the poodle.
Billy is the only one of those pets that I remember what happened to. He was given to Mark, the boy with the sheep I thought ate goats. Mark promised to take good care of him and that was the last time I saw Billy.
We moved back to Long Beach.
Having a goat for a pet had it’s own brand of excitement for a first grade child.
One weekend morning I got up early to play with Billy. I called and searched and could not find him. After a complete tour of the yard, including around and under the rows of rabbit hutches, I checked the gate and found it open. Billy was gone.
The majority of the kids in the area were Hispanic. One of them was a cute little boy my age who I once attempted to kiss just to hear him protest in Spanish about girl germs (he must have picked that up from the white boys as they were the biggest wusses about girls). I no longer remember his name, so let’s call him Mark.
I frantically searched the neighborhood, looking for him. Mark lived across the street about half a block down from me. He came out and stood in his yard watching me. Finally, he approached and asked “What are you looking for?”
I explained about Billy and he informed me that he and his brother had found a goat eating their mother’s flowers in the front yard that morning. Mark took me around to the gate into his back yard.
There was Billy standing next to the biggest sheep I had ever seen. In the eye of my memory that sheep looked about the size of Godzilla. I immediately began to shriek. “That sheep is going to eat my goat.”
Mark patted my shoulder and tried in vain to reassure me that sheep did not eat goats. However, I kept screaming until he got Billy out of the yard and safely away from the goat-eating sheep.
I got Billy home and made certain the gate was well closed. Afterward, I spent an hour listening to Papa explain the difference between a herbivore and a carnivore. Sheep did not eat goats. I accepted his explanation. However, I had my doubts for a long time.
Some of the happiest and saddest moments of my life were built around pets.
I almost always had a pet of some kind.
My Uncle Pete (the one I named the parakeet for) had a high-strung wife named Sunny (not to be confused with Uncle Sonny). She mellowed out as the years went by, but she was very nervous still when I was in first grade.
We moved to El Monte for a year. Back then most of El Monte was semi-rural and the houses had very large, deep backyards. I wanted a pony, but we compromised on a goat.
Billy was a good goat. He played with me and was more like a dog than a goat (although I also had a dog at the time, an idiot poodle named Bebe). In order to get him to chase me, I used to wave a small branch with leaves on it under his nose.
Sunny was pregnant with their first child. Mama had a washer, but not a dryer, so we hung our laundry on the line. One day Pete and Sunny came to use the washer. Pete, who was a wino, was soon drinking and hanging out with Papa in the garage. Usually when they came, I was required to tie Billy up because Sunny was afraid of him.
While Sunny was hanging out the laundry to dry, Billy got loose and went to investigate her. Sunny was very thin, tall, and boyishly built. Her breasts were so small that she used to wear falsies (that’s the subject of another story, which I intend to call “The Falsies in the Soup). Sunny had this sack like dress on that tended to wave a bit when she moved. It was a very hot summer and no one was really comfortable at the time, especially Sunny.
Billy came up and nuzzled her, investigating the dress. Sunny started leaping around, trying to discourage him, shrieking and flailing her long thin legs. At the same time, Sunny was refusing to let go of the clothes pin that she was attempting to pin onto a t shirt on the line. So there she was clinging to the clothes line, the clothes pin, the t shirt and jumping around. Billy decided to nibble the hem of her dress.
I struggled not to laugh at her as I rushed to the rescue. It was really quite a spectacle. I grabbed Billy by the collar and freed the hem of her dress, trying not to get kicked by Sunny who was still shrieking and jumping about.
Meanwhile, Bebe had gotten out of the house and was barking at Billy and Sunny.
Bebe was not my dog of choice. Mickey had won him in a game of guess how many jelly beans were in a jar, and dumped him on me.
Billy did not appreciate being barked at. He pulled loose from me and ran at Bebe. I soon found myself chasing the goat that was chasing the dog and Sunny was still screaming.
Papa and Uncle Pete arrived, but instead of helping me catch Billy, they stood and laughed at Sunny. I caught Billy and tied him up again. Then i put the very stressed out poodle back in the house. Mama spent a long time calming Sunny down, while Papa gave me a long lecture about tying good knots.
