Ben Stein's Diary: The Bear and the Garden
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein The Bear and the Garden Wednesday L et me tell you about the life and death of Ginger, whom we also called the Bear, who was as integral a part of our...
...As I see it, the "theoreticians" of the women's movement decided that the main way that men enslave women is to make them pregnant...
...When we went to our tiny (and I mean tiny) cottage on Malibu Road, and loaded all three dogs into our maroon Peugeot, Martha and Trixie sat in the back seat and stared ahead...
...Yeah," I thought...
...The pilot told us —to make us feel even better—that we were also quite low on fuel...
...Maybe an hour...
...They have flown ten years faster than I thought they would...
...Off to sleep with the vow to never let myself in for such a thing again...
...BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein The Bear and the Garden Wednesday L et me tell you about the life and death of Ginger, whom we also called the Bear, who was as integral a part of our household as the soul is of the human creature...
...At Tommy's pleading, I stuffed some Roman candles down mole holes to flush them out or kill them so they would not kill our rose bushes...
...I took Ginger with me to my house in Malibu and she slept pressed against me, easing the pain of my loss of Trixie...
...And a far bigger lesson...
...First, Bellow said that as a child he learned to love Jesus, but he had to hide it from his parents, who were orthodox Jews...
...and infinitely faster than Phoning dozens of agents...
...Once in the late 1980's one of the dogs, we knew not which, took to relieving herself on the couch in the living room...
...I think he used to be the administrative assistant for the former 1 56 September 1998 • The American Spectator speaker of the House from Massachusetts, Tip O'Neill...
...Wednesday I t would be easy, but it would be wrong, to say that travel is hell...
...I had to guide him every step of the way...
...She waited while I wrote and talked on the phone...
...From my new room, a great improvement with floor-to-ceiling windows and a wide view of the runways and woods of Florida, I could see a brush fire advancing upon a nuclear power plant...
...When she was tired, she actually lay next to me or Alex—usually Alex—and put her head on one of our chests, sighed, and then keened for affection...
...I am waiting for you to say you miss me, my boy," I said to him...
...The premiums vary wildly...
...She always responded well to affection until just before the very end...
...The mole holes are still there and there are even scorch marks on a nearby cinder block I put over the little volcano that the mole hole became...
...New source for best buys in insurance...
...At the time, we had working for us an almost unimaginably beautiful young woman named Ann-Marie...
...She could lie in bed for hours without needing a bathroom break, would never demand to be fed unless the other dogs were, and lay pressed right up against either Alex or me (it was my turn only when Alex was out of town...
...The Web Magazine "Quotesmith provides a list of aft insurance companies & Plans that match specific needs...
...And when you're ready, you can even apply to the company of your choice online without having to deal with any insurance salesmen...
...Of course, I had started the day feeling sick in my chest, as usual...
...Fourth, he thinks the main obligation of a writer is to tell the truth and be unafraid of the consequences...
...I am not me and Alex is not Alex without our Bear...
...It would not be possible to express how lonely we felt on our drive home from the vet...
...Even the most prolonged attention, kisses, hugs, strokes, food, did not cheer her up...
...He was my driver...
...A trauma of some kind had hit her when she was young and she could not bring herself to kiss...
...They were both fine people and fun to talk to...
...Chasing after a few moles means little to him now...
...It's a Daddy trap," he said proudly...
...Time passed...
...God help those of us who are addicted to the glare of the lights...
...It was simply not possible to feel truly alone with my Bear nearby...
...Tommy used to "lather up" and pretend to shave along with me while I shaved with the Pacific in the mirror behind me...
...She could walk for hours in the hills near our house and not even show fatigue...
...It has not been used for years and Tommy could barely fit his feet in it now, and he would44 I always love speaking to Right to Life groups...
...He had left it at the other end of the airport...
...I had a car and driver at the hotel who took me over to the CNBC mini-studio on K Street...
...To my surprise, I was far from the only guest...
...Trixie, as Mommy dog, would even sometimes lick Ginger while she slept...
...I like the work because I can see the results at once, but the problem with it is that it's lonely...
...Box 655, Mt...
...But then in the spring, she deteriorated rapidly...
...The pregnant woman, as in "barefoot and pregnant," is a slave to child-raising and not a political threat...
...I went downstairs to my office to type...
...So what if I am on CNN...
...It was frightening and often maddening gardening with Tommy, but it was not lonely...
...014 The American Spectator • September 199 8 59...
...Trixie, beautiful but in love with fighting, ran ahead and tried to find dogs to scrap with...
...Alex and Elena stayed with her in the hospital for a long time...
...It was pretty exciting...
...Soon, as Ann-Marie put it, we could see "Ginger's girlish curves...
...and told us that there was a thunderstorm front hitting the New York area so we would have to circle around New Jersey for an hour...
...Yet another time, when she was having difficulty walking, we took her to the vet...
...Not all of it is hell...
...But El Nino left its mark in unusually damp, fertilesoil all around our little house in the hills overlooking the ocean...
...The garden and the house have his aura all over them...
...I thought for sure it was Ginger...
...I was feeling really sick by the time the pilot came on the air again and told us there was now a total blackout of radar systems in the New York area and therefore we were returning to D.C...
...He had, or so he said, gotten a ticket rushing around the airport to get me and had only barely pleaded his way out of it...
...But he was obviously a brilliant man and it was all great except for a half-hour wait to get the car from the world's best valets at the Cosmos Club...
...I sat calmly for that hour, reading and making calls from the airplane phone...
...So we put her up on the stainless-steel table...
...Winston Churchill called the Lend-Lease program the "most unsordid act in world history...
...There is a spider web in that tub now...
...Never mind...
...Only one problem: he did not have a car...
...Have questions or want quotes mailed to you...
...We did not get to the Essex House on Central Park South until one a.m...
...We give you detailed.policy information includinz the latest rat from A.M...
...I'll bet those moles are sorry now," he said...
...We flew uneventfully for about a half-hour and then the pilot came on the p.a...
...So Alex and I had to pretend to fight with Ginger and growl and make German shorthair sounds to make Ginger feel loved...
...I took her everywhere I went in my car...
...The "hot wire of publicity," as my father calls it, quoting Saul Bellow, can wreck your whole life...
...SmartMoney "Quotesmith will scan the insurers and provide a list of different policies suited to your needs...
...The poor creature was, as we were told, nowhere near as good-looking as Trixie, but gentle and lovable...
...After a moment's hesitation, Alex said, "Yes...
...Once she ate the head off a life-sized Big Bird and it lodged in her stomach...
...She was three or four and very well trained, or so we heard...
...So, I walked about a mile down from one end of the terminal to the other lugging my suitcase, laptop, and briefcase to the US Air Shuttle, supposedly leaving a half-hour earlier...
...I like him a lot, mostly because his son, Adam, is such a great guy...
...We medicated her with something new and different for dog arthritis and for a time her condition stabilized...
...I'm not asking you to write me a love letter...
...Not only that, but he's already reached the age I've been dreading, when he wants desperately to be with his peers and does not want to be with his Dad, especially not doing something as wildly uncool as gardening...
...About an hour late, we finally took off...
...Ninety minutes later, no limo...
...I called Amtrak...
...My wife never once in her life has gardened, so I don't miss her company...
...We kissed her more and then the doctor gave her a shot of a barbiturate and she fell into her last sleep...
...Money Quotesmith is the only Internet site on earth where you can get instantquotes from 325 top-rated companies...
...Thus, if women kill their babies, that is an act of liberation...
...Preaching to the choir, but I like it that way...
...There was Claire Shipman, a lovely correspondent for NBC, and then there was a lawyer for the Clinton side who had been representing Vince Foster...
...The first to make available this new custom-search service...
...Now he has a show on CNBC...
...I always love speaking to Right to Life groups...
...That's it," I said...
...I was in agony...
...Now that mug too has a spider in it...
...Then she lay with me some more and then slept more and then came with me to Morton's...
...Terrifyingly evil sense, but it hangs together...
...He'll be there in a half hour," she said...
...He's with his pal, Alex, and they're riding horses and learning to sail and to surf and to mountain-climb...
...Previously he had committed the sin of booking me to talk about my book and then, at the last minute, switching me to debate with John Dean about Nixon...
...I am so incredibly glad I spent them with him...
...Then one weekend we left her with a dog sitter when we went to New York for the Emmies...
...She was the only dog who did not need to be coaxed out onto the rock's mossy, slippery surface...
...Avoid buying mistakes...
...Plus, when I was waiting for them to change rooms, I called Tommy and he was sullen...
...In the garage near the plant food and the herbicides is a box of fireworks, almost empty now...
...What worse way to go...
...I bought the last seat on the plane...
...So every day I can make time, I put on my cloth gardening gloves and pull and prune and spray...
...How will that make my relationship with anyone I care about any better...
...A ticket called cocaine...
...If they grow unfettered, they choke my jacarandas and more fragile pines...
...There is his lovely, blooming rose bush that I bought for him in 1994 because he wanted a plant to call his very own...
...We loaded Ginger into the car and brought her home to my wife...
...When I moved back in with Alex, the Bear would not leave my side...
...At least I think I did...
...All right," I said...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
...What do you call that, my boy...
...17 "I am just asking you to be polite," I said...
...If you prefer that your name not be rented, please check here...
...The strands are all that remain of a web that Tommy put up four or five years ago to catch me 58 September 1998 • The American Spectator while I was gardening and not paying attention...
...Good-bye...
...But Tommy, our delightful ten year old, in years past would help me, or at least keep me company...
...I have a drawerful of regrets of stocks I did not buy or sold too soon, of girlfriends I treated badly, of misconduct and meanness to my wife...
...Then we kissed her and looked into her eyes...
...She could bring herself to be amazingly cute, though...
...We also had a feeling that we needed more dogs...
...Ginger for her part urinated in the living room to establish her domain, and then in my office just for good measure...
...We did that and I was getting pretty upset...
...She sometimes fell down...
...A few minutes later my wife called me to come see "the cutest thing ever...
...You hardly need it with a smile like yours," I said to him then, but I am sure he didn't hear...
...While they played and fake-fought and growled at each other, she was left out...
...Thirty minutes later, he was nowhere to be seen...
...Five years ago now, almost, my lover dog, the dream girl of all lifetime, Trixie, entered heaven...
...A fond good-bye to my own father, and then off to Ronald Reagan Airport to catch the Delta Shuttle to La Guardia so that I could be on "Good Morning, America" the next morning from Central Park...
...So what if I'm going to be on "Good Morning, America...
...She had trouble jumping up onto the bed...
...The Bear was in the bassinet, looking up at us with big goo-goo eyes...
...There are weeds and seedlings of Aleppo pines everywhere...
...No, he'll be there in a minute," she said...
...I guess we did not have many talks...
...I called the publicist...
...The doctor gave her a dog benzodiazepine and she looked the most peaceful I had seen her since she was in the bassinet eight years ago...
...And, we had a summer guest, Adam Keker, the charming and handsome son of my pal John Keker — yes, the same one who rescued me from the evil of Mary Muff last month...
...I was impressed...
...at the River Inn...
...To lose the dog with the most personality, the adventurer upon the rock on Malibu Road, the dog who looked backwards because the other dogs shunned her in the old Peugeot, the dog who howled with the injustice of life when she was blamed for a crime she didnot commit...
...She awoke with me, watched me lift my weights, then sat in a chair and watched me word-process until it was time for her long walk...
...The Bear became totally my dog...
...When we got to the beach, each dog had her own plans...
...She looked at me with a look of wounded pride, and from her very center gave out with a groan of such pain and hurt and unjustly assaulted dignity, of such betrayed love, that I had to stop hitting her and hug her out of deep shame...
...I look at it and can still hear Tommy's shrieks of delight as flame and smoke belched from the aperture...
...I often felt as if I were only moments away from seeing him cut off his own fingers or his nose or poke out an eye of mine or his, but I had his company...
...If the weeds are not pulled, they grow and crowd out my lilies and make unsightly clumps near my palms...
...On the sink is a little green shaving mug and brush, child size...
...We lived apart...
...She also was officially my wife's dog...
...Don't try to tell Mommy it's yours," as he did the first afternoon the nurserymen planted it...
...Monday A talk at the Cosmos Club by Saul Bellow...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...But with a week of constant attention, she rallied and could walk a few feet before falling down...
...That meant she slept with her, walked after her from room to room, lay on her feet while Alex applied makeup in the morning, howled next to the bathroom door while Alex took showers, craved Alex's company beyond anything else in life...
...Ailtric tor Subscriber Service P.O...
...As for Tommy, he now gets excited about playing paint ball with his friends or the prospect of learning to fly his own plane...
...He would take his clothes off and climb into the shower while I was in there, mark out his little territory, fill the tub with water, and demand that I direct the hot water his way...
...We ran into astounding traffic jams north of Baltimore and a super, mega jam at the Lincoln Tunnel...
...How will that allow me to sleep one more wink...
...This is it...
...QUOTESMITH® COR PORATION www.quotesmith scorn Ad Code: TAS 9/98 Just then, the driver appeared...
...That's all there is to it...
...Martha, the alley cat dog, skulked around under the beach houses—largely built on stilts—and tried to score doggy drugs in the shadows...
...My room—at a mere $675 plus tax—was tiny and had a poorly functioning air-conditioning system...
...After that I was to go to CNN and talk about my book...
...I, who was supposed to have an hour, got fewer than five minutes...
...My new goal: step off the merry-go-round and sleep...
...So it's lonely here, where I see a few loops of twine still clinging to two normal, non-hostile pines...
...Now, here goes: I was quite early for the Delta Shuttle...
...1Y She was a brave, foolhardy creature...
...I really can't bear to be out here without him watching "Rugrats" or "Ren and Stimpy" and asking me to make him chocolate-chip cookies...
...Ginger was hospitalized only a day, and Trixie was unscathed...
...That should be a commercial for the rail line...
...Fifth, he said he wished he had been "a little less industrious" in his life and had spent more time just being instead of doing...
...About last Christmas, the Bear began to walk laboriously...
...If the Aleppo pines are allowed to grow even for a month or two, they take such deep root that I have to spray them endlessly with herbicide even to make a dent in slowing them down...
...call Quotesmith...
...When he discovered I was in show biz, he talked to me intently and gaveme dozens of clippings about his career as a clown in a small Georgia town...
...On my wife's birthday, exactly fourteen years ago as I am writing this missive, Adam and I went to the small park across from the Beverly Hills Hotel and picked up a lovely, but decidedly plump, German shorthair pointer whose name—her "slave name" given by the owners who abandoned her—was Ginger...
...I am telling you, life goes by pretty quick with your kids...
...We sort of see things the same way...
...If you don't stop and live it with them, you'll miss it and you won't even have the memories...
...The driver was a cheery fellow, though, and we had some nice talks about...well, never mind...
...The driver did not know how to get to New York from Washington...
...I had refused to go on that show...
...She waited for me in the back seat with endless patience...
...She actually seemed to feel better about herself, and even Trixie paid more attention to her...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...He would grab the shovel out of my hand or take his own even when he was five or six, and start to dig up every plant he could see...
...And then get up and play Ping-Pong with my son...
...One day when I was away in Santa Cruz, Ginger and Trixie got into a big fight...
...I'll bet we'll never see them again...
...Ginger was shunned by Trixie, the Alpha dog, and by Martha, the crazy, wicked vizier-type dog...
...I knew I was dealing with a dog who had soul beyond mine...
...She could ride in the car for a day without expressing much need to answer nature's calls...
...Alex and I put the dog between us, loved on her for hours, and she got up and ran like a thoroughbred.44 She was the only dog that did not need to be coaxed onto the rock's mossy, slippery surface...
...They grow fast in Malibu and need to be cut back every few months or more often...
...He would demand that I hold him so that he could trim the palm fronds that otherwise would choke off access to the lower yard...
...When I went over to visit Alex, she cried at the door as I started to leave, just to make sure I took her with me...
...No matter how the wind howled, no matter how the rain fell, in my bed with the Bear, all was warm, perfect, and safe...
...He somehow thinks, against all evidence, that he is going to get a plane soon...
...On noticing the stains I started to yell at Ginger and—I am very ashamed to say—hit her with a rolled up newspaper...
...Kiplinger's "Quotesmith keeps a database of about 350 insurance companies...
...In particular, she ran out onto a huge rocky island a few feet off the sand and basked in the tidal flow that overcame that rock...
...A man at the gate told us there was little hope of La Guardia opening up again...
...Ginger obviously was a better fighter than we knew, and after that, she had Beta dog status...
...That was in June when she had become completely incontinent, and perhaps insane as well...
...Dogra, our vet from India...
...Ten minutes later, by now almost 6:30, a disheveled black man who looked like Don King's son showed up...
...To lose the warm creature next to whose side all of the cares of the world melted away: that was pure loss...
...That monster drew blood, recommended kidney dialysis, and looked grave...
...The only time the other dogs would pay attention to Ginger was when she and they returned, wet and delirious, from their run on the beach...
...I'm going back to the River Inn and going to sleep...
...But the disdain of the other dogs hurt her...
...Ginger was a genius dog and she wanted us to know that she was our baby, too, even though Ginger was probably the strongest dog we ever owned, physically...
...I am not kidding...
...The pilot told us we were going to be delayed for one hour because —now get this—they were missing a co-pilot, who had just vanished...
...Another time, when she tripped me and I yelled at her, she got so upset that she collapsed and would not walk until I spent a long time hugging her...
...17 not share the shower with me even if I did give him that plane...
...It's a dish-washing tub...
...But the Simon & Schuster publicist who needed me up in New York (so that they could publicize a book they have not bothered to get into the stores in the first place) pleaded with me to let her call a limo to drive me to New York...
...This morning, we took her in to Dr...
...She had to let me know she was my number-one girl...
...Saturday I am in Orlando, Florida, to give a speech to the National Right to Life Convention...
...But mostly she had that big expressive Bear Face...
...Maybe some day he'll want to garden again and chase moles again and talk to me when I shave...
...For day after day, almost two weeks now, there has been no rain...
...Death on the shuttle," I thought...
...She became extremely incontinent...
...Alex and Elena, the maid, got in the middle of it, as did Martha, who wound up on dog-life support...
...She seemed bewildered about where she was, deeply confused about what she was supposed to be doing, and looked anguished...
...We got off the plane very, very slowly, with stupid people blocking the jetway...
...I got that right...
...Good Housekeeping "Quotesmith ranked more than 250 policies for Forbes...
...Supposedly, Chris Matthews was so embarrassed that he was going to have me on for a full hour to discuss my book...
...I asked him at the time...
...To come back to a home without the Bear for the first time in fourteen years...
...A crisis arose about a year after Ginger arrived...
...I disagree...
...Now, he's at camp for the first part of the summer...
...When Tommy first began to come out here, when he was five or six, he would take a bath in that little tub...
...Plus, they ran so late that I did not even have time to get to CNN...
...Poor Ginger, to show that she did not mind being left out and had her own agenda, looked stonily out the back window...
...But she never kissed...
...The first room I had at the airport Hyatt was so awful I thought I would cry...
...We have it and another like it in the kitchen because our house here has no automatic dishwasher...
...She cried unless she was being held or being stroked...
...It was hot on the tarmac and hot in the plane...
...I called the publicist...
...To simplify the task...
...I am so thankful that I took her picture and have it still in a place of honor...
...The room was packed...
...It dawns on me, though, that he is always upset at me when I am out of town...
...One way to net to know the market...
...on every quote...
...Busy, busy, busy...
...Find the lowest term life rates in America at quotesmith.com or we'll overnight you $500 "Quotesmith's interface is marvelously simple...
...She also had amazing discipline...
...He agreed that her condition was hopeless...
...The only good part was that I met Jim Glassman's cute daughter, who had a great sense of humor—particularly about her father...
...Plus, when I got out of my interview with a totally unapologetic Chris Matthews, my car and driver had vanished...
...Use the Quotesmith insurance price comparison service before you buy or renew any life insurance policy...
...I wanted to give a political/psychiatric workup of where the love of abortion by the so-called "women's movement" came from...
...If travel gets screwed up —just stay home...
...The first appointment of the day was to be with Chris Matthews...
...Third, he is appalled at how little his students know and how lazy they are...
...TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...She BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...I'm outtahere...
...Like all German shorthairs, she had an expressive face, big, intelligent brown eyes, and an extreme need for affection...
...He never took care of it, but I did, and now it flowers twice a year, and I see his face in every blossom saying, "This is my plant...
...But then last summer, when I spent most of July and August in Idaho, the Bear pined for a time, then re-attached herself to Alex...
...A friend in Alabama who worked in the accounting office of a fireworks company sent them five years ago...
...She was perfect company...
...Sunday I is truly summer at last here in Malibu...
...Nation's Business "Quotesmith saved us time and money...
...That makes for a lonely garden indeed...
...Martha Wyss, not to be confused with Martha the dog, called one day to say she had a German shorthair who needed a home...
...But...they took up almost all of the show...
...In a series of gruesome mishaps, she fell between the steps leading down to my office and howled until she was extracted—no mean feat with a dog Ginger's size...
...Garth Wood, M.D...
...I shopped from my own office and found the best deal available...
...She fell down constantly...
...The original plan was for me to get there at three in the afternoon...
...She wandered around my little neighborhood in Malibu and always returned to my house, although sometimes a bit sick to her stomach...
...promptly called Ginger her "Birthday Bear...
...In the bathroom, where I go to wash off the dirt and herbicide smell, there's a little tub in the corner...
...But I did spend time with my son...
...Back we went to Washington, through very bumpy skies...
...Ginger was the adventurous dog, and ran far, far ahead...
...An example that still brings a tear to my eyes: When Tommy was still small enough to be carried in it, we used to carry him in his bassinet, which one day we left on the living-room floor after putting him in his crib...
...I had left her for too long and that was that...
...I'll run and get it and be back in five minutes," he said...
...54 September 1998 • The American Spectator She was a fanatically careful eater, watched every calorie, and put Ginger on a diet...
...I started the day in Washington, D.C...
...We landed...
...We sort of see things the same way...
...His car, a disgusting Lincoln Town-car, a midget-sized sedan and no limo at all, was far too short to stretch my legs in...
...We gave her plenty, and she returned the favor in spades...
...Also exciting...
...By Labor Day the Bear The American Spectator • September 1998 55 r MOVING...
...He would take the best pruning shears and imitate me clipping the accursed Aleppo pines...
...That's a good sign...
...She had to have major stomach surgery, but gamely kept up her appetite and cleverly never ate a life-sized Big Bird again...
...I am sure I could not get him to trade surfing for pulling up weeds if I offered him a Hummer...
...This was just the beginning...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...That's how I worked it out with Garth, and I think it makes sense...
...I heard only a few crumbs that I remember, but they were great crumbs indeed...
...Name: (Please Print) Address: City: State: Zip: Date of change: VCAFRMwas once again Alex's dog...
...If you have to get there tonight, better take Amtrak," he said...
...A large, goofy-looking man next to me was a dead-heading flight attendant who made small talk with the female flight attendants...
...I don't want to say it if I don't feel it," Tommy said.44 The 'hot wire of publicity' as my father calls it, quoting Saul Bellow, can wreck your whole life...
...I am going to have to talk to that boy when I get back...
...Call us at 1-800-431-1147, 24 hrs...
...Many times he started going toward Pittsburgh, back to D.C., who knows where...
...Forget about it," I said to myself...
...Linda Picazio, FL "Get auotes on the soot...
...I took her to my apartment at the Shoreham Towers...
...She went with me into the bank and was good...
...This afternoon, I tried to sleep in my apartment...
...I hope we see our beloved pets when we die...
...Second, he said that in the classes he teaches, he will not tolerate political correctness...
...But today was a day right from The Inferno of U.S...
...O Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues—$34.95) O Payment enclosed CI Bill me later O At various times TAS rents its subscriber list to other organizations...
...Then she got up, pranced, and wanted to play...
...In 1984, in the Stein home, we had no Tommy, but we did have two dogs, Martha, a completely insane Weimaraner foundling from outer space, and Trixie, the world's most beautiful and sweet animal except when crossed, a German shorthair pointer from heaven, also a foundling...
...Don't fight fate...
...But for now, I think I'll go back into our house in town where there are lights and the scent of Tommy is fresher...
...Morris, IL 61054-8084 1-800-524-3469 ATTACH ADDRESS LABEL HERE IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...I was there doing publicity for my new book, Tommy and Me...
...Then, after I washed each dog, they would sleep in a wet, warm, muzzy heap in front of the fireplace...
...Alex at the time had two dogs—Martha and Ginger...
...All I could think of was the Bear lying on her red-checked bed, hurtling through space into eternity, howling, wondering where her Mommy and Daddy were—and I felt I was as alone as that without her...
...Although all of these were great points, I thought that frankly Bellow had made better points about life in his book Dangling Man, and in many of his short stories...
...Best, Duff & Phelps, Mood s, Standard & Poor's and Weiss Researc Inc...
...She was virtually paralyzed when we got back and we considered putting her into eternity then...
...I spent many hours working on my speech with the help of the genius psychiatrist, Dr...
...I asked Alex if she would do the unthinkable: give me Ginger...
...Forbes "Researching insurance companies can be confusing and tedious...
...The spider has a damned name: time passing...
...I think that my separated wife's gift to me of her dog was simply off the map for human kindness...
...Then huge thunderstorms came up and put out the fires...
...The days when he'll want to be with you fly by and then they're gone," said my pal Michael Chinich when Tommy wasborn...
...That meant I could only sleep fitfully...
...I have always thought it was because Trixie was upset that I was not there...
...Adam was working as an intern for Francis Ford Coppola and living in our basement very quietly...
...It's still incredibly, horribly lonely here though, especially when it gets to nighttime...
...I gave my speech, and it worked well...
Vol. 31 • September 1998 • No. 9
