Roller Coaster

XIV - My Best Friend; a Brown Puppy

(Age Six)

Through a looking glass, my youth unfolded with the solace of a timeless allure of several children’s books, which resonates with ever-greater hooks in later-life fables and significance. A Brown Puppy and a Falling Star, an illustrated tome penned by author Elizabeth Ross, left an indelible mark upon my psyche, casting a shimmering glow upon my youth. Journeying through the realm where the mystic and the mundane intertwine, my mother and grandma bore witness to watching the falling star fall across the sky. The whispers of fate ushered forth my first dog, who appeared exactly like the brown, short-haired dog in the book written by Elizabeth Ross. I was singing, “Star light, star bright, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight! I wish I had a puppy!” I called to the heavens above on the front porch at my grandma’s house on West 37th, with my mother standing right next to me at my grandma’s front door.

A fateful brown puppy then miraculously emerged the next day, scratching at our aluminum storm door, right where we were standing only twenty-four hours earlier. He was christened with the mantle of Sambo, a gift from Heaven, or from my time machine powers. My curiosity grew and I began to consider such things, both empathically and in an epiphany, a life-changing moment.

My prayer was answered.

My grandma, my mother, and my cousins began to believe that whatever I truly asked for, I would sooner or later receive. The answers to my prayers, as if they were magically granted, took root. Other books took center stage. There was a book called The Black Witch that I didn’t like very much, and Sam and the Firefly. I thoroughly enjoyed reading books. I would often sit down and read the volumes of encyclopedias we had or search for the longest words in a dictionary. I was much too young to read, but I did so anyway. I was fascinated with reading, but later, my life was predetermined by my genetics. Curiously, while I loved reading, I would become blind. No one could have imagined or predicted such a misfortunate outcome.

Another favorite book of mine was simply about airplanes. I enjoyed the famed National Geographic magazines, foretelling about the complexities of the world all around me. I was so excited as a child to be a worldwide landscape photographer or a peacekeeper somehow.