Dribble by Chuck Ferris

   I lay in bed playing a writers’ game. There is no need for “writer’s block”. The world is too full of colorful images and adventures.

   Let’s see. Take any simple phase. Dog on a rock came to mind.. Two nouns: dog, rock. Dog is modified. He is on a rock. , We can do anything we like with the dog. We can make him a Chihuahua or a Mastiff or anything in-between and any color or any temperament we want. However, he is on a rock. The rock is unmodified be it Igneous or sedimentary. Is the dog on lava or sandstone? We decide.

I played with the phrase this way.

                                     Rover on Duty

   We bought and moved into the Temecula house because of the wonderful back yard. It was fenced on one side by the house, and on another by spectacular view of the whole valley below, but on the other two sides was a gigantic .fieldstone sculptured wall.

   It had been built by an artist whose name was never given to us. Most of the stones were granite stones found in dry riverbeds, but some were bit of lava, rough lava, that contrasted with the main smooth blocks of fieldstone.

   It was plumbed for a fountain, but there was no recycling pump, so obviously when it was built times were different and water was plentiful. It was just as beautiful dry with cactus plants as it would have been with moss and water lilies. One flat fieldstone projected from the wall and was meant, no doubt, to hold a plant

Our two cats, Missy and Goneril liked to climb. Inside they climbed furniture and drapes to sleep on curtain rods or the fireplace mantle. Outside it was bushes or trees or especially the rock wall, and they liked to loll on the projecting flat rock. Rover, our Australian Shepard watched in envy as they scaled the wall to their private sanctuary. After all, he was top dog around here He was master of the feeding dish and got the choice scraps first. He had a spot beneath the kitchen table and cats were not allowed. But here they were with a place of their own,

Rover began to climb. He was no cat, so his first efforts were feeble. Eventually he was able to climb to the flat rock. The cats were promptly evicted and had to settle for individual pieces of lava to nest upon,. It seems a cat can sleep on anything somehow. Rover was king of the mountain.

From his elevated post, Rover had a full view of the whole back yard and the streets and sidewalks in front of the house.

Rover was a “greeter“. That is, any person on the sidewalk had to be greeted by Rover. If that person had a dog with them so much the better. That meant a smelling contest with each dog trying to smell the other‘s behind.

When the smelling and the greeting was over, Rover dashed back to his elevated post on the wall. and became the lookout for the next visitor.

That’s why when you say “dog on a rock” to me, it brings back images of a wonderful rock wall draped with two lazy cats and a happy greeter. .

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