Drier: The reason I love dogs more – Huron Daily Tribune

It is a good thing my mother isnt around to see the many changes since she passed away in October 1983.

My mother was a no nonsense woman. Right was right, and wrong was wrong. Things were either black or white. There were no gray areas in her reasoning.

A lot of changes have happened in the last 38 years since she has been gone. I would love to see her reaction to the way kids dress today. The fashion trend of torn blue jeans with gaping holes would have sent her to her sewing machine to start mending them, and there would have been a long lecture on responsibility and importance of having nice clothes.

She was a firm believer in school clothes, Sunday clothes, and play clothes. Im sure anyone who is over 60 years old was raised the same way.

Sunday clothes were the best ones and only worn to go to church at least until they started to look worn and they could be considered as school clothes or as play clothes, depending on their condition.

The next most important clothes were the ones to be worn to school. The golden rule was that as soon as you got home from school you had to change into play clothes.

I got many a whooping when I forgot to change into play clothes when I got home from school.

I remember well the day I forgot to do that. It was shortly after the school year started that I got the whooping of my life.

I had only worn a pair of pants to school a couple of times before I put a hole in the knee. Mom wouldnt believe it wasnt really my fault.

When I was putting my bike away in the barn, the mama cat brought out her kittens that had just opened their eyes to show them off.

The accident that happened was the cat and kittens' fault. After all, who can resist playing with kittens when they first open their eyes and are still wobbly on their little paws.

As I played with them, I forgot I still had school clothes on. After a while the mother cat decided her babies had enough attention for one day and started gathering them up to go back to their hiding place. As I got up to leave, she darted across my path, tripping me. Falling on the cement floor tore a hole in the knee of my pants.

Hopes of being able to sneak into the house and hide the evidence that I had not changed clothes were dashed when she met me at the door.

It was three days before I could sit comfortably after the spanking she gave me with the two-inch wide leather strap she kept behind the kitchen door used for discipline.

I think that incident may have been the tipping point for my life-long affection for dogs over cats.

Mary Drier is a freelance reporter and columnist for the Huron Daily Tribune.

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Drier: The reason I love dogs more - Huron Daily Tribune