My friends Joe and Lily moved from
Pennsylvania to Texas in 1980. Joe was a sergeant with the highway patrol,
a city boy that loved fresh air and was an avid quail hunter. Lily
gardened and home-schooled their kids, dreaming of the country life she
left years before. Both were finding the big city life harder to take once
the kids had left the nest, and Joe had been shot at one time too many.
He got a good job offer with the sheriff’s office in our county, and I was
thrilled to find we would be neighbors again.
Before moving
south that spring, they decided to take a financial leap and invest in a
business to carry them through to retirement. There just happened to be a
nice little bed-and-breakfast-style motel available in our burg that
caught their fancy. It was a cute homey place with a wide sweeping lawn
and flower beds that just ached for renovation. The crown jewel of
the place was a beautifully tiled swimming pool directly in front of their
apartment.
Joe was understandably
nervous about the pool, as it was so popular, but needed expensive
insurance and loads of upkeep. Fortunately they had hired Jose, a good
handyman who knew all about pools, and they left its care in his capable
hands.
Joe had a pair
of athletic Weimaraners that Lily had given him for Christmas several
years before. They were just as excited as he was by the abundant
wildlife. Every morning before Joe left for work, he would let the dogs
out by the pool to do their -ahem - duty, and Lily followed, as soon as her
chores were finished, to shepherd the dogs back to the house and
pooper-scoop after them.
