This subject originates from a post on one of the Vizsla listservs when a senior stateman tripped over the listing of what was a “dream home” property on top of a New York state mountain. That dream home post has been on my mind. I started off thinking kind of like about when I win the lottery what would my dream home look like. I took myself to my childhood home 51 Cherry Dr., Springfield, Ohio still thinking about the dream home post & what I would do when I “got” my dream home. I was still pondering the issue when I stepped outside that same evening when I realized…

The full moon the previous night was beautiful. But tonight’s moon was more, as it had corrugated cotton hanging like long floating drapes. There were no stars out. I was too late for Jupiter. I sat down on the big rock beside the garage and thought about a “dream home” as my eyes searched the sky, thinking about how we used to come out at night and watch for shooting stars.

That led to thinking about other things that had happened at my childhood home. The forty years of club meetings, fifty years of Vizslas, field training, the meetings, the dogs, the water trials, field training, the powder puff, the dogs, the training sessions, the visitors, the people, field training, our friends, our family, Brownies, Mothers Club, Sewing Club, foreign visitors, Girl Scouts, 4-H, Junior Showmanship, field training & the only Vizsla club hosted sanctioned water trial. I thought about the Rothan family visits. I thought back over each dog we had from Vizsta to Trixie to Trump to Jinks to Mimi to Smitty (yes, Smitty was a Vizsla) to Fleeta, to Jeri, to Carla, to Cricket, to those wonderful puppies and the people we helped get into AND stay into the breed. Then I thought about the people who passed through my childhood home. There was Smitty (FK) and Lynn (Melto), Miklos Farkasahzi (Matai), Joe Manning (Fieldway), Hank Rozanek (Rebel Rouser), Bill Fisher, Cindy Hibler (Masha), Carolyn Feder (Redef), Ron/Julia Bonar (Keystone), Fran Johnson, Wayne & Patty Leis, Dick Reinhardt (Haans v Selle), Paul & Shirley Rothan (Fieldstone), Marcia, Milo & Brooke Folley (Classic), Lance & Barbara Watt (Brance), Sandy Lasure, west virginny moonshine, Jane & Bud Graff (Weedy Creek), Harold Wingerter (DC Lobo), Paul & Martha Holzworth (DC Victor), Bob & Marylee Sloane (Camarily), Dave, Clara & Theresa Kayser (Khan), Stan & Sue Weiss, Count Bela Hadik (Futaki), Adelbert & Bobby Seelye (Cliffside),…We even had the owner of Harry’s Carpet IN my childhood home. Now if you know who this Harry is, you know we hit the big time. … when suddenly I slapped myself in the forehead…”Duh UH!!”

“For heaven’s sake I was AT my dream home.”

My rock, that I was sitting on sits kind of catty corner to the driveway which has 5 squares long, by 4 squares wide. Each square was square with nine of my foot prints heel  to toe. My gaze fell onto the concrete patio with the pond shimmering behind and I thought about the night my dad retired from the government and we had…a dance. Eddy Wallencheck (founder of Greater Cleveland Vizsla Club) taught me to polka. I smiled remembering his complaining that you “do not bounce when you polka”. Eddy was always so precise and par ti cu lar. I sadly thought that…there wouldn’t be any more dances on the patio.

 

• I thought about us bringing Poncho (our Shetland Pony) inside to see if he wanted a carrot out of the refrigerator.
• Poncho loved to jump into the van and go for a ride.
•  It was Randy’s job to hold the bucket.
• We would take Poncho so the inner city children could ride a pony.
• It was great to go along with a pony sticking his head into the front seat of the van.
• If you could ride Poncho, you could ride anything.
• When he got tired of you, he would head for a tree.
• If that didn’t work, he would head for a fence.
• And if that didn’t work he would go into the pond to get rid of us.
• I thought about the race track my dad mowed for Poncho.
• Nancy would be the jockey.
•  I was the timer.
• Poncho knew he was running for the red roses blanket.
• Poncho loved being a race pony.
• He had a red saddle and bridle too that got lost or stolen.
• I thought about the cat my sister tried to obedience train.
• I thought about all the baby bunnies that Trixie brought us.
• Me and my sister named every bunny Fuzzy Wuzzy.
• We tried hard to keep every bunny alive, but never could.
• I thought about the club me and my sister formed.
• You had to eat Poncho poop to get into it.
• Only two kids joined.
• I thought about the quail we raised as a pet, Lucy Brown.
• Lucy was housebroke.
• I thought about that one Halloween party that my mother (trickster of the family) took a mannequin, poured catsup all over it.
• Then somebody decides to back down the driveway to hide their identity, runs over the mannequin.
• So the folks pretend to get on the telephone and call the police because “somebody has just been run over”.
• Then there was the time somebody put a dead bluegill in the gasoline well of Uncle Junior’s corvair & Dr Beam’s fancy car or when some trickster put the run over-mannequin sitting up in Uncle Junior’s back seat of his car with the top off and he drove home with it.
• I thought about the time we caught several hundred bluegills.
• I thought about the time when we drained the pond and Carl was holding a catfish by the quills.
• Daddy screamed because he didn’t want no catfish in the pond.
• I thought about how when my dad walked around the pond, the catfish would follow him.
• I thought about the time that a future dog show judge was swimming in the middle of the pond and she pulled her top off and waved it.
• Men dove in from all corners.
• You never saw clothes get back on IN water any quicker.
• I thought about those kid stake water trials in the pond.
• My sister kept beating me.
•  I thought about those wonderful weekends with the Rothan kids.
• Theirs and our parents would stay upstairs doing Vizsla parties and us kids were downstairs or outside or in the pond or on a pony or a horse.
• We had kissing contests.
• Randy was the timer.
• We all even married one of the Rothan kids.
• Had the ceremonies at a water trial.
• Carl was the toughest to get married to Mary.
• He ran hard and long, but he couldn’t outrun  seven older kids.
• He cried through the whole thing.
• I remember the cherry trees.
• I remember Nancy only ate red food.
• I remember wanting to get married in the apple orchard when the blooms were on.
• I remember the wild strawberries.
• I remember the rhubarb patch.
• I remember running away from home and I moved into the chicken coop.
• I remember canning mud.
• I remember Trixie and Trump stretching a snake between them to kill it.
• I remember playing hockey at xmas.
• One year we got hockey sticks and the girls broke them over the boys heads.
• Me and Nancy tried to….well, end Randy’s life.
• We intrinsically knew that he was really not a nerd, a terrible crime to be sure.

 

 

• I thought about how I never want the dream to end, but so sadly, I know it will. And I will have to watch it divvied up, disposed of, given away and sold. There will be no more dream, ergo no more dream home. We will only have our memories. As I steadily swept away, my thoughts were interrupted when I came across the square that had a Vizsla head imprint (Trixie HOF) with the words “BEHI VIZSLAS” set in concrete too. I had forgotten it was there. Once I “found” that square, I decided that I wasn’t stopping until I finished and I started pulling on the hose and hosed it down after I swept the patio with most of it in the dark as the motion detector only worked close to the door. 

I’m not done cleaning the patio. If it takes all night to clean it in the moonlit dark, then “Viva La Vizsla”.. I am going back out and immaculate that center square of my dream home….

 

Something many don’t know about my dream home is that it qualified as a bomb shelter in the sixties. At that time I remember the air raid drills at grade school when we got under our desks (lol). My dad was an aerospace engineer and used an unusual building part. For starters he used brick on block, two layered. Then he used flexicore which is steel reinforced concrete. Flexicore was used on the ground floor and butterfly roof. The roof trim was originally pink which was eyebrow raising in those days. It has been several colors since, but I liked my dream home the best when it had pink trim.

 

Such a beautiful beautiful night…to be in a dream home…dlb

 

 

This is the Boggs home (21 acres) in 2011 last October. While it is still technically a "Designated Dog Training Area", it has been turned into a personal golf course for Clif Boggs. He designed and takes care of his golf course, himself and is nearly 87 years olde.