(HOST) It’s a rare gift that actually changes your outlook on things, but that’s just what happened this year with a gift from filmmaker and commentator Jay Craven – to his son.
(CRAVEN) The way I remember it, my son Jasper spoke his first words within five minutes of being born. He simply looked me straight in the eye and said, "Can I have a dog?" OK, fine, he was probably a year old, but I swear Jasper has averaged three requests for a dog, each week, for nearly all of his fifteen years.
I got us a cat several years ago and was sure she’d fit the bill. She did for a while but now seems to have turned against us, hissing and scratching when we pet her and running in the other direction when she sees any of us coming. I think she’s mad when we vanish on weekends, leaving her food and water to fend for herself.
Which explains why we have resisted getting a dog. Our schedules are unpredictable.
Still, Jasper put a dog at the top of this year’s holiday list and the night I returned from my recent China trip, he upped the ante. "Let’s just forget about it," he said. "Let’s accept the fact that I have parents who won’t ever let me have a dog."
The truth is I thought (and hoped) we’d accepted that fact ten years ago. But I now saw my desperate kid’s last gasp. You can tell where this is going.
So, on the Monday before Christmas I found an eleven-week old Papillon puppy online-with the improbable name of Clint. Two days later, I picked him up at Boston’s Logan Airport and headed home.
My wife Bess had driven to Burlington that day in a rented cargo van, but, lacking snow tires, she failed to navigate our long hill coming home and the van now blocked most of the road. To pass the van, Clint and I accelerated for some quick stunt driving, but slid off the road, close to a culvert.
I grimaced, due to some rib pain and the prospect of walking the last mile home. But I grabbed Clint’s crate and plunged into the thickening snowstorm.
Once home, my son beamed while Clint-the-puppy bobbed and weaved and raced and performed a hundred ecstatic contortions, including one where he leaped on a pillow, and fell nose-over-tail onto his back. Everyone laughed, including – it seemed – the puppy.
The next morning, I returned to the marooned Subaru, and shoveled out all four wheels. Then it promptly slid deep into the culvert – nose down and back left wheel hanging three feet in the air – ending up in pretty much the same position as Clint had the night before.
Just then my son arrived for his ride to school. Without even disconnecting his I-Pod, he pulled out his cell phone and snapped a photo of the stranded Subaru.
"Cool," he said.
I won’t repeat what I said – about the van rental company, my aching ribs, and my son’s infatuation with techno-wizardry. But there was still the snow, which I love no matter how bad it gets – and now there was Clint.
Filmmaker Jay Craven teaches at Marlboro College and directs Kingdom County Productions.