January 16, 2002

Column
By: Virgil Adams
The Jackson Herald
January 16, 2002

About dogs and lovers
Some of you are making light of Buddy’s death. And you are making fun of Bill because he is grieving.
Shame on you!
Your mean behavior tells us a lot. One, you never owned a dog. Two, your hatred of Bill Clinton is out of control.
I’m guessing you may also be jealous. The very idea, giving a dead dog more space and air time than your own obituary will command.
Don’t blame Buddy. If he belonged to one of us good ol’ boys, he’d be just another dog. But he belonged to the President of the United States. That made him famous.
And please, quit making fun of his famous owner.
One thing about dying and grieving: it’s the common denominator. It puts the rich and the famous in the same boat with the poor and the ordinary. Love is love and loss is loss — period.
I’ve loved and lost six dogs in my lifetime, and I grieved for every one of them. So I understand why Bill and Hillary felt led to issue this statement to the media: “Buddy was a loyal companion and brought us much joy. He will be truly missed.”
I don’t recall issuing a statement when any of my dogs died. You only do that when you and your dog are hot commodities.
Like I said, Buddy didn’t choose to be a celebrity. Buddy didn’t choose Bill. Bill chose Buddy.
It is not true, as some have said, that I think like a dog. However, I’ll wager that Buddy would have chosen a simpler lifestyle if he had had any say-so in the matter.
Dogs like to be dogs and do what dogs do: run in the woods, chase rabbits, dig up gardens and visit with neighboring pooches.
It seems to me it would be rather difficult to be a dog in the Rose Garden or the Lincoln Bedroom. (On second thought, there may be a precedent.)
Well, Buddy escaped the confines of Washington and moved with his master to upscale Chappaqua in New York. He also found it difficult to be a dog there. So on Monday, Jan. 2, 2002, he escaped and started doing what dogs do. He started chasing cars.
Unfortunately, he caught one, and died shortly thereafter at an animal hospital.
Bill Clinton lost more than a loyal companion. He lost his best friend.
In fact, he may have lost his only friend. “If you want a friend in Washington, you need to get a dog,” Clinton said, quoting President Harry Truman.
The Clintons were given Buddy as a puppy in 1997, just weeks before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
Buddy didn’t care about that mess. He wasn’t the least bit jealous of Monica. He stuck by the president throughout the long impeachment proceedings. It didn’t bother Buddy that Bill lied. He never criticized the president. He didn’t judge him. He was always there for him. Buddy loved Bill unconditionally.
Dogs are special friends. If you ever owned one, you know that. And you’d never make light of one’s death or make fun of its hurting master.
Reading about Buddy’s passing, and empathizing with a grieving Bill, I thought about some of my dogs.
Years ago, on one of my morning walks, I kicked over a cardboard box and out crawled a little tan puppy — right into my heart.
Tanny, like Buddy, caught a car one day. Badly injured, he dragged himself to the big rooted tree on the creek bank back of the house — there to die. But Shannon would not allow it. That boy crawled way back in a dark hole not much bigger than he was and retrieved the little fellow. We took Tanny to Commerce, and Dr. Shirley saved his life. Dog doctors are special, too.
During the snowstorm early this month, Miles remembered Ace.
Ace had malformed teeth. One protruded outside his lower lip. And he always slept on his back, all four paws and one tooth pointing skyward.
Miles called me on January 3 and asked if I remembered how Ace used to play in the snow. That dog would stick his nose in the white stuff and run all over the place, making like a bulldozer.
Yes, I remembered. Miles said one of the neighbor’s dogs at Staghorn was doing the same thing. Miles was excited about that.
Ace has been dead at least 35 years. Miles was no more than 5 years old. But he still remembers. Dogs are responsible for a multitude of memories.
I remember that little dog lying there in the street in front of Hartwell’s First Baptist Church in the spring of 1957.
Obviously, it had been run over.
Some folks veered right and some veered left to miss him. Others, like myself, straddled the little fellow.
In my rear view mirror I caught a glimpse of an 18-wheeler, its exhaust belching black smoke and its huge tires grinding out a roar on the pavement. This would finish the little dog off for sure.
The big truck braked to a screeching halt about five feet from the little dog. As traffic backed up and impatient motorists sat on their horns, the truck driver crawled down from his lofty cab. He picked up the little dog and gently placed him on the grass in front of the church.
He hailed a pedestrian approaching on the sidewalk, and as the pedestrian began to minister to the little dog, the truck driver — a big, bearded brute of a man — slowly crawled back up in his cab and drove off into the sunset.
Dogs and people who love dogs are special, and we should never make light of their passing and grieving.
Virgil Adams is a former owner and editor of The Jackson Herald..

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