Yale University

16 Nov 2009. In my road atlas, Montana, our fourth largest state, takes up two pages. But so does Connecticut, our third smallest. So while the page of Bozeman to the border may take most of a day, blazing through the Connecticut centerfold barely takes two hours. Two hours, ideally. If only the state weren't chock full of universities, including the alma mater of George Bush I, Jodie Foster, George Bush II, and Joe College.


"What do you think it was like to lick a dinosaur?"
Otter again resists turning his head. "...What?"
"I think it would be like licking a damp radial tire."
"Let's get back on track here, please."
"It is not so off track if you think about it. Examining our handsome bulldog's throat, mouth, and tongue, I can't even begin to imagine the people and things he has licked through his years. And they are all gone! He may have even licked the dodo! So that got me thinking about other extinct animals."
"If we succeed here, he will be able to lick all the dodos he wants."
"That is if somebody, somewhere, has a dodo reasonably intact."
"Of course."

A steady rain fell outside, though Otter and Dr. Li wouldn't know. They were holed up in the sanitized fluorescent basement of West Campus Hall, wiring up a recently-thawed bulldog. Yale's Life Science department had this particular animal on indefinite loan from the Smithsonian Institution. It was rumored to be the 'Vocal Specimen' that dusty old fables had described as capable of primitive speech. The Smithsonian had no more room for a dead dog when Jerry Seinfeld donated various artifacts from his '90s sitcom. It proved to be a coup for the foot-traffic-starved tourist attraction.
Otter had choked, "They can't decide whether to be Ripley's or Access Hollywood. Idiotic museum is no longer an oxymoron; it's the sad reality."

Back in New Haven, Dr. Li studied an MRI scan of the canine's skull.
"It really does have a highly-developed Broca, responsible for..." Li trailed off. His gut suddenly tightened. He felt nauseous. A sudden emotional urge flew up from his stomach, up his torso, and out his mouth. He had to introduce the gorilla in the room.
"Otter, this is playing God. I cannot attempt this. I am sorry."
Otter put down the mini-electrodes and stood straight. "You say that like it is completely horrible. Your friend Professor Lee - the other Professor Lee - didn't have a problem with it. We're just playing God. We're not actually being God. I agree no human could handle that. If there is a God, he gave us these gifts, this opportunity, this mummified bulldog. We are this close! It might not even work."
"But if it does work..."
"If it does work? Longevity treatments, medical breakthroughs, threatened species no longer threatened, not to mention massive academic endowments and the most luxurious tenure ever. Let's make this specimen vocal again."
"But - "
Otter dropped the lighthearted tone. "No more buts."
He made a quick injection into the dog's sternum, re-aligned the electrodes on its chest, and tapped out a few commands on the nearby workstation's inlaid keyboard. The generator beneath the stainless steel dissection table hummed to life. Four small lights on the generator lit up in succession.
Red. Red. Red. Green.
The hum crescendoed into a harsh buzz. The generator emitted a frightening pop. Otter and Li jumped back. The dog had been shocked onto its side. Its cute squat legs dangled over the edge. They began to twitch.
Li whispered, "The specimen is moving!"
Otter whispered back, "I see. Watch."
Li and Otter were facing the dog's golden hindquarters. They could not witness the blinking eyelids or the emerging tongue.
But they heard the cough.
The revived dog coughed weakly at first, then with more vigor. The last cough definitely had an unsettling human quality to it. Otter and Li exchanged looks, each with the same question on their faces. They clearly had spent too much time discussing the urban legends of the Vocal Specimen. The stories had finally got to them.
Dogs cannot speak.
Dogs cannot speak English.
And most certainly, dogs cannot speak English with a New Jersey accent.
Yet here was Jethro.

"PLAAAAGKH! I'm gettin' reeeal sick of the taste of formaldehyde."

University of Northern Iowa

6 Aug 2009. Campus was deserted but I got to see the Unidome and two healthy young ladies checking me out. Checking my merchandise out, that is. Ostentatious purple plastic yards on clearance for two dollars?? In Cedar Falls, a jaw falls.


Jethro trudged through the wet gravel, the cool water between his paws the only relief from the unfiltered country sun.
The water from the Black Hawk river was clear and fresh, but the sparse diet of roots and grubs was inadequate for any bulldog. Jethro's nose was dry and his haunches were weak.
Occasionally, he saw Sir Francis Drake or the rest of The Golden Hind's crew in the distance. They would wave him onward, he would obey, they would disappear.
This time his hallucinations grew feline.
"Hey cat. You got any food." mumbled Jethro.
When the cat stalked away instead of evaporating back into his mind, Jethro realized he was dealing with a real wild animal. He stood at attention the best he could, trying to still his shaking legs.
Rustling and thumping sounded around him.
Left? No, right. No, behind!
Now right. Or left.
Jethro retreated from the open riverbed up into the wild rose shrubs.
To be pounced upon.
Dog and cat - large cat - rolled back down into the shallow water.
Jethro could barely see straight. The dizziness overtook him. His adrenaline hit empty. Conceding defeat, he lay on his back, thinking of England and its lost captain.
"I'm sorry, Drake."
The cat paused, blinking, before rearing up. Jethro's collar charm glinted in the cat's eye. It took only a second for the cat to recognize the Royal Seal.
"Sacre bleu!" said the cat. Off it ran.

Jethro gathered himself under the shade of a willow, gnawing on its fallen bark.
The cat came back to drop a dead pheasant in front of Jethro.
Jethro stood up and backed away from the cat, growling. He stopped when the cat nosed the pheasant toward him.
Jethro peered at the cat. He snatched the bird off the ground and wrapped his jowls around it. In two minutes all that remained was beak, bone, and feathers.
Jethro spit out a claw spur. "Thanks."
"De rien."
"Do you speak English?"
The cat licked its chops, saying nothing.
"Er....parlay voo Eenglaze?"
"No. Français."
"My name is, oh...jay swee Jethro."
"Napoléon." said the cat in a weighty baritone.
"Where are you from? What's up with the freakout about my collar?" Jethro dingled the charm, hoping to get through with some basic paw language.
Napoléon furrowed his brow and emitted a low, gurgling mrow. He pointed his nose skyward and ran away.
"No, wait, hold on! Uh...par-ay! Alto! Aw, jeez. What a head case."

Jethro continued vaguely east. He figured with several days behind him, it was another couple weeks till Chicago.
A purple mass of fur and a toothy smile popped into Jethro's view.
"Aah! Okay, okay, now you're freakin' me out!"
Another cat joined Napoléon's side, this one with a silver coat.
Napoléon introduced her: "Joséphine."
Jethro was near starving an hour ago. Now he was having meet-and-greets in broken French with wildcat lovebirds.
"Hi. Listen, it's great that you can talk. I mean, you, me, in the middle of Iowa territory, what are the odds? And I really appreciate the bird, Napoleon. But I don't speak any French and it's taking a lot of mental - "
"You don't have to." said Joséphine with a spotty French accent.
"Oh, praise the queen."
Jethro sat, all ears now.

Napoléon and Joséphine came from the western mountains. They had learned French from the trappers in the frontier. Napoléon was just fine, thank you, with French, but Joséphine didn't hesitate to also pick up English from other pioneers. The couple's position as liaisons to humans moved them to the top of the cats' social order. But when the other cats got tired of their God's-gift-to-the-animal-kingdom attitude, or as the raconteur put it, their "jealousy and inability to carry on a conversation", Napoléon and Joséphine were exiled to northern Iowa.
Listening to Joséphine's retelling, Napoléon recognized the word exile. He bristled and hissed, "Nous avons été traités comme des chiens."
Jethro looked over for a translation. Joséphine explained, "It was our Waterloo."
"Why can't you just go back to another part of the west? It's enormously huge. You can find a new pack of wildcats or panthers or cougars or whatever the correct term is."
"All of those names are fine. But the mountains are no longer our home."
"So what now?"
"We would love to make it to Paris. The trappers tell us it is a glorious place, where the streets are filled with endlesss rats. Enough to feed the largest cats. It was only a large and fancy dream until Napoléon saw your Royal Seal. We are willing to put aside our countries' differences if you can help us get to Europe! ...That is where you were going, yes?"
"I wasn't going anywhere really. Drake and the crew are gone. Taken by prairie rodents, catapulted from buffalo-mounted coyotes in headdresses. My initial goal was Chicago."
"Oui, oui, Chicago! Nous connaissons le chemin!"
"Yes, if we take you there, can you put us on a ship to Europe?"
"I really don't have that kind of pull. Sure, I may be English, but I'm still only an English bulldog."
"Oh, please help us get home, Jethro! We will do all the hunting for you!"
"S’il vous plaît, Jethro!" Napoleon and Joséphine activated their big-kitty-eye glands.
"Aw, jeez."

Have you ever met a cat who wasn't manipulative and French?

Drake University

24 Jun 2009. The closest College Cups has had to a chase scene was in Des Moines, Iowa. I left Iowa, Iowa, at 4:00 PM. The Drake bookstore was set to close at 5:30 PM. Could I make 119 miles in 90 minutes?? I mentally calculated that my average speed would have to be in the 75 mph range. If I went for it and made it, I could get the cup and log some after-dinner miles before setting up camp for the night. But if I missed it, I would have to stay in Monktown and make my purchase first thing in the morning. And that would put me way behind schedule in my cross country trip.
I went for it of course.
The bookstore was relatively easy to find from the interstate. I parked at 5:31 PM, and luckily the doors were still open to sweaty, jittery, numb-butted customers like me! Not only that, the cashiers recommended a great local barbecue dive. Jethro's and Lake Anita State Park: A+, would patronize again.


Sir Francis Drake stroked his chin. He was lost in the American continent.
"Will you stop fondling your goatee and ask for directions?" asked Drake's talking bulldog, Jethro.
"Never!! Not for all the naked lady scrimshaw in Connecticut will I accept help from a Frenchman or a savage!"
This was not the first time Drake regretted having Jethro take English lessons from a parrot. Yet he was still the most intelligent companion out of the whole crew.
Their tall ship, The Golden Hind, was dangerously out of place up the muddy Des Moines river. And it had been spotted by the natives. The natives knew it was only a matter of time before a ship of that size was permanently moored. It just came quicker than they thought.
Minutes later, The Golden Hind came to a sludgy halt. When Drake and Jethro disembarked to survey the damage, they were doomed.
"Look at the condition of the hull, Jethro. What a damnable catastrophe!"
"You're the damnable catastrophe. How many miles off course did you put us?"
"You are not being man's best friend right now."
Drake reached back to deliver a slap to Jethro's golden hindquarters. A large tailless squirrel dropped into his open palm.
"Ye Gads! A flying prairie rat!" It scampered down his shirtsleeve and disappeared into his vest. Dignity suddenly dropped low on Drake's list of priorities.
"Oof! Ahh! Gah! Jethro, help!"
Jethro was busy with small mammals of his own. He was barking and thrashing, trying to ward off the strange new species.
The enemy artillery emerged from the pines. Drake addressed them. "By the power of the crown, I order you to stand down - ahh - that we may - erg - engage in a humane discourse!"
Jethro flipped a couple rats aside. "Drake, you and your weak nose. They ain't humane cuz they ain't human!"
The crew of The Golden Hind finally finished their poker game and came deckside. They had a better view of what Jethro meant. Instead of charging Sioux, they saw the inexplicable: bison-mounted prairie dog catapults operated by trained coyotes in feathered headdresses.
A new round of prairie dogs were flung close to the ship. They climbed up the sides and populated the crew's faces. The animals not busy with facial mauling were gnawing through lines and masts.
The coyotes dismounted from the bison and identified Drake as the party's leader. Sadly, they made quick work of the captain.
Hopelessly outnumbered, Jethro ran.
He subsisted for two weeks on river water, grass, and prairie fowl eggs. He made it to Chicago where a settler recognized the royal seal on the lapels of his sailor suit. Jethro recounted the story during his convalescence, but as veterinary medicine was primitive back then, he had little chance of long-term survival. A few days later he succumbed to doggy dysentery.
Drake and his crew became heroes in England.
Much later, when a town sprang up around the Des Moines river, the founders paid tribute to them by christening their new school Bulldog University. Their sports teams were nicknamed the Drakes.
Days later the names were reversed.

Jethro's golden hindquarters

"Bow-wow to me!"

Drake is home to the annual Beautiful Bulldog competition.