An Encounter With A Black Dog

The problem with trying to recount an event that happened darn near sixty years ago is that time tends to blend reality and fantasy together. I'll tell what I remember but whether or not that is actually what happened, well, Dear Reader, I leave such discretion up to you.

An Appalachian childhood, especially pre-Deliverance, is a precious thing, most certainly  when those years straddle the transition into modern media. Television was a relatively new thing in those Eisenhower years, but the movies were the palpably real thing-- full of stars, stories, and not too much color. The neighborhood boys around Ratcliffe Cove spent those long summer days making creek swimming holes, hunting snakes, and riding bikes.

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