This is from the time of my career in the political side of life.

It’s the story of Bear.

Bear was a dog owned by Mayor Jeremy Harris and his wife.

A long time ago our Maltese had five puppies.

That’s a lot of puppies so after the suitable waiting period we started looking for some good homes for a few of them.

You know what a hot item a cute Maltese can be.

The Mayor’s wife really, really wanted one.

The Mayor waffled – I kept telling him they were going fast – and he waffled some more.

One went to my sister, one to the wife’s friend and one to her brother.

The fourth went to a federal firefighter and his family.

We kept the fifth.

Thirty minutes after the firefighter left with number four the Mayor calls asking if he could get one for his wife.

Sorry sir, the boat sailed.

Out of time and out of luck the Mayor turned to a newspaper ad and probably paid a bazillion dollars for one male Maltese puppy for his wife.

So why this story?

Because this was the craziest dog ever to walk the Earth.

His wife took him everywhere: meetings, dinners, city events, campaign events.

You name it and Bear was along tucked in a bag under her arm.

That’s a lot of stimulation for an 8-week old puppy.

Bear grew up to be loud, boisterous and a real handful.
He would make a perfect politician.

I ended up babysitting him when they went out-of-town.

I liked Harris and his wife and was glad to help out, but…

Oh my God.
That dog loved to bark.

All day.
All night.

And at night he also loved to jump up on the bed, pace around and walk all over me.

He was a handful and he made me real grumpy.

Squirt guns didn’t work – rattling coins in a can didn’t work.
Nothing worked.

I went to the Humane Society to see what it could do.

They gave me a collar that you fill with this liquid.

When Bear barked, the collar squirted out some gassy thing that really smelled bad.

I put it on Bear and waited.

It didn’t take long before he ripped a loud one.

The collar went off, he looked surprised as hell and barked again.

Cloud number two.

He shut up for about two days before he learned to bark and then run like hell for the other side of the room leaving the smelly cloud behind.

Now what to do…

I won’t go into how we discovered this, but we stumbled on the one thing that made the dog quiet.

He actually loved it.
Wanting to make him happy that’s where he spent the majority of his time.

There’s some moral in here somewhere but I’m too lazy to figure it out.

Why anyone would want that job is beyond my grasp.

Locked up and surrounded by guys with guns all day.

No matter what you do, someone is going to bitch about it.

And then there’s the women throwing themselves at you.

Wait a minute – sounds a bit like Justin Bieber, come to think of it.
I think he’s a bit nuts too.

Anyway, then there’s the rules you have to follow.

I’m not talking about the ones that Bieber breaks every day.

I’m talking about the rules President Johnson was proud to live by.

It’s interesting the stories you hear in politics.

If you hang around people’s aides long enough you hear just about everything.

For example, LBJ used to say:
Never trust a man whose eyes are too close to his nose.

The late President had a list of them and they guided his life.

The guy must have been… interesting.

Here’s the rest…

2. Always be sure to have 25 percent cotton in your undershirts; otherwise your bobbies will itch

3. Remember the CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business

4. The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character

5. When you are handshaking on the campaign trail, never let the other fellow grab your hand first—grab his hand and elbow and throw him past

6. Before getting into a motorcade, always go to the bathroom and pee. (A famous story has it that Johnson peed on a Secret Service guy one time)

7. Don’t tell a man to go to Hell unless you can send him there

8. When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention

I personally like #3.
Very appropriate these days.

I never met LBJ.
I did meet every President after him when they passed through the islands.

To clarify, “met” means shake his hand as he goes flying in and out of the room.
I doubt I ever made actual eye contact with anyone except Bill Clinton.

Probably only because I was holding a golf club and he needed it.

Johnson was a grump too.
A man after my own heart.

I feel better already.

Texts, or instant messages are affecting the few brain cells I have left.

Stay with me while I explain this and swing you to my side.

I leave Instant Messaging active on my iPhone cause it’s the wife’s preferred method of communication and sometimes people from work get hold of me that way.

If I could turn it off – I would.

When I was a kid we talked over two tin cans with a string.

Great fun.

Then I got older and people called me on the phone.
That was fine if it was short.

I tried to keep calls to 30 seconds or so.
Unless we were discussing beer or what bar had the most single women that weekend.

Those calls could get to two or three minutes.
Exhausting.

Then people started emailing me.
Way too much.

The delete button became my close friend.

Now they text me.
And it drives me crazy.

Every time one comes through I have visions of 16-year-old girls wandering the mall texting their brains out.

What could they possibly be saying?

“Here I am at Macy’s and I’m looking at shoes. Want a picture?”

Some walk around with the phone to their ear listening to their friend’s breath.

That’s another story for a later time.

I don’t have a problem ignoring instant messages, especially when I’m driving.

But the phone keeps trying to remind me I should run into a utility pole and read it NOW.

Maybe it would be okay if it was sexting, but at my age that’ll never happen.

I probably wouldn’t know how to respond anyway.

The wife sometimes texts me in the middle of rush hour to share how bad the traffic is.

I usually respond with a simple “OK” so she knows I got it.
I’m trying to be polite.

I don’t want to encourage a conversation because she might end up in the trunk of the car in front of her, plus I’m usually doing something at the moment.

She’s the apple of my eye, but it doesn’t work.

More than once she’s texted me from the other room.

It’s really okay to walk down to the other end of the house and see me in person.

Really.
Maybe I’ll get a hug then, too.

Want to stand out from the crowd?

If it can’t be said – completely – in one sentence, do a phone call instead.

Reach out and actually touch someone.

What a concept.

Yes, I feel better.