A TALE

Pointer was a big shaggy dog without a scrap, not a single gene, of pointer in his massive hairy frame.

Looking at him from a certain angle, one person may believe him one type of dog while someone else with a different perspective may think Pointer an entirely unrelated breed of dog.

Pointer’s genealogy was as lost as the origins of his name.

None of the Reeds could remember why the dog had been named Pointer. Only that their youngest child at the age of 2 had called the puppy Pointer, or what they believed to be the word Pointer. 

Possibly, 2-year-old Jonathan Bailey Reed had called the dog Painter, or Pinter, or Ponder, or Pincher, or any list of words that could be related to what he gurgled. Jonathan Bailey Reed had called the dog something that came out “pntr,” which could have been the toddler’s way of saying “puppy” or simply a gassy reaction to a dog in such close proximity.

After the entire family tried “Pointer” out on both Jonathan Bailey Reed and the puppy to everyone’s satisfaction that was the word the toddler had indeed said and that both he and the pup were pleased with the name, the Reeds’ dog became Pointer.

As often happens with dogs, its name became more familiar to the neighborhood than the actual name of its owners. After all, a neighbor is far more likely to hear a dog’s name repeated than the name of the family calling the dog. Despite the name’s repetition, neighbors often referred to Pointer as “that Reed dog.”

All along the streets, no matter the time of day, or season of the year, neighbors could hear the Reeds calling for Pointer to come inside, warning Pointer to stop digging, to stop barking, to stop scratching at the door, to stop knocking over the children.

As the years passed, no one would mistake the dog’s name for Painter, or Pinter, or “pntr” as each Reed, even growing young Jonathan Bailey Reed, pronounced the name Pointer distinctly. In truth, given their often heard calls for the dog to cease whatever activity, one could say the Reeds even said the name pointedly.

Nothing prompted more severe reaction to that Reed dog than its ability to dig up, gnaw, devour, uproot, tangle, deflower and desecrate Mrs. Reed’s rose bushes.

Rosalinda Reed had loved roses since birth; however, more than a few clever people throughout her life wondered if a Rosalinda by any other name would have found roses just as sweet. 

Her roses had won her prizes from her childhood gardens. As an adult, neighbors often stopped in front of the Reed household to admire the beautiful petals of Rosalinda’s roses.

They did, at least, until the Reeds got that dog.

At first, neighbors stopped stopping because Pointer barked them away with that roaring, hairy, saliva-dripping thing that was his head. Then, the neighbors no longer stopped because there were no longer beautiful roses to view.

Pointer had discovered his own love for roses.

He loved eating them, trampling them, urinating on them, rolling on them, shaking them in his toothy maw. Rosalinda Reed would shoo Pointer with a broom, shrieking his name startling neighbors up and down the street as well as a block or two over.

Year after year, Rosalinda tried growing her roses. Each year, Pointer destroyed her efforts. Mr. Reed built a fence around the rose bushes. Pointer destroyed the fence. They tried tethering Pointer; the dog broke free; the roses were no more.

One spring, Pointer became the center of vigorous debate. Rosalinda wanted to get rid of the dog. She stood alone. 

Her husband, Ronald Robert Reed, and their children, Anita Pandora Reed, Anna Quentin Reed, Alexis Rose Reed, Alison Samson Reed, and, of course, Jonathan Bailey Reed, stood by Pointer.

Yet, even as one against many, Rosalinda Reed, as many mothers do, had exceptional veto power though many votes opposed her. She could have simply overrode each and every other Reed and the dog would be gone. 

In the end, she did not use her full powers. She surrendered to no longer having a decent rose garden.

“I guess I won’t have fine roses again until Pointer has passed,” she sighed more than once through the years.

And though she did not use her powers, Rosalinda Reed was right as mothers are often right.

Come the day when the dog died, Ronald Robert Reed and 16-year-old Jonathan Bailey Reed buried Pointer beneath the rose garden, the dirt wet with the combined tears of several Reeds from all of the children now grown or nearly, as well as two baby grandchildren, and even from the eyes of Rosalinda Reed.

With roots wrapped in the body and bones of that massive dog, they say Rosalinda Reed’s rose garden burst with colors that spring. Brighter than any roses she had raised, ever, the neighbors said. Far more vibrant, and spectacular, they commented, than the roses she had grown even in the years before the family had got that Reed dog.

Dean Poling is The Valdosta Daily Times managing editor.