Dear Little Emily: Mickey O'Flaherty and the Dog Poop

 

The audio version of this story is now also available on my MakerTube!
https://makertube.net/w/4ikHDR1cK3fhjeNB7cxSm8

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Dear Little Emily,
When you grow up, you’re going to keep singing with Mum, at the folksong retreats. Mostly the old ballads and work-songs that you usually sing, with all the spirituals that tie your hearts up into warm packaged balls of hope. And also sometimes songs Mum’s written. Like this one:

Well I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

Mum is really never going to stop writing parodies. This one is of “I Know My Good Lord Done Been Here”, and you’ll be mighty glad Daddy will be dead by the time she writes it, because he’d sure not appreciate the vain usage of his Lord’s name! Haha. Pretty sure you would have sung it to him if she was going to write it while he was alive. Sometimes you’ll be so embarrassed, though, and this is no exception, although by the time you sing this, you’ll be me—your adult self—and have learned that a little embarrassment is worth the reward of a great memory.

Good morning, Mr. Otis
I wonder where you’re bound
You look like you’re on a mission
And you’re walking on landscaped ground

Well I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

One of Mum’s favourite memories to tell, is of Mickey O’Flaherty. Even his name seems to delight her, and the stories fall out of Mum all your life long. I know you know this already. You’re around ten. But it never stops—I promise.

Mum has a framed photo on her wall of herself and Uncle Jim, and a bunch of their friends standing in a line on their street in Mill Valley, where they grew up. Six kids. Uncle Jim is the weirdo on the right with his legs and eyes crossed. Mum is third in from the left, and just beside her sheepish grin, Mickey O’Flaherty’s ears stick out. He looks like he’s just about to say something. Maybe that’s my imagination. He apparently had a lot to say.

Mum likes to tell about the protest signs Mickey put up on his front lawn, declaring “My Mother won’t give me hot chocolate!” and other such things. Apparently Mickey used to have breakfasts at little Mum’s house in the mornings, before they went off to school with Katie and the other kids. He spent a lot of time at Mum’s house. Grandma looked after him, I guess, because his mother was single. I guess like Mum was single for a little while after she left Daddy, and you both lived in the apartment, and Pappa brought you groceries, before he became your Pappa. So I guess maybe you have Mickey’s sense of humour to thank for Mum’s silliness. And perhaps this song.

You know that poodle Mitzi
She’s easiest to find
She’s just like Hansel and Gretel
She keeps leavin’ her crumbs behind

Well I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

So the best story goes like this: There was some rude neighbour—and that’s important—he wouldn’t have met the same fate if he hadn’t been rude to children. And on top of all that, his dog used to poop all over the neighbourhood. So (and Mum swears this was Mickey’s idea), she and Mickey did a community service and picked up all this neighbour’s dog’s poop, and gift-wrapped it beautifully. They tied it up with a string and put a neatly-written note on top, that said, “Your dog did this. Be proud!” Then they set it on the neighbour’s doorstep, rang the bell, and departed.

I used to walk out barefoot
When I was just a lass
I don’t walk barefoot anymore
Because there’s danger in the grass

And I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

So when you’re all grown, little Emily, you’re going to make a big road-trip down the coast, with your own teenaged children, and you’ll stop in Mill Valley, on Meadow Road, to look at the house our mother grew up in. The house will look rather as she described it: A single-story home with a garage and a lawn. You can imagine little Mum on that lawn, spread out with Mickey and Katie and maybe Uncle Jim, all painting on scraps of cardboard, some kind of creative advocacy for their rights. Mum spent her whole life advocating for children’s rights, as a preschool teacher. Although by the time you’re grown she’ll be an infant development consultant, doing the same thing. Did their exploits inspire her? 

Around about now, when you’re ten, Mum and Pappa want to get you a passport, but Daddy won’t allow it. He’s fighting for custody of you, and I know you’re scared. Scared that every time Mum and Pappa come back from that courtroom it will be to say goodbye; to send you off to Daddy’s house forever. I wish I could tell you right now, Mum would never let that happen. She may not have money for a lawyer, and she may just be a preschool teacher married to a bearded man with a woven tie who cringes at the sight of documents, but she knows how to speak up for herself and your rights, and she’ll find a lawyer at the last second; a friend who is a straight-standing, clean-shaven man in a crisp suit and who will walk into that courtroom and silence all those people trying to take you away from her. He’ll silence them just by walking in like he belongs there. He walks like a man who knows he’s worth something. Like maybe his mother was like your mother, and knew how to give children a voice. That friend will save your life that day, little Emily. But he’ll be there because Mum was brave enough to ask him. And maybe all of it because she and Mickey developed their voices as children, so they could speak up when others couldn’t.

Good morning to you, neighbour
And how do you do?
I’d ask you in for coffee
But you’d get dog shit on your shoe!

And I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

Sing the songs, little Emily. No matter how embarrassing. You never know where they came from nor what importance they carry. Sing the songs with your friends, now, and with your children and their friends, later. You’re going to be a teacher, too, and an artist, and you, too, can give people a voice, even though right now when you’re ten you don’t feel you have one at all.

I think it’s the struggle we go through as children that gives us the courage and power to stand up for others, later on. I wonder what became of Mickey O’Flaherty. What will your fear of going to Daddy’s house do for you? Your fear of speaking up, and the danger of not speaking up? I mean – I’m almost fifty, now. I kind of know what you’re going to do with your life. But I think I’ll leave that to you to discover, as you go. Sometimes the joy is in the finding. Unless it’s poop you find, I guess.

Well I know your Darn Dog done been here,
Done been here, neighbour, done been here!
I know your Darn Dog done been here,
He done blessed my yard and gone.

Love, Emily