Sunday, December 7, 2014
An internal promotion
By Hobo
Hudson
I walked out
for an inspection tour of my old jeans production floor, which is now my porch,
and found Pogo, my old chief designer, whom I had kept on as a guard after I
sold my business several years ago, asleep on a sunny windowsill and the floor
covered with MICE. There were brown ones, white ones and even a few red and
green ones all over the place.
When I pawed
Pogo and asked why she didn’t have them under control, she meowed that she
didn’t have the energy anymore and just wanted to drowse in the sun.
After
thinking about it a moment, I realized she was probably just lonesome after her
mother and sister departed my employment and Thomas was promoted to Mom’s lap
kitty and decided Pogo needed company.
Since my
policy has always been to offer promotions to my current employees before
hiring an outsider, I immediately thought of Tiger who has been handling my
outside pest control problems for about a year and has done an excellent job
keeping away the lizards, mice, rats, etc.
He had shown
up about a year ago when he was no bigger than Dad’s hand and almost dead from starvation.
I immediately gave him some food and a room under my neighbor’s shed. After he
had gained a little strength, I assigned him the duty of keeping the lizards
and other small critters away from my backyard and, as he grew bigger, I
promoted him to neighborhood rat catcher.
When I
approached Tiger, he was a bit hesitant about accepting the job helping Pogo on
the porch and asked if he could work part time for a few days to see if he
liked it. I agreed, and he went to work immediately but only worked an hour or
so before he meowed he wanted to quit for the day, and I had Dad let him out.
He showed up bright and early the next day to give it another try and worked a
bit longer before wanting to quit. After about a week, he was working most of
the day, and I was well satisfied with his work.
About this
time, the weather turned awful! It was pouring rain and a cold north wind was
blowing when he showed up for work. After getting the mice population under control
and curling up with Pogo for a little while, Tiger spent the rest of the day on
a window sill watching the cold rain coming down and told me the catnip is
definitely tastier on this side of the window and he would be working full time
from now on.
I am going to
let him work another week to be sure he’s happy with his decision and then have
Dad take him to my doctor for a little “house kitty ritual” after which he’ll
be a permanent lifetime employee and I may even let him meow a blog now and
then.
Mom and Dad
are very happy with Tiger’s decision, although Dad was a bit grumpy by being
awakened at 1 a.m. one night when Tiger and Pogo were playing a rousing game of
jai alai using a ping-pong ball for a pelota and the bedroom sliding glass door
as a backstop. I solved this problem by giving Dad permission to hide the
ping-pong ball before he goes to bed, so everything is working out well so far.
Friday, October 10, 2014
The first solo cross-country flight
By Hobo
Hudson
The aspiring
flier fidgeted as she stood in line waiting for her instructor to review her
flight plan. This doesn’t look too bad, she thought, watching her instructor
cursorily scan the flight plans and make a notation on the bottom before
entering permission for the flight in the student’s logbook and sending the
student on his way.
When it was
her turn, her instructor carefully went over every detail on the flight plan
and even asked her to justify her compass heading. Pulling out her “spin wheel”
and her notes from her flight service weather briefing, she explained the true
course would be 055 but a wind from 190 made her adjust her course slightly
and, after adjusting for compass deviation, how she had come up with the course
she noted.
Finally, her instructor
nodded and wrote LD07 on the bottom and explained that Lima Delta Zero Seven
would be her call sign to contact Tampa Approach if she got lost and needed
radar assistance.
She smiled in
satisfaction as she noted her instructor’s permission for her first cross-country
flight while walking to the flight line. This day had been a long time coming
but she felt confident and fully prepared.
After
watching her lift off, the instructor tuned his radio to the destination
airport’s frequency to monitor his other students’ progress since the first of
the flights should be about ready to land. To his surprise, he heard nothing
but silence. He shook his head and tuned to Tampa Approach’s frequency and
heard a babble of voices….LD03 turning to 268, descending to 45 feet. Will dive
after passing over roof top for final to 180, etc.
Shaking his
head, he called to the other instructors to take off and help Tampa sort out
the developing feather ball. After takeoff, he heard a clear confident feminine
voice: LD07 is a black bellied whistling duck-student flier. Currently 12 wing
flaps west of Cafeteria-level at 100 feet-plan to enter a left cross wind for
Cafeteria and make a wide left down wind for landing on runway 18.
LD07-Tampa
Approach. Whistle 1207 and whistle if you need radar assistance. Roger that. LD07
whistling 1207.
The grizzled
old instructor rushed to take off and hurried to Cafeteria to find out what had
gone wrong. As he approached, he saw a slight fog had developed and, although
he had excellent vertical and horizontal visibility, he could not see the
runway ahead of him. However, he
knew the surroundings intimately and upon landing, saw a sole student on the
ground.
“How did you
manage to find the airport when none of the other students could find it?” he
asked.
“Hobo told me
his dad used to fly and I’ve been picking up tips from him,” she replied. “He
told me that sometimes a slight fog will develop and you can see ahead and down
but can’t see at an angle. He called it ‘slant visibility.’ He also told me
that if it happened to me to try to find a very visible landmark a little to
one side or the other of the airport and aim for it while looking straight down
so I flew a little left of my true heading until I could look down and see the
east/west highway and flew on top of it until I crossed 14th Street. From that
point, it was a piece of cake.”
The old
instructor was silent for a few moments as he digested her explanation. It was
an approach he had never heard about. He then asked for her log book and, after
scanning it, he pronounced that she was nine minutes short on blinder time and
short two cross-country flights.
Making a snap
decision, he told her to eat breakfast and then put on her blinders and he’d
fly with her a few minutes east, do a few maneuvers and then fly towards home
until the nine minutes were up. If that worked out all right, he would send her
on a cross-country flight the following morning to Wimauma and then a cross-country
flight to Manatee the next morning, and if she felt up to it on her return, he
would give her flight test upon her return and she could be a fully licensed
private flier in two days.
He then
congratulated her and told her that she would be the fastest student he had
ever had to earn her wings.
The little
duck smiled and thanked him before walking away to eat and didn’t tell him that
Hobo’s dad had rented an ultra-light plane and flown along-side her several
times to help her practice her maneuvers but couldn’t log them because he
didn’t have an instructor’s license. She’d just let him think that females are
naturally better fliers than males.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
What the job description left out
Edited by Hobo Hudson
Written by Wylie Hudson
When Hobo interviewed me for the job at his home, he
conveniently forgot to mention that I would have to share the living quarters
with cats. I was more than surprised at finding those critters in my new home,
but they turned out to be OK, and I knew right away I could live with them,
especially since they were enamored with me or at least with my tail.
However, taking on the job of a cat sitter is a completely
different ball game. In fact, the cat I have to babysit does play ball, and
from all the balls available, he has found a liking to tennis balls. I was always
under the impression that tennis balls were the exclusive toys reserved for me
and my fellow dogs. Anyway, despite my misgivings, the cat is a pretty good
catcher, and we’ve already had some good games going. He’s a little slow in
tossing the ball toward me and instead rolls around with it, but that’s just a
minor snag.
Now back to the cat sitting job. Several weeks after I
accepted Hobo’s offer and moved into his home, he told me I needed to help our
mom with a difficult task. Hobo explained that for months, Mom had tried to
move our kitty brother, Thomas, from the porch into the house but wasn’t
successful in any way. Hunkering down at the door to the porch without moving
away from it, Thomas cried and whined, forcing Mom to let him back out, and Mom
finally gave up trying to keep him inside.
Hobo said he really didn’t understand why Mom wanted Thomas
to move into the house because the cats had everything they needed and more on
the porch where they were safe, happy and content. But he hated to see Mom
being unhappy, and he always did his best to accommodate her.
So, Hobo gave me my new assignment to change Thomas into a
full-time house kitty and take care of him. When I pointed out that babysitting
had not been a part of the job he’d offered me, he said I shouldn’t consider it
a job but an act of love or a hobby. He said he couldn’t do it because he had
too many things going on and just didn’t have the patience for it. Even though
I knew that if babysitting the cat wasn’t a job, I wouldn’t get paid extra
kibbles doing it, I agreed to it—as if I even had a choice.
The first day I became a cat sitter, I found out it wasn’t work
at all. I didn’t have to do anything. When Mom carried Thomas into the living
room where I was waiting for him, he came running toward me, snuggled up
against me and then followed me wherever I went. He barely left my side. I
finally showed him a hidey-hole in the corner of the dining room where he now likes
to curl up, and I’m able to take a snooze alone again.
This has been going on for a week or two, and Thomas has no
urge to go back out onto the porch. And I’m receiving payments after all, even for
doing nothing. Every time Mom sees me walking around with Thomas on my heels,
she pats my head and tells me what a good boy I am.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Getting started in a new job
Edited by
Hobo Hudson
Written by
Wylie Hudson
When I walked
into Hobo’s office, I was overwhelmed by the most awful odor I had ever
smelled. I put a paw over my nose to keep from gagging and gasped to Hobo,
“What’s that horrible odor?” Hobo grinned and said, “Did I forget to mention
Blondie? That’s a cat you smell, and I would advise that you be real careful
around her. She’s getting old and cranky and just might whack your nose if you
bother her.”
Despite Hobo’s
warning, I just had to walk over and check her out since she was sleeping and
didn’t seem to pose a danger. I gave her a tentative tap with my paw, and she
opened one eye and gave out the most terrifying hiss I’d ever heard. My legs
turned to mush and my tail hit the floor as I rapidly backed away.
Hobo laughed
and assured me that she and I would get along as long as I didn’t startle her
for a couple of days and then took me out onto the porch to meet a couple more
of the critters. Unlike Blondie, these two came running up and asked permission
to play with my nice fluffy tail, and I instantly gave permission and knew I’d
get along fine with those two.
After that,
Hobo took me for a tour of his home and office. First, he showed me a large
room which he called a “living room.” It contained two long sofas, two doggy
day beds, a futon, an ottoman and a recliner, which Hobo explained was the only
place Dad would sit while he read or watched TV. There was also a large coffee
table and a big heap of toys under it.
I immediately
asked if I could play with the toys, and Hobo told me I could play with all of
them except for a large somewhat dilapidated stuffed skunk, which Hobo explained
was the only thing he played with. When I saw a deer antler sticking out of the
pile, I put my paw on it and asked if he would mind if I chewed on it now and
then. Hobo replied that I could have it since it didn’t have any taste, and he
had only given it one sniff when Dad brought it home.
Then, Hobo
and I went outside, and Hobo gave me a quick tour of a large fenced back yard
and showed me how to check for wilted grass and give them a little water. He
also showed me a patch of yellowish grass and told me that was where I should
deposit my nice organic fertilizer.
When we
re-entered the house, Hobo gave me my first job assignment. He told me that all
furniture is “first come, first served” and he wanted me to claim Dad’s chair
so Dad would be forced to go into Hobo’s office and work on proofreading Hobo’s
new book, which he hopes to publish soon.
That evening,
New Mom asked me to sleep with her in what she called “The guest room.” I found
it had a nice large, new smelling, doggy bed which I concluded Hobo had
purchased just for me and enjoyed a good night’s sleep, although New Mom later
told me I seemed to have had a nightmare one time during the night.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
The interview process
Edited by
Hobo Hudson
Written by
Wylie Hudson
I was a bit
afraid that Hobo might change his mind overnight and decide not to hire right
now due to the unrest in Ukraine
and Gaza. I
didn’t sleep much worrying about this and the upcoming interview, but I decided
to put on a brave front and was up at the crack of dawn requesting an
appointment at the fur salon for a brushing and comb out. After that, I told
myself to buck up and act as though I already had the job.
After the fur
treatment, I returned to my room for breakfast and then packed my toys and
seeing that I still had a couple of treats left, I shoved them through the wall
into the next room for my neighbor to enjoy, thinking that I might as well go
for broke, and then sat down patiently waiting for the gates to open.
Just as the
gates opened, a large silver limo pulled into the parking lot and the nice
couple got out accompanied by a somewhat pudgy little black terrier. When I saw
them, I immediately went into my dance routine, and they walked over to me, and
then we all adjourned to an interview room.
After a few
preliminary sniffs, Hobo and I sat down, and he explained that he is getting
older and would like to slow down a bit and wanted to hire a good dog to take
over some of his work so he could concentrate on his writing and bone market trading
and maybe take a vacation now and then.
He then asked
me a series of questions, and I had to admit I didn’t know anything about
computers but had had typing lessons during puppy school and had received all
As on my essays.
Hobo seemed
satisfied with my answers and then asked if I had any questions. At the same
moment, one of those pesky squirrels walked past right behind Hobo, and I had
to focus really hard not to chase the critter again and probably blow my chance
at obtaining the job. However, just when it entered Hobo’s side vision, Hobo
barked, “Let’s get that squirrel!” and we were off.
My long legs
enabled me to outdistance Hobo in a flash, and I was sitting at the base of an
oak tree staring intently at the squirrel, who was sitting on a limb jibber
jabbering away at me when Hobo arrived. I knew it was probably a bad move to
outrun my future boss, but I just couldn’t help myself.
Hobo just
grinned and said “You’re hired. Let’s go into the office, and I’ll put my paw
print on the paperwork.
When we had
signed everything, we hopped into Hobo’s limo and I was off to a new future
which sounded great to me. Little did I realize the hard work that would be
required for me to learn my new duties.
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This was Hobo Hudson, my doggy brother, a little terrier mix with black fur. He became famous after his first attempt at writing stories, which was an article published in the newsletter of our local animal shelter, the same shelter in which I ended up years later before Hobo and his parents adopted me. Hobo’s fame quickly spread as he made a name for himself as a business dog and an adventurer. To keep his memory alive, my doggy sister, my three kitty siblings and I, Wylie Hudson, are continuing his blog. Our mom is the blog’s editor.
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