Flying Beagles by anonymous

When I was just a boy, my family lived in Europe. My father was in the U.S. Army, and we were stationed at a number of posts in Germany during his career. Without exception, the locations were beautiful and the experience, magical. But I was even luckier than most, because every summer, we would hop in the car and drive to France to see my mother’s ma and pa, my French grandparents. My French family is situated in the quiet, beautiful green hillsides of Charente, in the southwest, about three hours northeast of Bordeaux. The county seat is Angouleme, and old Roman fortress-town built on the tip of the largest hill as far as the eye can see. Normally, as soon as we would arrive, all the relatives (Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, friends, whoever was able to take Holiday leave) would form a convoy and head west-northwest, towards the historic town of La Rochelle and the picturesque, quaint, authentic (read: unspoiled by tourists) island of Isle de Re. Our clan had the perfect location chosen beforehand, and it would take no time at all to have the campers unloaded, the tents put up, and one the kids, running to the beach with half his ass still hanging out of his swim trunks (probably me). We lived like that for three weeks or so, running to the market every couple of days to buy food to prepare for dinner (and bread…..bread is essential). I could turn this story into a book, but let’s leave that for a more appropriate forum. The animals are comin’, keep yer hat on.

After roughly three weeks of this torture, we were all chocolate brown and actually thinner from all the running and goofing off on the sand. We headed back to Angouleme for a few weeks before departing for Germany. But the fun wasn’t over. Once we had gathered ourselves, we piled back into the caravan and headed for the medieval farm house out in the country, called La Chabre. This rectangular, solid stone structure was owned by dear friends of the family, and they were pleased to see it being visited every summer. It must have been fifteenth or sixteenth century at birth, and the floor consisted of these perfectly cut, giant, I mean GIANT square rocks. The house was impenetrable and indestructible; it stands to this day. Electricity had been wired, and a well provided running water. The beds were a bit of a challenge. The mattresses were filled with hay, which took some getting used to (“what happens if an ember from the fireplace reaches my bed? Then you’ll go mercifully quick.”); thank goodness we brought our own pillows. We were never without something to do at La Chabre. My Aunt Veronique and I would go exploring, and my brother and sister and Uncle Michel would go for a ride in the junked out car that was kept t the property. They both learned how to drive stick-shift in that 1950-something Peugeot. And there were no people as far as the eye could see. The tiny village of Mainzac was just a few kilometers away, so we had access to the small Tabac (corner store) for water, sodas, milk and BREAD). My mother and grandmother always over-packed the food so they wouldn’t have to listen to any complaining.

My grandfather Marcel used the property more than anyone else because he would occasionally go rabbit hunting. La Chabre was the ideal location, with a nice warm place to eat and sleep, a large pen for the Beagles, and nothing but farmland and rabbits waiting to be slaughtered on the horizon. Yes, I said Beagles. They are brilliant hunting dogs, and rabbits are at the top of the list. My grandfather raised Beagles back in Angouleme, in a structure he built for just such a purpose. When my grandfather would go rabbit-hunting, I believe he would take seven, maybe eight dogs, although I have no clue what the official number is for competitions. Although I never did see my grandfather catch a rabbit, he was dedicated to those dogs. They were fed, watered, sung to, and exercised. In order to transport the dogs to La Chabre, my grandfather saved a great deal of money by building his own dog-carriage-trailer-thing. He sued the wheels from my brother’s baby stroller, and bits and pieces of anything else he could find. He would load these barking, loud, kinda dumb, dogs into this little trailer with two wheels, double-check the hitch, and we were off. Now I knew better than to question anything that my grandfather crafted by hand. Just like my American grandfather, he was an artist with his hands. But even Michelangelo had a flub up-once or twice, I imagine. One this particular afternoon, we were leaving la Chabre for the summer, and already mentally planning the trip back to Germany. We were in two cars, with my Uncle Patrick driving the gray Renault and my grandfather driving the white Renault, with everyone split evenly between the two. We were driving a safe distance behind the white Renault because it was pulling the homemade ex-pram full of barking, shitting, peeing, unhappy Beagles. We hit a sharp turn, and the unthinkable happened. As if it had never been screwed on to begin with, one of the two wheels of the dog-trailer/ex-pram came flying off into a ditch. My grandfather realized in a split second that something had gone wrong and stopped, but the damage had been done (relax- no injuries). The poor beagles….all eight of them, had been flung out of the contraption totally against their will, and onto one side of the road or the other. And there was my grandfather, trying to catch the dogs, yelling at my grandmother that somehow this was her fault, and my uncle and father trying to find a way to put the contraption back together at least until we finished the five-minutes left of our drive. To this day, I think about the people who passed us by, who I could see in their cars, quickly surmising what had occurred, and probably wetting themselves laughing. The French love a good tragedy, as long as it’s not happening to them. We finally rounded up all the dogs, who were only psychologically damaged, thank goodness. We managed to fit all the dogs into the two cars on top of the already-squeezed occupants, for the five-minute drive home. Whenever we have a family gathering, we have to retell that particular story. When I recall each Beagle, being deposited out of the contraption against its will, I can’t help but start to giggle to myself all over again.