is for dog. Of course, it is…

 

Recently, my sister and I swapped a couple pieces of family furniture. While I knew I would miss the leather rocking chair that belonged to our great-grandfather, I no longer had room for it.

This is my sister’s dog, Maya. Maya is a sweet Norwegian elkhound. It warms my heart to see that Maya has taken a particular liking to the chair. My sister thinks Maya views the chair as a fort. I like to think Maya can sense the ghosts of dogs long passed—the farm dogs that once rested near the rocker that our great-grandfather favored. 

One of those dogs was You Know. Yep. His name was You Know. My dad loved to tell the story of You Know, part coyote, part who-knows-what? Mangy, lean and wary, You Know wasn’t much to look at. He just showed up one day lurking around the smoke house where Great-grandfather Daniel was smoking meat. The dog gratefully accepted tidbits of food and soon became a regular fixture around the farm. Nobody ever dared approach him though, except Daniel.

Daniel named the dog, You Know, to make a statement about his dislike of the frequent “you knows” inserted into daily conversation. (As in, “We went to the movies, you know, and ate buckets of, you know, popcorn, you know, until the show ended).

My dad would interrupt me or my siblings if we were guilty of using “you know.” He’d say, “No, I don’t know.” As his grandfather did to him.

So, there sits Maya under the rocker thinking her doggie thoughts and probably wishing for a bit of smoked ham, you know.