I am probably going to get yelled at by the Blog Police. It's a tradition of mine to write something, each year, loosely related to an historical event that took place 50 years (to the day) prior to my birth. But this is a boat-building blog, not a Doug's Birthday Tradition blog. At this late date, I have become a rebel.
As time has passed, it has become increasingly apparent that the historical event in question -- and not my birth -- is the more likely to be remembered by humankind. I can live with that. On with it.
On a chilly December morning in 1903, a couple of 'inventors' tried their latest gadget amidst the sand dunes of Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. What Kitty Hawk is close to, I cannot tell. The Atlantic Ocean, I think. The inventors, brothers named Orville and Wilbur, got their contraption to overcome the planet's gravitational pull for a few moments, skipping through the air currents above the dunes.
It was remarkable, yes. As a marketer, however, I will forever be suspicious that someone else accomplished the deed, and that Wilbur and Orville merely took the credit. Yes, they were physically involved; they were there on the sand, and one of them (I can't remember which), flew the little plane -- or at least hung on while it squirted up, and forward, and down.
But don't you wonder if there wasn't a pair of other geeks somewhere, who might have cried, "HEY. I INVENTED THAT!" if only television and CNN had also been invented by December, 1903? They could have landed an interview with Matt Lauer; perhaps it would be, based on what little I have seen, Matt Lauer's greatest achievement.
The legend goes -- and I mean the legend I have developed in my essays over the years, not any kind of REAL legend -- that my grandfather, one George Herbert Long, watched the subject historical event unfold, there in the windblown sand. I have grown a little fuzzy on this point as the years advance; it may be that I only thought this was the case, confused by my grandfather's convenient residence in what turned out to be the very same state in which Kill Devil Hills finds itself.
At any rate, the tradition -- it's my tradition, I can make it do what I want -- involves some loose sub-literary association among flying, Christmas, and my birthday. This year, however, it may be worthwhile to include terriers.
Why wouldn't terriers by part of a custom that includes airplanes and beaches? Terriers adore beaches. And they pay attention to airplanes.
Let's have the terriers in this story become alarmed -- regularly -- about over-flying airplanes. Big, commercial airplanes packed with passengers, each with his or her own story, not one of which is suitable for a boatbuilding blog. But so past that hurdle already.
I know a pair of terriers, blessed with a terrier-sized doggie door which provides them access to a fenced but scenic outside world, who have this concern. About the commercial airplanes, I mean. They appear to detect differences among airlines; more vigorous barking occurs when Alaska Airlines streams overhead; only a low growl is evoked by Singapore Airlines. These behaviors have not yet been thoroughly studied; check back with me next year.
What has become apparent is the uncanny reliability of the laws of Operant Conditioning. Once again I am a little fuzzy -- my lowest grade in my undergrad years came from what must have been the most sleep-inducing General Psych professor in Kentucky, challenged with presenting his lectures only shortly after the sun cleared the bluegrass-tinted horizon.
Pavlov, wasn't it? Something about dogs. I think his dogs were just hungry. But MY dogs ... they just want the airplanes to leave the area.
Our otherwise peaceful neighborhood -- well, almost peaceful if you don't count the native American fireworks frenzies around July 4 (explain THAT, will you please?) -- is subject to the occasional 747, 737, 757, 767, and possibly some non-Boeing craft, though that is sacrilege around here, making its way toward a final SeaTac approach. They are still pretty high when they pass over, but not too high to escape a terrier's sharp senses.
The Boys -- the terriers -- hurtle though the doggie door, battering our eardrums in the process, in order to notify the airline pilots that they have strayed from anything resembling a terrier-approved flight path.
Here is where it gets interesting. In every case -- no exceptions -- the planes move on.
The terriers, who, if not all that good at anything else are extremely competent at paying attention, seem to have got this figured out.
Planes fly over. Bark. Run out the door. Bark. Bark some more.
And the planes leave.
Here at Sandy Hook, we won't ever need to worry about those aircraft hovering, or circling, the area. The terriers have it all under control.
Was this what Orville and Wilbur had in mind? Dog training?
Could be.
Next: back to boat-building. I promise.
