A Stroll through Dogpatch

© Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, June 17, 2007

Almost every morning just as the sun is rising, I launch out on a two mile walk.  When I was a kid, the old folks who lived in my community called this exercise a “morning constitutional.”  I prefer to call it my morning walk.

I follow the same route and routine going up and down selected streets that traverse the subdivision in which I live.  The Meadows, as it is called, is a rural subdivision.  That means that all of the amenities of suburbia are present, but there remains a hint of country in the environment.  There is, to the delight of the environmentalists, a substantive amount of “green space” within our bounds.

Each day I enjoy the birds, from peepers to sparrows to cardinals to bluebirds.  At various times during the seasons, the geese fly noisily overhead on their long journeys to and fro.  The air is generally fresh and sweet smelling, although with the increasing settlement of central Gordon County, I realize that it is just a matter of time before this fades.

I make a lot of discoveries as I hike through my neighborhood.  I learn which of my neighbors take pride in their property.  Most all of the homes are well-preserved and the lawns are well groomed, even allowing for this extreme drought that we are experiencing.  There are a few yards that need sod in a spot or two, and there are a couple of locations that should have a yard sale followed by a yard sweep.  Beyond those, the community is very pleasant.

I have a number of Hispanic neighbors.  I don’t know whether or not they are legal, but I do know that they work regular jobs, drive decent automobiles, and maintain their homes in a standard that a number of natural born Americans should emulate.

This morning on my journey, I noticed that there are probably 75 dogs within our neighborhood.  In fact, I did a quick count and at least 20 houses that have dogs and most have more than one.  The record is the house that has five.  This morning there was an unusual amount of barking and unrest.

I was reminded of the community Dogpatch from the Li’l Abner comic strip. Of course, in the comic strip, Dogpatch was populated by dumber than dumb hillbillies, lazy loafs, and scoundrels.  The houses were run-down and dilapidated.  That is not true of my little community.  But Dogpatch had something else.  The people who populated that mythical Appalachian settlement had an innate goodness about them.  Despite falling victim to the schemes and dido of various disreputable vagabonds, the people of Dogpatch had a resiliency.  They were every ready to bounce back for the next endeavor.

Maybe in this day and age of skepticism and greed, we need to re-discover a little of Dogpatch.