THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 25, 1995 TAG: 9507250387
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
It was so hot it seemed that the Earth, as Coleridge once wrote, in vast thick pants was breathing.
It was so hot it seemed that the Lab, who had been a good dog as dogs go and he goes right far sometimes, deserved to go to the beach.
He, too, was breathing in vast thick pants. Hearing me say ``beach,'' he sprang to his feet and ran to find his tennis ball.
At Ocean View, it was so hot, even late in the day, a vagrant breeze was warm off Big Bay.
It was so hot you ran across the sand lest you blister your feet.
It was so hot people were sparse, only two or three within the half-block stretch of strand embraced by each pair of jetties.
Two jetties away, three children played under a guardian's eye.
When the Lab ran to fetch the thrown ball from the surf, he took off in a flying leap from the beach, soaring, and, knifing the wave, sent up two white plumes on each side of his lean, dark brown body.
For this Labs were made. To watch him was cooling. Each time he retrieved the ball, he dropped it at my feet, and crouched, front paws braced on the sand, ready to go again, barking if I paused. In refreshing waters, he was tireless.
After throwing it a dozen times, far out, I judged he'd had enough, but he, sensing my intention to leave, fathomed I'd had enough.
Reaching shore, he wheeled on and ran straight up the beach toward the trio of children, not turning upward to go around each jetty, but flinging himself out over the 3-foot drop to the next level, as if clearing hurdles, until he was frolicking with them. I followed.
He knew he had a new lease on the day. No one dared deny him or the children the pleasure of each other's company.
Their guardian counted out each one's turn to throw the ball, making him sit with them as she did.
``Eenie, meanie, minie mo, catch a person by the toe. . . '' she chanted. In an aside, she said to me, ``I don't want them to pick up any prejudice.''
Megan, 8 or so, wanted to chant. ``Eenie, meanie, minie, mo, catch a tiger by its toe. . . ''
The guardian smiled. It bettered her version and the original. Megan, Nicole and Danielle, chanting, throwing, the three girls slim as water sprite, the brown dog a dark arrow of action, swimming, fetching.
Time, stretching, seemed tied to eternity. But a mutter of thunder in the west ended the idyll. ``He made their day,'' the guardian said.
``They made his day,'' I said.
And thought, mine, too.
At home, in the back room, he stretched his length on a beach towel spread on a cot he has decided is his. He wagged his tail twice and fell asleep.
To dream, perhaps, of three children on a beach. ILLUSTRATION: Illustration
by CNB