Yesterday's "Drabble" comic had the dad crouching and whimpering by the family dog's dish as the latter dined. The mom asked him what he was doing, to which the dad responded he was trying to turn the tables on Wally. Wally's thought balloon indicated the tactic was ineffective.

"Refrigerator door" comics are such an institution, and the one just quoted reminded me of one I would have posted on my parents' fridge during a yearly ordeal/duty that ran 20 to, takes gulp, 35 years ago.

My parents, four miles away, would fly, generally in late September, to one of the reunions of Dad's Army Air Corps unit, for which he had been a mechanic stationed in England during the war, and I would be called for dog sitting duty, which coincidentally took care of the house.

From 1985 into the 90's the dog was a Chihuahua named Duffy. For the first several years my drive was to an elementary school out in the west Valley, a long one for which master driving expert mentor knows involved a stair-stepping street pattern and no real recourse to freeways.

But Dad was adamant about saving kennel money and he had a dutiful son to make this dream come true. And Duffy would learn my long time away and balk even at his obvious doggie call when I arose at the tell tale hour of five-something. He had learned begging from the table---more eager for dinner than work week breakfast---very much in spite of Dad's counter productive strategies. The last few years of this I worked at a school a brisk three miles up an adjacent street.

The comic marks a 20th anniversary to the day of an adventure I made right after one such sitting, that of a supervised bed and breakfast trip with a bicycling company in Vermont, with a side visit to the area Mom and Dad would head off to as the reunion barely commenced packing. Yes, the reunions would be set in faraway and occasionally exotic locales such as Branson and Dayton.

But many couples who would stay a few days and see some of the area the reunion people didn't cover in tours; Dad had to set off for Altoona, Pennsylvania, and Mom was always shaking her head. They visited the Horseshoe Curve; naturally, because there were railroaders in the family including Dad prior to being drafted. But they never went to Gettysburg or other reachable sites; it was nonstop cable television, then still a novelty, and conversation at his sister's house.

They would return: I would pick them up at Flyaway, Duffy would be momentarily excited and Mom would laugh at the comics I posted on the refrigerator from the last week or two, often involving shenanigans by K-9's and their people.

What a long posting, as seems usual. Amazing what stories, all of the forgoing with so many more eddies and currents, can be focused onto the right few drawings and words. Would Dad were still around and the folks yet traveling to post yesterday's.