So much is going on right now I had to start making “to do” lists, but this morning I accomplished a miracle – I walked into a clinic and got a COVID CPR test on the spot! One of my lists cited all the sites I’d tried to register for a test to no avail. I had to pay for it today, but after being told I’d be on stand-by for today in case someone cancelled, a very kind technician said, “Oh I’ll take her in between registered persons!” I was in and out in ten minutes! Sometimes there are advantages to being an “old lady!”
I’ll soon be on my way to Costa Rica with a friend to bird in the high Savegre Mountains at Savegre Mountain Lodge. I needed to get a COVID test to be sure I wasn’t asymptomatic! Now I can cross that off the list. But I have a list of things to do, write-up, purchase etc. for the pet sitter, another list of things to do around the house, and a third list of items to pack.
Alfred used to say he sometimes thought my lists had lists, and he’s right, I do have “sub-topics” but I find it is the only way to keep track of minutiae, i.e. do I have enough cat litter to last until I go and until I get back, which food is my finicky cat going to be willing to eat and do I have enough, stop the newspaper, what about the mail, do I have enough of a food supply for the bird feeders, how am I going to pack a camera bag, binoculars, handbag, book and carry one and make it look like just two items?
Then there are book presentations and book stores to follow-up on, dog grooming, clothes decisions – is everything clean and in good repair – altitude medication to pick up, and on it goes – 54 line items at this point! Who could possibly remember all that without lists!
I’ve been known to get up at 3 a.m. if I wake up and think of something that I’m sure I forgot to put on one list or another. Making lists is one thing, but there is a wonderful sense of satisfaction when something gets crossed off the list – done – and pure euphoria when everything is marked “done” and I’m on my way out the door to a new adventure. More about that when I return home!
His name was Sunset Lad, “Laddie”. The year was 1944 and he was my first Golden. His sire was the nationally-renown Ch. Tonkahof Bang owned by the businessman Henry Norton of Tonkahof Kennels, Wayzata, Minnesota. Laddie became the stud dog for my parents’ kennel, Winyon Kennels, established in Alderwood Manor, Washington. (My name is on the AKC kennel registration as well.) Laddie’s partner was Tawny, Dawn O’ Light, whose sire was also a national specialty winner, Ch. Highland Chief, half-brother to Bang. I can still remember the night the first litter was born. I ran screaming into my parents bedroom saying “Mommy, Mommy Tawny’s having puppies on my bed!” I named everyone of the ten puppies after my school classmates, the bully, the sweetest one, the prettiest one, the most awkward and I did that for every litter thereafter for many years.
After several years of marriage and working on our respective careers, we got a call one night to come see the new 8-week-old Golden puppy a fellow faculty member and his wife had just obtained. That did it! I could not go on without a Golden and for three days I hounded Alfred to let me get a puppy from that litter, He finally gave up and we arranged to have a neighbor boy come every day after school to walk and play with Princess D’Or “Diora.” That first night, Alfred set the alarm and got up every two hours to let her out. By morning she was housebroken!
In 1986, while visiting our Vet, I saw a notice about an organization called Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue. Why would Goldens need a rescue organization, I thought. I soon got my answer and began a decades-long commitment to Golden rescue. I worked on the Dog Walk Committee, chaired the annual auction for years, did home visits, sold calendars and then, in 1991, upon my retirement from Northeastern University, I began a capital campaign to raise funds for what would become Riverview, the first Golden Retriever Rescue shelter in the nation. Alfred surprised me one day by suggesting we donate the funds necessary to name the facility and with that, the Alfred and Joy Viola Shelter and Adoption Center came into being. Throughout my fund-raising endeavors, my mentor was a woman beloved in the Golden community, Rachel Paige Elliott. It was my honor to speak on behalf of the Golden Retriever world at her memorial services when she joined her Goldens at Rainbow Bridge.
Subsequently, a woman approached me about her idea to raise funds to stabilize the ruins of Guisachan House, the mansion in the Scottish Highlands upon the estate of which the Golden Retriever was founded in 1868. The non-profit Friends of Guisachan was established in 2014, I served as President and chief fund raiser and then became Chairman of the Board, a position I hold to this day. We raised funds to erect a life-size bronze statue in the historic conservation village of Tomich, Invernesshire on former Guisachan lands. Currently funds are being raised to erect a permanent stone marker in front of the mansion ruins, but the COVID-19 outbreak has precluded any work on the mansion itself.
There is a new member in the Viola Household. She’s a young Russian Blue mix kitty and Apollo and Anna are both curious and somewhat intimidated by this 8-pound little creature.