Finding solace in the night

BY STEVE JANOSKI

The transition from working blue-collar jobs to working at a desk was a difficult one for me. The language I used had to be mildly cleaner, the aura was more laid back, and I was no longer working with a bunch of cats that can sit around and compare the quality of the Gatorade that's served at the state's various county jails.

The most unexpected part, however, was the gut that I began to get, as instead of doing five miles worth of walking every day while lifting stone or metal, I was sitting around drinking coffee for most of the day.

Without a change in eating habits, this meant that in a year, I was 15 pounds heavier than I wanted to be at too young of an age - I was still lifting weights, but I wasn't getting all of the non-exercise physical activity that I used to.

This could not go on, I decided.

At the time, I had just gotten a lab-mix puppy named Lola that was either born wild or had a secret PCP stash that she didn't let us on to, so I resolved to begin walking the little maniac every night as a way of tiring her out and getting myself moving more.

We only walked at night, because I have always been slightly anti-social and didn't want to have to converse with every wandering soul in my neighborhood. Lola had no problem with that - she's slightly anti-social as well, and feels the same about dogs as I do about people.

Every night, we ambled along in the brutal frigidness of the New Jersey winter, making our way through the gentle hills of my neighborhood, and I began to join the long line of men (and dogs, I'm sure) that found solace walking through the lonely night.

There are many characters throughout history who found that same comfort- the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau was known to take long walks about Paris, and used the time as a respite from the ever-modernizing society he lived in.

“These hours of solitude and meditation are the only ones in the day during which I am fully myself and for myself, without diversion, without obstacle, and during which I can truly claim to be what nature willed,” he wrote in his “Reveries of a Solitary Walker.”

Benjamin Franklin was another who enjoyed the strenuous work of simply moving, saying once in a letter to his son that, “There is more in one mile's walking on foot than in five on horseback.”

Boxers have long known the benefits of walking - an 1825 manual called “The Art and Practice of Boxing” advised walking at least two miles a day in between skill training, while heavyweight legend Rocky Marciano was known to walk for miles at night, regardless of whether he was preparing for a fight or not.

“His idea of a little walk is five miles out and five miles back after a meal. It keeps his legs in shape and, besides, it perks up his appetite,” said Rocky's trainer Charlie Goldman in 1953.

I found this to be true as well, as with a tighter diet and a couple miles a night, I began to drop weight.
Day after day though, I discovered other little nuances that being free of the protective shell of a Ford endowed me.

After a month, I could tell which houses had fireplaces by the thick aroma of burning wood that rolled out into the streets.

I watched as the constellations leisurely rambled across the night sky, and noticed that the water in a nearby reservoir had frozen in the shape of waves. The world truly does fall away at night, and gives us a glimpse of that which we've ignored when we're racing around in the streets.

One night, we stumbled upon a herd of a half-dozen deer - I caught the sight of their glinting eyes in the road first; Lola kept walking in a merry fog until I yanked her leash.

“Aren't you supposed to see them before I do?” I asked her sarcastically. She looked at me dismissively.

Four months and many arctic miles later, I'm back at my fighting weight of 171.

Of course, as the nights get warmer and life gets busy again, it's easy to get lazy.

“We'll go tomorrow…I've got stuff to do,” I say to her…but she won't let me forget, and perks up anytime I put a jacket on after dusk, watching me with her curious ears up.

“Not tonight pup. Tomorrow.”

Her eyes follow me, accusing. Before I leave, I turn to look at her again, sighing. Her eyes are bright, questioning.

“Alright dog. Let's go. A quick one though.”

She's out the door before me every time.

The sick bed of Cuchulainn

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2010, 12:32 AM

BY  STEVE JANOSKI

When I had come home in the wee hours of what was now Friday morning, I saw her lying on her side in the kitchen, her famously long tongue hanging lazily out of her mouth and a small puddle of drool collecting on the hardwood floor.

It was almost over. We both knew it.

A decade ago, Zoe had been spry and wild-eyed, wonderfully goofy in the way that only a yellow Labrador puppy can be with gigantic paws that flailed awkwardly as she made her first attempts at running.

The people at the pet store had given us a warning when we first bought her, saying with sly smiles, "Well, she really likes to eat…"

I held her in my lap on the way home from the store, and it was one of the last times I was able to—her genuine love for food of any and all kinds eventually led her to "fill out" and become broad-shouldered, 115 pound behemoth; I have no doubt that many a fearless animal was surely struck with terror as she lumbered near over the years.

She made it clear to us from the start that she was going to live on her own terms. She slept on our all-glass kitchen table like it was a waterbed, and when we broke her of that, she took to the couch, lying lazily on her back with all four paws in the air.

In order to tame her never-ending lust for life, we brought her to an obedience school where the owner, an older man named Bob, did his best to train her to "heel," "sit," and do those other things that dogs are supposed to do.

Unfortunately old Bob didn't realize that we'd bought the William Wallace of the dog world; on Zoe's last day of training, she went after his two big German Shepherds, and sent both running after a brisk fight.

Even then he was impressed, though, and said that if we had decided not to keep her for some reason, she would have been excellent to train for search and rescue. Why?

"Because she's so stubborn," he said.

Over the years, her daily swims in our backyard pond, her ceaseless endeavor of trying to exterminate all squirrels that crossed her path, and the constant intimidation of any dog that had the gall to look her way all became things that defined who she was: she was big, she ran everything, and damned if you didn't know it.

But she was a wonderful dog. She had a genuine love for people, and would eagerly approach anyone who looked pleasant or smelled of food, her massive tongue hanging out and a broad dog's grin on her face. My father liked to say that she was the "Marilyn Monroe" of yellow labs.

She loved children as well, and the kids in our neighborhood would stop their skateboards and come over and pet her whenever she was being walked.

Her tail would wag furiously when she heard them yell, "Hey Zoe!" from down the street— her walks were the highlight of her life, and she is still the only dog who I have seen that learned to look both ways before crossing the road.

These days, things were different. She became stricken with Lyme Disease (and possibly some other unknown killer) which quickly sapped her strength and all but eliminated her once formidable appetite.

As I sat there on the floor with her in hours before sunrise that Friday, I knew that this warrior-dog was simply running out of fight.

I tried to make her bring her tongue back in, but even this proved too much. The next day, the life began to slide out of her.

Our young puppy tried to force her to play, and put her squeaking toys on Zoe's back, expecting her to react with her typical gusto. When she didn't, the pup looked at her warily, not understanding what happened to her big companion.

"It's OK old dog," I whispered to Zoe, running my hands through her soft fur. "Go to where you dogs go."

Less than an hour later she was dead, gone to whatever pleasant pastures that dogs roam when they die, where disease doesn't exist and the world is warm with life.

All that was left on the kitchen floor was a withered and meaningless husk, a silent reminder of the fearsome fire she once possessed.

Sometimes I wonder if a decade of "wonderful" makes up for the misery that is so hard to shake after they pass.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com