06-26-2026, 05:41 AM
Outside, thunder grumbled, yawped, growled. Late spring, late day, thunder shaking earth, rattling walls, trembling floors.
Inside, balloons twisted, one by one, into an arch for a child’s birthday party. Voices rising. Plastic squeaking, expanding. Hard punctuation from the occasional pop of a balloon.
The noise of air.
Air pumping voices. Air crashing clouds. Air escaping from the ruptured plastic of balloons.
Enough to give an old man a headache.
Enough to frighten an old dog into hiding in a darkened bathroom.
Because everyone must have an assignment in these situations and anyone just sitting is an affront to balloon arches everywhere, I was assigned to check on the dog.
She clung to the bathroom tiles. Whimpers echoing in the bleak acoustics. I cajoled her to follow me. We slipped outside, under the cover of a patio canopy, before the rains could break. Shelter from the storm. Marked safe from balloon arches.
Thunder in the sky.
A whine from the dog’s throat.
We sat.
We watched the sky along the northeast horizon.
I patted the dog’s head.
Rain fell.
I sang Willie Nelson songs.
Songs about blue eyes crying in the rain, about angels flying too close to the ground, about railroad ladies being just a little bit shady, about the dust that Poncho bit down south ending up in Lefty’s mouth. Songs about living, loving, dying.
Songs sung in a hushed croak backed by the rhythm of rolling thunder. The dog’s head eased beneath my hand. My heart rate matched the beats of falling rain. At least that’s how it felt as a peace settled in an old man’s chest. As calm seemed to spread across the breathing of an old dog.
There may be a lot better things a man can do in this mean, cruel world.
Maybe. I don’t know.
What I do know is a man can do a whole lot worse than singing a lullaby of Willie to a nervous dog in the long summer twilight of a stormy day.
Dean Poling is a former editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and The Tifton Gazette.
Inside, balloons twisted, one by one, into an arch for a child’s birthday party. Voices rising. Plastic squeaking, expanding. Hard punctuation from the occasional pop of a balloon.
The noise of air.
Air pumping voices. Air crashing clouds. Air escaping from the ruptured plastic of balloons.
Enough to give an old man a headache.
Enough to frighten an old dog into hiding in a darkened bathroom.
Because everyone must have an assignment in these situations and anyone just sitting is an affront to balloon arches everywhere, I was assigned to check on the dog.
She clung to the bathroom tiles. Whimpers echoing in the bleak acoustics. I cajoled her to follow me. We slipped outside, under the cover of a patio canopy, before the rains could break. Shelter from the storm. Marked safe from balloon arches.
Thunder in the sky.
A whine from the dog’s throat.
We sat.
We watched the sky along the northeast horizon.
I patted the dog’s head.
Rain fell.
I sang Willie Nelson songs.
Songs about blue eyes crying in the rain, about angels flying too close to the ground, about railroad ladies being just a little bit shady, about the dust that Poncho bit down south ending up in Lefty’s mouth. Songs about living, loving, dying.
Songs sung in a hushed croak backed by the rhythm of rolling thunder. The dog’s head eased beneath my hand. My heart rate matched the beats of falling rain. At least that’s how it felt as a peace settled in an old man’s chest. As calm seemed to spread across the breathing of an old dog.
There may be a lot better things a man can do in this mean, cruel world.
Maybe. I don’t know.
What I do know is a man can do a whole lot worse than singing a lullaby of Willie to a nervous dog in the long summer twilight of a stormy day.
Dean Poling is a former editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and The Tifton Gazette.
