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Sam

Samantha (“Sam”)

Christmas Eve 1967. I’m seven years old, and all I want for Christmas is a Beagle puppy. A Beagle just like the one in my favorite Little Golden Book. The one that has the big illustration of the Beagle dog with a butterfly on its nose.

Dad takes me to a house in nearby Sudbury, Massachusetts. A small town of wealthy suburbanites most of whom are employed in Boston. The people who own the house have a litter of Beagle puppies ready to be taken from their mother. There are about 7 to 10 puppies in the living room of this cute little “Cape” style home in Sudbury. I’m told to sit on the floor with the puppies and choose one. All of the Beagle pups are big, except one little girl that keeps hiding in the corner. The big pups climb all over me, climbing, licking, grabbing my attention. They are beating up on the little one who hides in the corner. I keep all my attention on the little one hiding in the corner. I feel sorry for her. I want to rescue her from the big brutes who are jumping on top of her repeatedly. The people who own the dogs keep saying, “Oh, she’s the ‘runt’ of the litter.” “the runt of the litter.” “the runt of the litter.” I pay no attention to the other “healthy” puppies. I want the runt. She is mostly black (on her back) and her head is brown and the tip of her tail is white, and her legs and underbelly are white with a few brown spots. And there’s a wonderful white spot right on the back of her black neck. I am totally and completely in love. “Dad, I want the runt.” All of the adults object. “Are you sure?!” I hear several of them exclaim. “I’m sure.” I say, with tears in my eyes. “I want THAT one!”

The rest of the day is a blur, but we must have brought the dog home because she was ours for many years after that. I named her “Sam” after the main character of my very favorite television show, Bewitched. On the TV show, Sam was a witch played by actress Elizabeth Montgomery, later to be known for her chilling portrayal of Lizzie Borden, also of Massachusetts (nearby Fall River, to be exact), in a TV movie of the week. Borden allegedly killed her father and stepmother with an axe many years before. The witch on Bewitched, Sam? Her real name was Samantha.

My dog Sam was also Samantha. That Christmas Day, I took some construction paper, it was orange, I remember. I traced out S-A-M-A-N-T-H-A in 3-inch-high letters, and then cut them out of the paper with my mother’s famous “curved scissors.” I colored in the letters with designs and stripes and things like that, using markers and crayons, and then I taped each of the eight letters to the outside of my bedroom door with curled-up pieces of Scotch brand transparent tape stuck to the back of each letter. The idea was that Sam would room with me, in my bedroom. Somewhere along the line, pretty much immediately I’m afraid, that ended. Sam never lived in my room, but instead slept mostly under the kitchen table, on the carpeted stairs in the living room, or in the garage.

My favorite thing to do was kiss Sam on that perfect white spot on the back of her neck. I kissed that white spot 1,000 times a day. I loved that perfect white spot on the back of Sam’s neck. I loved Sam.

Alas, Sam was never to be “my” dog. She was my father’s dog, and they loved each other for all of the 16 years Sam was with our family. Dad walked Sam twice a day, always on leash. He walked Sam around the school across the street. Sometimes the family cat of the hour would follow. We lost a lot of cats to that walk with Dad and Sam. Probably about six or so cats. The one I remember most was Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi would follow Dad and Sam every morning and every night on their walk. We lived on a really busy street with lots of traffic and poor lighting. One night, in probably 1970 or so, Chi-Chi crossed the street before Dad in an effort to get home faster. Chi-Chi never made it home. Someone in a speeding car ran her over. Chi-Chi flipped around in the road, it seemed like, 100 times before she gave in and went to the great beyond. Her blood stained the entire width of Frost Street for an entire summer and fall. I cried for two straight days over Chi-Chi’s death. I made Mom show me Chi-Chi’s body, which was dutifully placed in the trash bin in time for the weekly garbage pick-up. I was in denial. Chi-Chi couldn’t be dead. Surely it was some other cat that got hit. Chi-Chi was somewhere else, wasn’t she? The only way to stop my incessant denial and questions was to show me, the 10-year-old spoiled little girl, the dead body of said cat, Chi-Chi.

Flash forward to 1976, I’m out galavanting around with some high-school friends. Someone brings me home to pick up or drop off something. We pull into the driveway, and there’s some dude sitting in his Chevy van. “Who’s this dude?” I ask my friends. Nobody knows. I approach my house, and he steps out of the van, with Sam.

“Hi, are you Mr. Mueller’s daughter?” the dude asks.

“Yeah,” I say, staring at my dog with this dude.

Dude: “Your father is at the hospital. He was walking the dog across the school over by the track. He tripped and fell. I think he broke his shoulder or something. The dog got away, and I grabbed the dog. I called the ambulance for him. He asked me to take the dog home for him.”

I’m dumbfounded. I never knew people could be so nice. I don’t even think I thanked the dude, I just took my dog and went inside.

Dad broke his collarbone that day. He was in a sling for many weeks. Somehow he still managed to walk Sam every day. Twice a day.

It’s 1983. I’m married, and living an hour or so away from my parents when I get the call. It’s my mother. She is calling me to tell me that Sam ran away and they can’t find her anywhere. They’ve called the dog officer, and they’ve scoured the neighborhood. By this time, Sam is blind, but still full of the Beagle energy. It is cold, and rainy, and foggy outside. Nobody can see their hand in front of their face. Sam is gone for sure.

Next day, the phone rings again. It’s Mom. You won’t believe it, someone found Sam! She was found in Concord, Massachusetts – two towns away from where my parents live, and on the other side of her birthplace of Sudbury! Sam was found, wandering in circles in a baseball field in the fog. Wandering and wandering apparently for hours. Someone picked her up, and thankfully she had her ID tags on, and they called my parents.

Sam and my parents were reunited that day. But, not very much later, my phone rang again with the awful news that Sam had to be euthanized due to old age. I cried, and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. And then I cried some more. I’m crying right now.

School project 1968. Instructions were to use a photograph and design a frame. I didn't want to cut up a photo of Sam, so I cut a photo from a book and put that in the homemade frame pictured here on the left. On the right is the backer, and the teacher's handwriting "Sorry -- must be a photograph!" This school project was found by sheer coincidence in a drawer at my mother's home on Christmas Eve, 2006 -- just a few days after the launch of this web site.