RAISING CROW

Chapter 9, Thanksgiving Holiday trip to Galveston Texas, part-2.

Thursday 2pm, turkey going in the oven soon.

At 2pm we changed into shorts and got the keys from Mom and drove to the beach. We originally planned on walking down 12 Mile Road to the south end but Gramps suggested we drive to the state park instead, he gave me directions. My grandparents said that because of the holiday the state park would be wide open and we might have the entire place to ourselves, which would be better with the dog off-leash.

Before we left we got the stadium blanket from the trunk and tucked it in all the way around the back seat. I held the back car door open and Crow gladly got in and leaned against the backrest, as soon as I started the engine I opened both back windows.

Seawall Boulevard changes name to San Luis Pass Rd and parallels the coastline. We drove west on Pass Road a little past 13 Mile Road to the big concrete sculpture marked Galveston Island State Park. If you keep driving west on Pass Road it stays near the coast and takes you over a toll bridge and onto the next barrier island and the town of Freeport Texas.

My grandfather said since it was a holiday there'd be no rangers and no charge to park. Once we parked it's about a 300 foot walk on a sidewalk to the beach.

We parked near the beach sidewalk and left the windows down and walked him on the long leash. I had my camera gear in a back pack along with a tube of sun screen and two bottles of water.

Once we were on beach and had time to make sure we were alone I let Crow off the leash. When I unclipped the leash I softly told him, "Don't go too far, and don't go in the water without me or Tom."

Crow went bonkers running around, tasting salt water for the first time, chasing seagulls, running along the shore in shallow water, and in general acting like a crazy dog having fun on his first ever beach trip. I took photos of him running past us at the edge of the waves. Up to today he never once saw any body of water larger than the pond in Stiff Park, too bad I couldn't explain the ocean and salt water to him. But Crow always seemed to just get along with all the new stuff he saw. He could probably smell the salt water before we even got to Houston. My feeling is if dogs can smell protein in cat turds then they can probably smell salt water too!

When I sat on the sand to take his picture as he raced by I actually felt the pounding of his feet, it was amazing watching him run for the joy of running. Dogs have huge lungs, they're built to run all day. The single biggest things in a dog's body are their lungs. If I could re-engineer a dog, I'd make him with smaller lungs and a bigger brain. If I could make one big change to dogs I would make it so they could figure out how to safely cross the street. Lots of cats figure it out but they're probably smarter than dogs anyway.

Just like the baseball field back home with snow, this was a strange-new place he could test his body so that's what Crow did. He ran and ran to see how fast he could go and how much traction he got on wet sand and in shallow water. I could tell he was having a great time figuring out the beach sand. Crow was experimenting with being a dog on a barrier island. I especially liked it when he checked out new places and didn't get all focused on scents. It surprised me how Crow seemed totally unimpressed by the Gulf, the big cargo ships, and the oil derricks visible on the horizon. It's almost as if he knew they existed already, maybe he saw them a lot on TV.

He's never seen fish with his own eyes before but he seemed only mildly interested, but he ate fish every time Mom baked fillets for dinner. He stood in water up to his knees and stared down at the tiny minnows swimming around his legs, I told him those creatures were called Fish. If I'd had a small net I could have caught one and held it up for him to sniff and examine with his eyes. Years ago I tried to teach Crow: "Fish is animal in water," I did it the first night he ate broiled fish fillet for dinner. I wonder if he made a connection between fish he saw in the ocean and fish he ate for dinner. It's the same word.

I suppose I could have taught him that Thanksgiving Turkey is Bird, but I forgot. I taught him all things in the sky with wings are called Bird. And all 4-legged creatures are called Animal, Dog, Cat, and Squirrel are animal too. Another one of the few animals he knows by name is Horse.

One shot of him I know I got was me sitting on the sand when he raced by at full speed, Gulf and beach in the background, brilliant sunny day, jet black Great Dane at full speed running past me for fun of it. He'll look like a racehorse I bet. He never ran that fast at the baseball field back home but here he had endless space and no fences anywhere! I took those shots at 1/1000ths of a second so he'd look frozen in time. I wanted to also capture the expression on his face. I took about 12 shots of him running along the shore, back and forth. If he ever decided to run free and escape me this was the place for him to flee, but he never did.

When you're a large dog like a Great Dane your entire face flops up and down when you run fast, I'm sure that was slightly annoying to him. I know he likes being a dog, and I know he likes being taller than all the other dogs he meets, but being large has disadvantages: Danes die young, their bodies are fragile, they get in fights because lots of dogs get really angry just looking at him, but there are also times when he just likes to have fun being an animal. On this day I'm sure Crow would say that it's great to be alive. It made me very happy knowing he was having his own type of fun.

Mom and I noticed that when he was a puppy and started his growth spurts he seemed disappointed when he could no longer fit in the small spaces he used to crawl into with ease, but he got too damn big. As a tiny puppy he loved curling up on our laps and taking a nap, but now even his head doesn't really fit in our laps any more. He spent almost two months of his life spending hours daily staying warm and safe between my belly and my shirt. Now he's too big for much of anything, he barely fits in the back seat of our car. We always have to double check that the tail is all the way in before we close the door.

Tom walked out into the ocean and swam around a little while I sat where the waves washed up on the beach. I soaked up some sun and kept an eye on the dog while trying to take the perfect photo of him running by. I also took a few secret shots of Tom when he had his back toward me.

"Let's go by those big rocks." I shouted to Tom pointing down the shore as he walked out of the water.

"Okay."

Tom asked me what's wrong with the dog.

"Whaddya mean?" I asked.

"Well, watch him, he's running like he's freaked out by something."

"Nah, he's testing how fast he can go."

"Howdya know that?" Tom asked.

"He told me when he first started running around."

"I didn't hear it."

"No, he said it with his face when he ran off then stopped to glance at me, you have to watch him very closely, that's one way he talks to me." Tom never replied. I told him Crow told me to watch him while he was testing his traction on wet sand. My best guess was he reached over 15mph in a few inches of water. I think he liked the splashes too.

I told Tom if I was here alone with Crow I'd teach him new words about the ocean and the beach. He asked what so I paused then told him probably: sand, fish, ocean, sun, bird, and maybe: ocean water. He already knows fish and bird but almost everything here is new to him. All he knows about fish is eating it. Each time we feed him real fish he always stops to sniff it first, so he prefers red meat.

The three of us walked west on the sandy beach and Crow tried to stay out front. The sun felt wonderful. The shallow water felt like low 90s, not bathtub warm but very nice for November. It was still hurricane season but it was over in one more week. The shallowest water was the warmest, even in November you could lie out in that water and stay warm.

Tom asked where the salt in the ocean comes from.

I told him it comes from the soil. Rain falls on the ground and eventually ends up in rivers and back in the oceans. And along the way it picks up a lot of minerals, one of those is salt. Salt exists naturally everywhere on the planet.

"Think of it this way, take a bucket of water and dump in a scoop of soil. Most of that stuff will not stay mixed so it falls out of the water and settles to the bottom of the bucket, but salt stays mixed in the water, that's why you can taste it. Stuff you dump into water either mixes, falls out, or floats on top. Does that make sense?" Tom said yes, I gave him a good explanation.

I gave him one more example I learned from my mother, the chemistry nerd. "They say the most abundant element on Earth is aluminum, but we're talking about molecules and individual atoms. But it falls out of water or we'd taste aluminum too. We have taste buds for salt but none for aluminum."

I told him to never ask my mother a question like that unless you want a really long answer. She's too smart to explain anything in simple terms. Then I chuckled and told him she couldn't even explain darkness to a blind person.

I remembered one lecture I got from my mother about water so I mentioned it to Tom as we slowly walked toward the boulders. "Mom said that water molecules really want to stay together, or suddenly they'd break apart and turn into hydrogen and oxygen molecules and all water would disappear. Could you imagine what would happen if suddenly all water molecules broke apart into gasses? All living creatures on Earth would die within a few days, from bacteria to birds to elephants to tiny worms, we all depend on water to stay alive." Then I told Tom I learned some interesting things from Mom about our atmosphere too I should tell you some time if you're interested.

"You believe everything your mother says?"

"No, but when it comes to chemistry and math she's too nerdy to lie." It's hard to explain to people who never personally knew a super science nerd what it's like for them. Science is a God to them, even if its bullshit science people still believe it because it came from a science God.

We kept slowly walking west toward the boulders but they weren't far, I wanted to hold his hand but Tom stayed too far away to do that.

Tom laughed as we walked up to the three very large boulders at the edge of the weeds. They were situated near each other, almost in a line. They're completely weird looking and totally out of place on the beach. They sort of looked like giant granite eggs stuck upright in the sand. Who knows how far down they went into the sand. I mumbled to Tom they must have been put here by man.

I had Tom climb up and sit on one so I could take his picture. Crow watched us closely while standing in ankle deep water. Tom seemed a little uneasy. There was nobody around, only some cars in the distance on the highway. There was a sign near the rocks which sort of explained why they were on the beach, but the sign was damaged, it said this was State Park land. The sign looked like it had been used for target practice several times.

"Take off your shirt and your sunglasses."

"Excuse me?" He said with raised eyebrows.

"Please?"

He stared for a moment, and then gave in pulling his t-shirt off over his head. He adjusted his hair with his right hand. I waited briefly for his nipples to get un-crinkly then I shot four pictures of him from different angles, but I had to get him to relax his face because he was squinting in the bright sunlight. I changed the direction he faced so on some the sun shone all the way inside his belly button and in others it was a dark mysterious round hole. While I watched for his nipples to return to their normal relaxed size I looked all the way around, the nearest other people on the beach were a mile away, we could barely see them. There were people in cars driving east and west but they were almost half a mile away so we really were all alone at the boulders.

"Okay, take off your shorts."

"Huh?"

"Oh come on, I develop these at home, nobody but you and me's ever gonna see `em and if it bothers you I'll give you the negatives. You can even be there when I develop and print them. I promise. You can destroy any you don't like, and the negatives too."

With a not-happy expression on his face, he put his thumbs under his waistband, slid his shorts and undies down to his ankles in one movement but left his shoes on. Then Tom said the rock was uncomfortable on his tender butt cheeks.

Again, I paused to let his nipples relax (re-inflate) while we kept watch for anyone approaching.

Not all men do but Tom is one of those guys who get a skin reaction that caused his nipples to shrivel up, like goose bumps. After about six minutes I took about twenty shots of him on two different rocks, sitting or lying on his back. I helped him down to the sand (still naked) and had him walk over into the water so I could shoot him (standing in knee deep ocean water) from behind. He looked so sexy all sweaty and wet. Tom had great muscle contours on his upper body. His glistening flesh was brilliantly lit from above by the sunlight and reflected off the tiny droplets of sweat as he waded into the water or posed on the sand. His butt cheeks looked full and enticing. And on the front side his dick hung perfectly in front of his balls. Above that his nipples looked big, almost womanly. They're over two inches across and stick out 2cm, at a glance they looked big on a man. His skin looked very dark with the white sand beach and the shiny blue ocean and sky in the background. I got a couple shots of him with an oil platform way out at sea, it was barely visible on the horizon.

I thought he might look really hot if I oiled his skin, but I had nothing like that with us.

Some of the pictures I took might be good enough to use in the school year book or as his graduation photo, others as pictures for his mother to frame, and maybe some for me to jerk off to, like close up shots of the head of his dick. My first goal was the shoot him with his clothes on so he had decent portraits to give as gifts to his mom and grandparents.

Two shots I took of him fully dressed, he was sitting backwards on the boulders, facing the parking lot with the wide expanse of ocean behind him.

I also liked his butt because from a distance he had no butt hairs visible and his pubes in front were trimmed very short. He had no chest hairs or any growing around his belly button. He also trimmed his arm pits and told me lots of kids at his school shaved their arm pits. If they shaved their arms it was safe to assume they were shaved bald everywhere. In some of the butt shots I framed them so his face wasn't visible.

I got him positioned with his body facing the sun, it lit up his belly button all the way to the bottom so I took two shots close up of his hairless stomach and that erotic wide round hole of his. I'm sure Tom knew his body was exceptionally good looking but was embarrassed by the attention he received because of it, like he was cheating. He easily blushed if anyone complimented his body too much. I stood in the water up to my thighs and took photos of him where the waves ended on the beach, shots of him standing, on his knees, and sitting. Some of them had Crow in the background, others didn't. It's funny how Crow never reacts to my camera but hates Mom's camera, but mine doesn't have a built-in flash. When I use my camera the dog actually seemed to try to get into the shots, I think he was posing for some of the shots I took of him standing on the beach. It's possible he stood like he was posing because all the humans he saw getting photographed also posed, so he just did the same as everyone else.

While he was standing in knee deep water I got on my knees in front of him and took his dick in my mouth and sucked him until he was rock hard, sticking out like the flag pole. Then I took about seven more of him with an erection. The one shot I wanted I couldn't get was him standing in shallow water, erect, with a string of pre-come swaying freely off the head of his dick.

Tom pulled his shorts on again and I took a few more of him above the waist. I had a rod the entire time but he never commented on the obvious ridge in my shorts. While he was on his back on the sand I went behind the boulders and used the shade to put a new roll of 36 exposure 200 ASA B&W film in my camera, and took eight close-up shots of his chest at different angles. He's never had his nipples photographed before. He later admitted he's usually too embarrassed to show them in public because of how some people stared. I got two shots of him where they cast long pointy shadows down to his stomach, but he was unaware.

"How long till we gotta go back?"

"Oh, I think we're almost out of time, we have almost a twenty minute drive home."

"We should have brought a water bowl." Tom offered.

"Do something, take off your shorts and sit on the big rock again, okay?"

He climbed on top of the boulder and slipped them down and turned around to face the water, I stood close by his feet, which put his butt about at chest height to me. Behind him was nothing but sky and low vegetation in the distance and an occasional car on the park road that was almost half a mile behind him.

Tom started to talk about being photographed and this was the first time anyone tried to position him and light him to make him look good. A big problem we had was trying to get him to stop squinting.

He pulled up his left knee and I rested my hand on his other thigh while he rambled on and on. It was clear his mind was totally distracted. He seemed unaware he was naked sitting on a granite boulder on a white sand beach beside the ocean. I moved my hand higher up his thigh and eventually took the head of his semi erect dick in my left hand, his head gently held between my bent left index finger and my thumb. I slid my thumb gently side to side across the head of his dick while his eyes looked around across the endless Gulf of Mexico behind me. He looked at the clouds and the sea gulls as he talked about anything that crossed his mind, all the while I gently held his dick and he seemed oblivious to it. Once in a while he'd pause for a millisecond and flinch his entire body when the sensation of my thumb sliding across the head of his dick stimulated his pleasure centers and caused his whole body to twitch.

He said, "Its weird how you can stand at the edge of the water and look across the entire horizon and not see anything but water and sky, then a minute later you can look and see a tiny oil platform far off in the distance. I wonder why sometimes they're hard to see and other times not?"

I told Tom, "I think the same thing happens with the sky, there are things we simply ignore. I think our brains interpret what we see a lot more than we realize, Mom says our brains fix the images to make them fit the way we think they should look."

I think this would turn out to be another bonding moment for us. I looked around and saw Crow watching sea gulls about a hundred feet down the beach and occasionally he dashed at any bird that got too close. Some gulls buzzed Crow like they were trying to get him to leave. It's like they were trying to piss him off.

Tom was sharing his most intimate body parts and enveloped in a natural high. After he was completely hard and oozing precome as a (85%) joke I softly asked him, "Would you marry me?"

He stopped and looked at me as if I was crazy then shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sure!" then he went right back into his commentary about gays and the guy he dated last year at school, the guy who 'popped his cherry ass.'

Eventually I changed my grip so his dick rested in my hand like a roll of quarters but he still looked like he didn't notice. The puddle of precome under his boner was slowly starting to dribble down the side of the boulder.

When I saw several grains of sand stuck to his nipple I reached up and gently wiped them off, then kept my hand there and massaged his tits. He changed his position to give me better access so I leaned in and licked one of them then briefly suckled on it. He raised his hands and gently held my face at his chest like he was feeding me.

I saw Crow walk back to us with his tongue hanging out the side his mouth, I knew our time was up so I asked Tom if he could, would he please try to lie back to stretch out his stomach, it took some adjusting but he finally got stretched out and I lowered my face to his tummy and pressed my mouth into the valley around his belly button and tried to lick it out, it tasted like salty sweat and smelled like concentrated Tom's crotch, but I still loved it. I briefly took his erection in my mouth but we needed to hit the road so the dog could get a drink of water.

We both got up, he got dressed and we walked back to the car.

It took us almost half an hour to get back to their driveway. Gramps stepped outside and told us to get a bucket out of the garage and fill it with water so the dog could drink outside then we could use it to rinse the sand off his paws. He told us it was my mother's idea.

We told them about the boulders and Grandpa remembered it was some sort of historical Spanish Explorer landing site, kind of like Galveston's version of Plymouth Rock. I guess they used iron and wood anchors underwater and long ropes to shore around those boulders to keep their 110ft long, triple-masted wood-hull ships in place off the beach. In the early 1700s those Spanish Galleons could stay afloat in as little as nine feet of water so they could drop anchor fairly close to shore and row the rest of the way on small boats. Gramps told us they attended a historical presentation at the park once that had large paintings and a complete display of them arriving, dropping anchor, and building a camp near the beach while they went in search of gold to take by force and local Indians to convert to their religion or be killed. One other thing the Spanish often did was they released several pigs so when they came back in a few years there may be a whole herd of hogs in the area they could use for food.

Grandpa suggested they believed those huge boulders came from the mainland and were moved to the beach in the 1700s for anchoring ships off-shore, which was why each one had worn grooves on the back side from their thick ropes that constantly pulled with a sailing ship at the other end. Then Gram said they might have come from Spain in the bottom of the ship and brought ashore to keep the Galleon from floating away!

Tom asked how they'd move such a heavy rock and Gram said probably with a four wheel cart and two large horses.

I tried to mentally picture large Spanish cargo ships (with cannons) at anchor off the beach and what the island would have looked like in 1780. He said the island itself probably hasn't changed that much except maybe it was bigger back then, went further out into the sea. The hurricanes washed some of the beach away but over time the ocean eventually put the sand back in place.

Tom asked how deep the gulf was and Gramps said the bottom was fairly flat along the coast, along Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula but there are deep parts, like thousands of feet deep. He said along the shore you can go out like 100 miles from shore before you hit really deep water. He said most of the oil platforms off shore are only in 70 to 140 foot deep water.

We started eating Thanksgiving dinner at 5pm.

Since their table wasn't big enough for five adults and a ton of food Gram set all the food on the counter like a buffet, we took plates and inched down the line then sat at the table. After everyone was seated (and Crow was in our bedroom with the door shut) Mom said Grace. Hers were always fast but my personal favorite was always: "Rub a Dub Dub, thanks for the Grub! Yaaaay God!" After I reached my food limit I built Crow a plate of stuff he liked: turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy. I hand-cut the meat off both drumsticks (nobody else liked dark turkey meat). He also got a dinner roll with butter and a small slice of pumpkin pie with a dab of whip cream. After everyone was done eating Tom opened the door and Crow must have been listening closely because he came directly to me, I held his plate tightly on my thighs at his standard eating height. I think it took him 50 seconds to finish the huge meal and inhale the dinner rolls too. When he first walked up to me he acted like he had to inhale the entire thing in one breath, but I raised his snout so he looked me in the eyes and I told him to calm down, nobody was going to take his food. (Slooooow down Crow).

Before he finished licking the plate I poured him about three ounces of red wine on his plate and he carefully licked it up too. After licking his teeth for about a minute he touched me with his nose, I pointed to Gram and told him to say thanks to her, so he walked halfway across the living room where my grandparents were side by side on the sofa, he moved his head around oddly and snorted at them, we all laughed. Crow smiled at everyone after eating while he looked around the room and re-licked his mouth and lips. That was a definite thumbs-up from the dog! He never touched his kibble that evening.

"Gram, Crow said thank you for dinner, it was very nice." I shouted across the room as Tom and I started loading the dish washer.

She laughed and told me to tell Crow she thinks he is very well behaved, and we are enjoying having him here. But I told her to tell Crow herself, speak slowly and look him in the eye. So she called Crow over and told him he was a very good boy. I noticed all she did was call his name, she never said `come here' or anything else, he knew exactly what to do.

She said he squinted his eyes slightly and his tail swayed gently side to side. I told her that was a `positive' response.

We had a moment of silence then Gramps said, "You know it's weird but I never knew how tiny the expressions on a dog's face could be, you really have to watch closely. He really does talk a lot with the look on his face once you learn how to watch for them."

When I told him to say thanks to Gram for dinner he walked over and sort of spun his head around and snorted. That head spin meant something like "A lot!" So what he literally said was, "Yes, a lot!" Everyone chuckled at my interpretation of his body language.

Tom was pre-cleaning dishes and I was scrubbing the pan she baked the turkey in, luckily she used a baking bag but some of the gunk from the bird leaked out and was like welded to that old steel roasting pan. I also had the big bowl from making mashed potatoes and the blades from the hand mixer, but they also went in the dish washer. She had a gravy boat that was hard to clean because our hands wouldn't fit inside, so Mom took over that piece after she finished packing away the leftovers: green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, macaroni salad, glazed carrots, dinner rolls, and cranberry sauce. There was very little turkey meat left over (thanks to the dog).

It took about 20 minutes to get most of the dishes done and we started the dishwasher and all of us sat in the living room with Crow upright across the room watching us watch him.

The conversation soon became the University and Gramps pulled out a paperback book that listed every course and major offered at the university (Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG)). He read off the ones he already highlighted for Tom, they related to culinary arts, restaurant business management, and nutrition. Yes, they actually offered a degree program for a chef as the business owner. They even offered degrees in commercial fishing which included studies of sonar technology.

And for me he covered graphic arts, photography, journalism, and English. Then to me he also cited a master's degree in English, which was what all three of them wanted me to do with minors in photographic arts and journalism. Gramps said the average text book new cost $89 at the campus book store, and tuition was $92 per credit hour, not including lab fees or parking. In his book he also marked the nearby off-campus apartment complexes with one bedroom apartments, 450 square feet at $410 per month, furnished, with a $900 deposit due at signing, free parking and an on-site gym and laundry facility.

It was obvious after our other conversation about our lives after high school that Gramps came prepared this time, plus he mentioned both of us attending the same school and sharing an apartment to save a lot of money and help each other study.

I insisted I wanted to be in the news-photographic line of work but my grandmother said as time goes by more and more very nice electronic cameras are going to come out and some day everyone will own one, maybe carry it on their key chains with their car keys, and you'll print photos yourself at home on a tiny photo printer. The job of newspaper photographer is going to eventually go away, we'll all be photographers and journalists one day. She said some day newspapers will be gone, movie theaters, magazines, landscaping services, house painters, and people who build cars and trucks will all be replaced by robots some day. "Robbie honey you are very young, but you will see a lot of that happen during your life, so be careful about what career you pick, don't decide on one that will be obsolete in your lifetime."

Tom spoke up and said that was impossible to know for sure which jobs would be replaced by cheap technology. Grandma suggested the ones to be replaced first would be the ones that pay the most, or that require the most unskilled people to do. Then she asked us how many blacksmiths there are in Amarillo. Tom looked at me and laughed and said: None! Mom guessed that by the time I turned 40 that film cameras will be gone, the places that develop film and print them will also be gone, along with record players, music stores, and magazines too.

Both my grandparents spoke about a speech they watched recently about technology. She said that back in the 1880s the only way to get across the county was on a trolley, train, or on horseback. When cars started to appear all those people who earned a living in the horse drawn economy predicted doom would fall upon the world as suddenly almost every buggy shop and blacksmith would go out of business, but nobody foresaw the coming new technology waves: tire shops, car repair shops, gasoline stations, insurance companies, muffler shops, rust proofing shops, and most of those things didn't even have names back in the 1880s, so when they say that newspaper photographers will soon be gone, there will come new technology and new jobs we cannot even imagine today. There will still be a need for photo studios and wedding photographers, but maybe not enough for anyone to make a living at it.

Tom asked, "What about restaurants?" And Gramps said certain manual labor jobs will persist for a long time to come because the technology is too far off for now, nurses, surgeons, butchers, tree trimmers, carpenters, mechanics, stand-up comedians, and computer programmers will always be needed to do tasks which are too complex for a machine.

Gramps spoke directly to Tom and he said what Lisa said is correct, college is just a long series of small steps, that's all. You need to stay focused on school and keep moving forward, keep pushing yourself. Once you get used to college it becomes a lot easier, and in fact a lot of people find it difficult to leave school.

I wanted to hug Gramps for trying to steer Tom and me into the same school but I got distracted trying not to cry in front of everyone.

With the rest of the football game muted we sat in the living room and discussed college until 8pm. We both asked questions about costs and routines, I think we both quietly changed our minds and considered Galveston instead of community college in Amarillo or Texas A&M which was about 50 miles south of Amarillo. I know the beaches and the ocean made a big impression on Tom. We also asked a lot of questions about failing and what services where there for struggling students.

I think my grandparents wanted to have me down here for when they got older and might need help around the house. I also noticed they never once offered to let me live in Mom's old bedroom while I went to college, that said something.

Two hours after dinner we thanked them for a truly wonderful family dinner and went to our room. Crow stayed in the living room so Mom softly said his name, Crow looked at her and gestured toward the bedroom and he stood and trotted across the room and disappeared down the hallway, all we heard was the sound of ticking toe nails on the hardwood floor.

Once Crow arrived I shut the door and we got ready to shower and go to bed. Crow of course was already on the bed. Tom tried something I've been telling him for months now, his first time trying it out himself. He sat down beside Crow and spoke in a normal voice and simply told Crow to lie down on his own bed. `Go dog-bed.'

The dog stayed motionless for about ten seconds then turned and slid off the mattress and went to his bed on the floor. Tom smiled and muttered, "It worked! He really does listen." I just smiled and avoided the temptation to give him an `I told you so, but you said it was foolish to spend that much time teaching language to a dog. He just responded correctly to a three word sentence in English.' While Crow got positioned on his bed we got positioned in bed, then Tom got up and shut off the light.

Before we started to get romantic Tom asked me why after he told Crow to move did it take him so long to respond. I told him I wasn't sure but it could have something to do with pack ranking but it could be nothing more than simple laziness.

I said when we speak to him our voices sound basically the same to him as they do to us. And he is not used to listening to you, so maybe he had to replay what you said in his brain to understand you, and that took 10 seconds. But you said it perfectly, slowly, and clearly.

That night with lots of lube and some coaching Tom showed me how to fuck him, and it actually worked. He was on his back with his knees pulled back to his chest, our mouths together and I finally came inside him, then we kissed like we really meant it, then I slipped out and rolled over on my side of the bed and fell asleep.

Let me say that the sensation of fucking Tom was wonderful, it was a tight fit and I had to remind him to relax a few times but I came inside him while our mouths were joined. I guess now I really did lose my virginity, I gave myself totally to Thomas Riley.

We talked about taking a shower after sex but decided to spoon together all sweaty and stinky instead.

Friday Morning.

After breakfast we asked what the schedule was for today and Grandma said dinner at 5pm.

We decided to take advantage of the warm water and took Crow back to the same beach to let him run free again. The back seat was still covered with a (Dallas Cowboys) stadium blanket because there was no other way to keep the sand off from the four large dog feet. And of course there was a Crown Vic in the Galveston Island State Park lot when we arrived.

The weather was the same as yesterday, maybe slightly warmer, around 89 degrees with a gentle breeze, above us the sky was clear but there were clouds to the south. The gulf was almost dead calm so I slowly walked Crow into the water and let him swim back and forth between me and Tom.

Tom learned that taking a Dane in the water sucked because their front toe nails turned into knives if they swam to you and wanted to hold onto you briefly. We discovered the best way was to hold out one arm and let him catch that arm instead of trying to put his front feet on our shoulders. We both got scratched chests and arms!

Lesson learned: never trust a Great Dane swimming in the water, especially if their back feet touch bottom.

To keep his rear paws off the bottom we stood in chest deep water. It seriously changed the way he paddled (his front legs) if his back feet felt the sandy bottom. Even in water up to our chests he still touched bottom a few times. Danes in water were about as graceful as a giraffe on roller skates.

After an hour the waves and wind increased as a line of rain clouds moved in. Tom went for a swim while the ocean was still flat calm. When he asked about sharks I told him there have been shark attacks but not too many. After I said that he started to swim toward shallow water, then he got out of the water for his second photo session.

We walked over by the boulders again and I finished the 2nd roll of film and loaded the third. I got them to pose on the beach, Tom kneeling beside Crow with the ocean and sky behind them. I got both of them to smile so I could take about ten shots. That may be one of the portrait photos for his mother. I took some with and without a shirt so he could decide which ones to give to Management. He even did about forty pushups in the sand to try to enlarge his chest for some of his shirtless portraits.

I did a series of shots with Tom wearing shorts and a t-shirt with a cowboy hat and mirror sunglasses, then we swapped the glasses and hat and put them on Crow while Tom posed beside him, it looked funny. It's hard to get Crow to pose with sunglasses or a hat on, we moved very slowly and let him sniff everything first and get a good close look at them. But I think he decided to cooperate because he was in competition with Tom for #2 pack leader.

I wished I had one of those light reflectors so I could front-light them with the sun behind him.

We were there for three hours then walked back to the car and started the ordeal of cleaning sand off the dog paws before he got in the back seat, even with it covered. Those huge Dane feet held an amazing amount of sand and he seemed to be uncooperative with my attempts to clean them first. The parking area was paved and sand covered so there was no way to totally de-sand those paws.

At first he did not want me messing around with his feet, he just wanted to get in the car and go, so I had to be forceful, which was when he stopped resisting.

After the beach we drove to downtown and went past some outdoor malls where everything was closed for the 4-day holiday. I drove him down the main drag (Broadway Avenue) and showed him the old churches and the oldest neighborhoods, and the apartment complex where we lived 14 years ago. Some historic buildings had bronze plaques outside that they survived the huge hurricane back in September, 1900.

I showed him the hospital where I was born, and where my grandparents worked at the University. We eyeballed a few nicer looking restaurants in the tourist areas, most were closed but the chains were open, like Denny's and Waffle House. Almost every restaurant we spied on had a Help Wanted sign in the window. We stopped on the way and filled a bowl with water and let Crow drink then we drove back to 12 Mile Road, which was exactly twelve miles west of where Broadway Avenue ends at Seawall Boulevard. We got back at 4:15pm and had to hold each paw in the bucket to rinse off the sand. While I did that Tom shook out the stadium blanket.

We volunteered to help with dinner but the only things to do were take out the trash and wash some pans. The place was hot inside with the oven on, but it smelled like seafood. Gram said we had about 15 minutes so we went to our room and shut the door. We discussed what to do while we waited for chow and I decided to take Crow for an early dinner time walk now. I got the long leash and Tom went ahead so he could stand at the bottom of the stairs to `catch' the Great Dane on his way down the stairs. We were always afraid he'd take off running, he is totally dumb about the danger of traffic. If you let him run loose in any town he'd probably be dead within the hour, hit by a car.

On the walk over to 12 Mile Road Tom said he really liked Galveston so far. The single biggest attraction was the miles long white sand beach and the ocean. The long beach was the biggest tourist attraction in Galveston, even bigger than the roller coaster park.

While we waited for the dog to do his thing we talked about the island. He said maybe we should go look at apartments complexes while we're here.

When you're just 18 and naive about grown-up stuff it's hard to make plans for after high school graduation. The entire world opens up to you after high school, it's hard to speculate about something you know almost nothing about.

We got back to the bunker 12 minutes later, just as Mom came to get us. While they carried food to the table they asked what we did in town today, Tom did most of the talking since he was navigator.

Most of the stores we saw were quiet since the Black Friday shopping rush ended around 11am. We saw lots of closed stores and restaurants for the holiday. Then Gram said a lot of university students went home for the holiday so Galveston often turned into a ghost town on the major holidays. She said a lot of students left for home, but a lot of tourists drove in so the campus was empty but the hotels were all full and the beach was usually crowded.

Tom asked how many students attended A&M and Gramps interrupted and said it was listed in his book. He stood and walked across the room to his recliner and pulled out the book and sat back down and found the page and read it out loud.

"For 1992 TAMUG had an enrollment of 907 students. 43% were female, 48% were engineering majors, students represented every state in the country and DC. Students attending TAMUG are referred to as Sea Aggies." We all laughed, Tom glanced at me and rolled his eyes at the stupid name.

Grandma said the school had a big naval history long ago and offered different degrees in maritime sciences and long ago was an official school for US Navy and maritime officers but that has been scaled back, but they still offer degrees relating to jobs at sea.

Tom asked what maritime meant and Gram said, "...maritime is cargo shipping on the water. That's where the term Shipping came from because it goes back to a time when the only way to move stuff around was on a ship on the water."

We ate our dinner, it was Gram's locally famous Fish and Chips, the fish was Gulf caught Grouper, tender baked fillets with a homemade fish sauce, but I ate mine plain, just some salt, pepper, and butter. Each fillet I looked at was about four inches wide and six inches long, maybe ¾ of an inch thick of tender flaky white meat. She broiled them in the lower part of the oven and served them on plates with sides of broccoli, cole slaw, and a pea-and-bowtie pasta salad. She also had home-baked bread and butter on the table, with three bottles of chilled white wine, some German label.

There was no extra fillet for Crow so I had to make his dinner. I used his kibble and two leftover meatloaf slices from their refrigerator. I found if I mixed his kibble with a little hot water and poured in the leftover juices from the pan she used to broil the fish Crow would adore it regardless of if it was mostly his own food or not. I poured the fish juice into a bowl and crumbled the meatloaf in my hands and added in two cups of his kibble with some hot water, salt & pepper. I stirred it up and spooned it onto my dinner plate and held it on my lap while Tom opened our bedroom door. He paused to sniff it carefully then chowed down. The hot water made his food less crunchy so while I'm sure he knew it was made up mostly of dog food it still contained beef and fish juice, so it disappeared quickly, but not as fast as a Whopper Junior! Crow has eaten real fish fillets before but not very often so he is kind of a newbie when it comes to baked fish, that's why he paused to sniff his dinner before he switched on the suction pump!

That time he did not say thank you to us but his tail was swaying while he ate, so he liked it but realized that time he did not eat the same thing as us. We offered him a few ounces of white wine after dinner, and he said yes.

Gramps asked how to ask the dog if he wanted wine.

Hold up the bottle, look at his eyes and ask, "Dog wine?"

We both saw the dog responded by swaying his tail a little faster after Grandpa asked. So I held the plate and he poured a few ounces and I set it carefully on my thighs and he came up and licked the entire place dry.

After dinner Tom and I cleaned up, there were no leftovers to store. He sat in a chair and let Crow lick out the baking pan she cooked the fish in.

We stayed at the dining table talking about what we saw in town and did at the beach park. I told everyone about Crow swimming and his problem with swimming if he can feel the bottom. Crow gets confused about swimming if his back feet touch bottom, he acts like he might stand up on his hind legs but needs someone to hold his front legs up, and it's really strange. It's almost like if he feels the sandy bottom he can't swim any more.

He'll swim toward you and try to put his front paws on your shoulders and you get scratched badly in the process so you always have to catch his front paws. I told them I tried to catch him and hold him in front of me with my arms encircling his legs, and let him float on the water against my chest, but he won't stop paddling when he's in the water no matter how firmly I held him.

My friend Daniel learned years ago to never get in the pool with the Dane because he'll shred your flesh like a 150 pound version of Edward Scissorhands (Scissorpaws). Swimming is just one good reason why I always kept his toe nails cut very short.

That evening we both drilled my grandparents and my mom to describe in detail, down to the hour, what a typical week during college would be like, neither of us had any clue. And we listened to each one of them recall life as a college freshman, the hours, the money, and the joy. Like my mother said, it was just a long series of small steps.

We were both surprised by how few classes college students attended each week, but there was more homework and more reading.

After an evening of college talk we went to bed early.

Saturday Morning.

At breakfast we drilled Tom about his duties at the diner back home, he seemed more open to discuss his job and what it was like since his mother owned half the business. I think Tom may have been a bit shy when we first arrived on the Island but now that we'd been there a couple days he was opening up a little bit more.

One thing was easy to see by going to the diner myself and knowing Tom and his mom, he does not get special treatment of any kind at work, in fact they probably don't even pay him what the other guys who did his job earned per hour. He told us his job was intended for high school kids doing their first job. He said it's a no-brainer but you have to move fast and keep your eyes open.

Grandpa asked him if the diner made a lot of money and Tom surprised me and said it was nearly a small money tree. They were busy all their open hours except late in the day, but they needed those late day hours to get caught up on cleaning and inventory control, repairs and maintenance. He said a diner like that is constantly in need of lots of cleaning, with elbow grease, scalding hot soapy water, and brushes and rags galore. He said they always get an A-Grade from the health department, which is mounted in the front window.

Tom said that old stainless steel diner was really tough. "We get some really strong summer storms and it sits there and takes it while surrounding businesses get wind damage." He explained part of the story how it was originally located on Route-66 in eastern Amarillo but when they opened the new Interstate Highway the cars driving past the diner suddenly disappeared one day. He said it was on a very busy one-way street with thousands of cars and trucks and the next day they were on a dead end road with four cars a day. They bought a piece the property, 2600 Osage Street (less than a mile south of I-40) and paid a lot of money to have the diner taken apart and moved. They had to build a new foundation and install new underground pipes for sewer, water, gas, and electric service. Soon after it was moved they decided to build the addition on the back they call the back kitchen. It's an addition behind the diner that is about 20 feet deep and 40 feet wide. That's where they built the back kitchen, the dishwashing station, a large walk-in refrigerator/freezer, and it has an employee bathroom with a shower and lockers.

He said `...the diner officially opened in the 1950s on Route 66 which on the east side was Amarillo Boulevard. The diner used to stand at the southeast corner of Amarillo Boulevard at Eastern Street, the concrete parking lot is still there.'

Tom also told us a couple weeks ago they asked him to start cooking twice a month on a schedule so the owner can have two more days off each month. Starting in January he is going to get a small raise and when he cooks he gets regular chef pay which is a lot more than a busboy gets, plus the cook gets counter tips. We asked how big their menu was and he said it was actually rather small compared to iHop or Denny's. The Star's breakfast menu was similar to Waffle House: eggs any way, toast, pancakes, biscuits & gravy, thin cut steak, hash browns, bacon, sausages, and they do a couple specialty menu items but those are on the specials board, not the menu. They make a bowl of hash browns with scrambled egg mixed in, cheese on top and salsa and sour cream on the side. And their least ordered breakfast item is called the `Loco moco,' which is served in a large bowl. It's a scoop of rice with a cooked burger patty on top, smothered in beef gravy, then they put a fried egg on top of that, with salsa and sour cream on the side by request. His diner offers an optional Mex style for everything on the menu which is two corn tortillas on the side. He said it is a huge meal in a bowl and it's the most expensive thing on the menu.

Tom said if you were a grandfather taking the grandkids out for a special dinner and one of them played football the Loco moco is great for a high energy young man with a big appetite.

Tom said he wants to add a Saint Paul sandwich too, which is a deep fried Egg Foo Yung patty on white bread, with mayo, raw onion, lettuce, and tomato.

I think that was the most I ever heard him talk about the diner before. My grandparents and my Mom never heard of a Loco moco or a Saint Paul before. Grandma said the Saint Paul sounds more like a breakfast dish. He said the Loco moco and the Saint Paul would only add one item to the food inventory: bean sprouts.

Tom was the star all day, it's the most I ever heard him talk before. When it's just the two of us he's normally rather quiet. After breakfast we sat in front of the muted TV and talked about college and careers, goals in life, and steps we could take to reach those goals.

At 11am we took Crow out for walk #2, Tom said something that really stuck in my brain, "You know the reason why we're asking your grandparents all these basic college questions?"

"No, why?"

"Because neither of us have fathers." When he said that it actually made me dizzy briefly, I nearly cried, then I started to feel angry, but I knew it was probably true.

I thought about commenting about the amount of talking he was doing but decided not to ask, I expected if we were alone he's say that when we're alone in his bedroom I didn't talk much either, but that might be because I often had his dick in my mouth!

Let me back up and explain one part of our dinner table discussion that Mom started. She wanted her parents to hear the story about the stabbing so the three of us took turns telling our part the story. I thought it would be neat if Crow could tell his part.

Grandpa questioned me to make sure he understood correctly that my dog was standing in the living room watching everything. I said yes, he does that any time he hears people outside, but he rarely barks unless it's strange voices.

Grandpa interrupted and said, "Your dog hears voices outside but doesn't bark?"

"Yep, because he's too damn lazy. He boofs, but only barks if a stranger is on our driveway or the grass." Grandpa laughed then Grandma started, and Mom chuckled too. Tom told me to explain what a BOOF was so I did my imitation of a Great Dane boof. I said it was a low volume, low airflow bark without opening your mouth, it sounds like a boof. Then everyone laughed, but it was true. He's watched the front yard when he hears people talking outside or hears car doors close to our house since he was a puppy. Its his way of guarding our lair.

I told Gramps nobody but the people involved saw it happen but it appeared Crow saw the guy and the knife and he saw him attack Tom and he took off running through the 4x6 glass window (like it wasn't even there), bounded several times on the ground to pick up speed, then became air born behind Tom and flew directly at Cowboy's throat. The police told Mom the impact from that was like having someone swing a wood baseball bat at your Adam's apple. The impact was so hard he flew backwards about 18 feet and landed on his back in the street, where he died. They said he probably couldn't breathe but even if he could gasp some air he would have bled to death anyway.

Then I added that I thought the guy had a broken neck too from the impact. He was probably paralyzed too, maybe bad enough to also stop him from breathing.

And Grandpa asked "Nobody taught Crow to do that?" I told him no, I never thought things would get that crazy, and then it did, and then there was a huge crash and suddenly the cowboy flew backwards like some invisible hand from the sky reached down and yanked him backwards. I never saw the flying dog and he sailed within two feet of me. It was a black blur it happened so fast, not to mention it was very dark outside. There's no street lights near our house.

"Grandpa, the dog hit him so hard he slid out of his shoes, they remained in the spot he was standing when he stabbed Tom, along with his cowboy hat. We all heard the crash then the guy looked up to see some black creature flying at his throat, which was the last thing he ever saw. Mostly as a joke I told them it happened so fast he didn't even have enough time to say something like, "What the?" Then BOOM and suddenly he was 15 feet away and twitching, so he laid in the street and died right where he landed, without his shoes and his black cowboy hat.

My grandparents got so emotional Grandpa slid his chair back from the table and got up and walked to the refrigerator and got out an ice cream sandwich and cut it into six pieces and came back to the table. Both him and Gram got very emotional as they heard the story, Gram had tears and I could tell Gramps was trying not to cry, it was in his voice.

He looked around the room but spoke at me then the dog, "Any dog who risks his own life to save a human is a hero in my book and I think Crow qualifies for an ice cream treat, in this house that's how we reward hero dogs.

By then Crow (who was on the living room floor by the sofa watching closely) was already standing when Gramps called him over.

He turned in his chair and ran his hand over the top of the dog's head and told Crow, "You risked your life to save Tom, which means you're a hero and in our house we give hero dogs an ice cream sandwich."

He started handing Crow the six pieces of vanilla ice cream sandwich and the dog carefully took them with great self control. He had heard the word Hero enough times to understand this was related to the night Tom got stabbed and Crow protected us after the fact. After he finished the treat we applauded him as he licked his chops and his tail swayed and I could tell Crow was incredibly happy. We all hugged Crow and thanked him again for what he did that night. Tom got emotional too but never offered to show his scar which was no longer impressive looking. In fact some people told him it looked like he had his appendix removed recently. The stab wound was almost in the same spot a surgeon would use.

Gram asked if there was any talk of a punishment for Crow for killing a human and I said I would not allow it to happen, I accept full responsibility for everything he does. If the sheriff said they would take Crow and put him down I would refuse to let him go, even if it meant my own death. If they wanted to punish Crow they would have to kill me too, I said I was not backing down for any reason. He risked his life to protect us, it's the least I can do.

Everyone could see I was really upset telling the story. Mom sensed my anger and we stopped talking about it.

Saturday afternoon:

We decided to not drive to the beach park, instead we drove around near the university to look at apartments, maybe tour some of them. Mom agreed to dog-sit for us.

Every place we asked about if they accepted dogs and all of them said yes but there was an extra deposit and they had rules about cleaning up after the dog, and all of them had fenced-in dog walk areas. None of them had weight limits on dogs, just pay the deposit.

We left in Mom's car and drove back to the city. When you approach Galveston from the west on the coastal highway Galveston really begins near the airport. After you get past the airport the traffic suddenly increases and there are lots of traffic lights. After two days-off Galveston became a very active place again. We stayed on Seawall Boulevard all the way to Stewart Beach, which was where the paved road ended and it was sand and weeds the rest of the way to the east end of the island. That's where Spring Break happened with hundreds and hundreds of tents and thousands of young people drunk, high, and naked for a week away from school.

After seeing the beach area (which was mostly empty of people) we drove over the Pelican Island Causeway and around the A&M University campus which was the largest college campus I've ever seen. My grandparents both taught here but not as much as six years ago, they were both down to less than half time since they were already past retirement age. It was still Thanksgiving weekend so the campus was also empty.

We left the island on the Causeway and drove back onto Galveston and saw a cluster of student apartments near the campus, Tom counted three rather large units with big parking lots, they looked crowded, cars and bicycles were everywhere. We could park in one place and walk to three different places and try to grab a brochure with prices and contact information, so that's what we did.

All three apartment offices had people ready to give us tours of their typical one bedroom and studio apartments. I grew up in a large house so those apartments looked tiny to me, but Tom was not impressed. I reminded him this was something we'd have to do for four years, and then it was over. To eighteen year old boys four years sounded like forever. We saw their pools, gyms, laundry rooms, and how mail was delivered.

After the third tour Tom called our research trip over, now it was time to look for something fun to do so we drove over by the Galveston Island Pleasure Pier (on Seawall Boulevard), Across the busy main street was an outdoor mall with lots of shops and restaurants, almost all the stores had Help Wanted signs in the window. Tom did spy missions in some of the restaurants. He went inside one restaurant that was a steak and salad restaurant, then he went inside another which was a fancy restaurant with a dress code. He went in to ask about job openings, skill requirements, what kind of college degree would be needed to be a manager, and the pay ranges. He also asked about work schedule flexibility for college students with restaurant management as a declared major.

Tom came back with lots of stuff on his mind and actually blurted out: "I could easily live here, there are lots of restaurant jobs and all of pay a lot more than in Amarillo." I was glad to hear him say that, it was one of the first long term encouraging things he said to me. But the one thing I really never heard him say was "us."

On the long drive back to 12 Mile Road I got up the nerve to tell him, "I think we should share an apartment here and go to school!" Tom suddenly became silent, which scared me.

We barely spoke all the way back to my Grandparents house. His silence gave me anxiety and a feeling of impending doom for hours after the silent treatment.

Mom was on the sofa, cross legged with her reading glasses on, reading a textbook. Crow was on the sofa with his head resting on her lap, trying to be invisible. Mom had the bottom of the book nearly resting on his head.

The old folks were gone, Mom said they went to the store. I said I hoped we were not having turkey sandwiches. Mom said the turkey was gone, but they still had pumpkin pie and green bean casserole.

Before dinner she quietly asked me what happened because I looked upset, but I refused to discuss it with her. As soon as that happened I glanced at Tom and he was on a chair mesmerized by the TV but we were in the kitchen talking quietly.

We had almost an hour until Mom thought they would be back so we went to the bedroom and closed the door, Crow stayed with Mom on the sofa. She was wearing something like PJs, they were very soft and covered everything except her feet. And her PJs had Dallas Cowboys logos on front and back. I asked her why she didn't wear ones for Houston since we were only 40 miles from Houston but she just chuckled.

We fell down onto our bed and stared at the ceiling again, I reached over and held his hand, Tom gently squeezed mine back.

Tom rolled onto his side facing me, "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure, this sounds serious."

"Nah, it's all good. I just wanted to say thanks for bringing me here. I think this is one of the best trips I've ever taken. I just want you to know before it's over. I'm really happy here."

So I asked why he stopped talking after I mentioned us sharing an apartment and going to school here. Tom said "The problem is money and how to pay for all that stuff," he reminded me he was poor. I think it embarrassed him a lot.

Tom said he's been poor all his life. He's seen my best friend Daniel's house and its obvious they got mucho dinero. And our house is the largest one on the block, and my mother has a doctorate and probably gets a rather large paycheck from Uncle Sam and owns a uniform factory. "I don't think you hear me or understand what it means when I say I'm poor."

He reached up and touched one finger to under my chin to turn my head to look him in his eyes and spoke, "Rob, I am very poor, I cannot afford those things we looked at today, university tuition, fees, books, apartment rent, I cannot afford any of that stuff. But I also realize you cannot hear me when I say my mother and I are poor, she cannot afford to send me to college, she makes enough to afford her car, insurance, and the mortgage."

Still looking in his eyes I said, "Let's ask my grandparents about that tomorrow, maybe 'pobre' has a simple answer. Every kid right out of high school is poor." I offered, Tom just smiled and said 'Well yes that's true.' I said if it wasn't easily solved none of those universities would exist. He smiled and chuckled, he said he never considered it before. I reminded him we were both just 18 years old, hardly any life experience.

Then I told Tom if I was from a wealthy family I'd be going to Northwestern or Notre Dame, and not a cheap old state school that doesn't even have on-campus dormitories.

He set his hand on my tummy over my shirt. I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm havin' a great time too, thanks for comin' along. This is probably the best trip I have ever had down here." He leaned-in and put a kiss on the corner of my mouth. I turned my head, closed my eyes. Our lips met and started making out like two lovers for several minutes. Once his tongue moved in past my teeth I started to melt again and my dick immediately responded.

There was a knock on the door, Mom opened up without waiting for a response. I'm sure she saw us kissing, a first for her. I lifted my head, Tom turned to face her too.

"Can you boys go outside to carry the bags for your grandparents, they should be home any minute now." Mom asked.

"Sure Mom." Tom said without hesitation. In seconds we were up getting our sandals on, down the stairs to the driveway just in time to see them drive into the driveway. On the walk down the stairs I mumbled to Tom that my grandmother must have figured out how to make a call with her cellular phone. We watched as the electric motor suddenly started to open the garage door. Brake lights came on and in a couple seconds the car motor stopped then a clunk released the back door on their SUV, we grabbed all the sacks in one trip hauling them upstairs to the kitchen table. Mom started to unload as her parents eventually made it inside. I wondered how much longer they'd be able to climb those stairs without any help. It must suck having to climb almost thirty steps with arthritis in your hips.

Their steps were not steep, each step was short but there were twice as many, and the platform was large on each step to make it friendlier to older eyes and joints. Neither of my grandparents were skinny, which I'm sure made things worse. I think both of them had bone loss, she was sort of bent over in the neck but Grandpa only had it a little bit.

In the far end of the house I started a load of laundry for Tom and Mom while they slowly started readying for the big evening meal. Grandma quizzed Tom about his kitchen skills from his years at the diner in Amarillo. But Tom said that the commercial kitchen was nothing like her kitchen so his skills there didn't translate as well to home cooking, like with fry pans and a microwave oven.

While they talked Grandpa came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, asked me if we could speak privately in his study. I told him `sure' then we walked down the hallway. He opened the door to reveal a small room with a desk, sofa bed, leather recliner, tons of books on shelves and some neat track lighting on the ceiling. I was expecting some sort of gay speech or something about morals or safe sex but what he said really surprised me.

"Robbie, I don't want you to take this the wrong way but you know here on the gulf coast we're kind of in a Caribbean culture. So I have one question I need to ask, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, okay?"

"Sure, go ahead." I responded but his speech was starting to get me worried.

"Son, have you ever heard of Bob Marley?"

"Huh?" I said almost choking at his question.

"Bob Marley. Have you ever heard of him?"

"Well Grandpa, I think I did, like didn't he die or something a few years ago. I think he was a musician or something."

"You're close. He died two years ago in Florida of cancer, but he basically invented the modern version of a music style called Reggae and another called Ska." I told him I never heard either of them.

I watched as he turned on his stereo, walked over to the door and push it shut. It was then that I noticed that there were some rather large speakers built into the book shelves. Holy crap, my grandpa is a closet reggae fan!

(Play the song: `One Love,' one time, now)

He played me a song, I saw the CD case it was the song One Love/People Get Ready. It sounded like what I assume is Jamaican folk music, very acoustic, very organic. I started to really get into it after a few seconds. It was very different from what I always assumed Bob Marley or Reggae was about. He cranked it up about ten seconds into the song. I felt the bass guitar vibrating my bones, and the cowbell was super intense at that volume, it sounded like it was struck inches from my ear. Some of the percussion hits in that song were super loud on his speakers. I looked at his speakers, they had a small metal sign that said Yamaha NS-1000a, his amplifier was marked B&O.

One Love,

One Heart,

Let's get together and feel alright.

One Love,

One heart,

Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel alright.

Let's get together and feel alright!

By the end of the song I could barely see, my eyes were full of tears.

Then Grandpa said he was really impressed by the amplifier and speakers. He said if I listened very closely you can actually hear and feel the impact of the drum stick on the cowbell, the actual strike of the stick. Notice how many different instruments you can hear too. He said on most speakers it's all muddy and you miss out on the detail in the music. He played it again. I was surprised nobody banged on his bedroom door since it was so loud. But what he said was true his stereo was really nice.

By then tears were dripping down my face and I saw he was teary eyed too. I walked up to Gramps and hugged him and said "Thank you Grandpa." He smiled and said he was glad we came down to visit. Then I stepped back and wiped my eyes (and he was too) and told him I needed his help. I explained what Tom told me about being poor and going to college. My grandfather walked over to his stereo to turn it off and he said he had the answer; he'd take care of it. He walked to the door and we left his study.

We walked quietly to the kitchen where Grandma, Mom and Tom were staring. I guess Grandpa blasting his stereo was an uncommon event. We both must have had smiles on our faces and we both looked like we just cried too! Our moments in his office were never mentioned again. It was awkward and cool at the same time. I think that was the first time Crow heard loud music in his life.

Saturday Evening.

By 5:15pm dinner was almost ready. We all helped prepare the meal, everyone had a task. We had more baked Gulf fish (Yellowfin Tuna, locally caught), tossed Caesar salad with croutons and peperoncinis, the rest of the green bean casserole, baked potatoes, macaroni salad, cooked spinach, and everybody got a glass of dry white wine without asking. We paused for a few toasts before eating. Crow was on the floor by the sofa watching closely, I kept glancing at him so he knew he was not being left out.

(note from author: a dry wine is one that is not sweet)

Grandpa led the first round raising his glass towards the center of the table he said, "I propose a toast to my lovely daughter Lisa and her son and his two good friends. Your mother and I are very proud of you (he said smiling at his daughter)." `Hurray!' we all responded.

Mom was the next to raise her glass offering, "To love and family gathered for Thanksgiving." `Hurray!' we all replied.

That left us all glancing at each other. I decided to keep my trap shut but I glanced at Tom trying to give him my permission to say anything he wanted.

Tom lifted his glass and said: "To love, good dogs, and the beautiful state of Texas!" he announced loudly. We clinked our glasses, took a sip of wine, then started passing plates of fish and veggies around the table in both directions, a real traffic disaster.

We laughed, talked, told stories, and shared pieces of food with the Great Dane standing by the table. It had to be one of the best dinners I ever had. I seldom saw my mother smile that much. I noticed she really acted differently here than back at home, here were her parents watching and listening to everything she said. Its almost weird how my grandparents spoke about my mother as if she invented a cure for cancer, but she actually designs atomic weapons designed to instantly kill millions of civilians, yet they say they are proud of her. I think they mean they are proud of her financial success and not so much what she actually does for a living.

It makes me wonder back in the 1940s at Christmas dinner how the Oppenheimer family spoke to Robert knowing he was building the strongest bomb in history, what did they say when they toasted the meal?

I noticed Crow was standing between/behind my grandparents trying to look like he hadn't been fed in days. Sad droopy eyes and lowered head and everything he could muster to look pathetic. Mom never said a word, neither did I. When Grandma got halfway through her wine she offered the rest to Crow which he slowly sniffed, staring at the large wine glass, then out came that long tongue.

We watched as he lapped up her remaining wine as if it was super hot or something. He licked his mouth and kept up licking his face. He was very funny to watch, we all laughed. Crow's tail swung slowly side to side as he enjoyed being almost at the table but all the way a part of the festivities. I caught a glimpse of him smiling, I told everyone that he was very happy to be here and really liked being included. Everyone stopped for a moment while I interpreted his body language. I had to explain my statement but nobody questioned what I said on his behalf.

Tom asked, "Isn't it all just about food to him?"

And I said, "No, its about peer pressure. He wants to do the same things as us, so he really likes being included. To him its about involvement and respect more than food. He's probably not hungry anyway."

Then Grandpa raised his glass offering another toast. He turned to face the happy dog to his side between him and Gram. "To good dogs, man's best friend." `Hurray' we all replied. Crow stood by the table tail wagging, looking very happy. Tom and Mom never said a word, they trusted my ability to read Crow.

While we ate I asked Grandpa how much a year of full time college cost with apartment rent, utilities, food, and books. He said last year it ran about $4500 a year if you lived cheaply, and worked part-time off campus. He said most kids financed it and worked. He said student loans were easy to qualify for, all you needed was a driver's license, a tuition bill from the university, apartment lease, and high school transcripts. There was a finance office on campus, it was easy to go in and apply. He said student jobs were easy to find and that made a huge difference in the quality of life during the school year. I noticed Tom paid very close attention to every word he said.

"Where is the finance office?" I asked.

Grandpa said it was in the administration building on the second floor, just follow the signs to Student Finance. They were open six days a week all year. Tom glanced at me with a smile.

I asked him what percentage of students had to finance their entire college education. He said probably eighty five percent. Tom was listening closely and he looked surprised the number was that high, I think he was expecting to hear it was less than ten percent.

To help drive the point home I said, "So most students going to college do not have the money to pay up front?"

He said, "Yes, very few. But I think that adds some pressure on students to focus on school and not parties and girls. You have a lot riding on your decision to attend college, the idea is by the time you graduate you should be able to afford the student loan re-payment easily. Plus, a lot of employers will make your loan payments as long as you work for them. Some will even pay off your loans after you complete a year of full time work in your degree. He said he estimates maybe 40% of students actually pay off their own loans, for the rest their employer does it as a benefit.

Grandpa continued talking about being poor and going to college:

"...I started college and had to finance everything and rented a tiny sleeping room in a very old hotel in downtown Galveston and lived a life of canned food heated over a Sterno stove and doing homework, but when he got a job things improved and he qualified for grants and got to know the financial aid people and spent one weekend filling out every grant application they had.

He explained it sounded like a ton of hassles and work but the more time he spent working on it the easier it got and after he graduated his first employer paid his loans off, because of that he was able to start working toward his doctorate.

I asked what year he graduated from college and he said December 1949. I asked if he served in the war and he said No, he turned 17 on the day Japan surrendered. Then he added that was his first graduation, he had two more to go.

Tom asked if he had any relatives in World War-2 and Gramps said he had a cousin who joined the Army Reserve in 1945 but was never sent overseas because of the huge number of soldiers coming home from Europe and the Pacific.

After the last bite was consumed Tom and I cleared the table and put the dishes into the machine. We went to the living room but this time the TV remained off. My grandparents got into their recliners with Mom on the sofa and me and Tom on the love-seat. Just to be brave I slipped my hand between my thigh and Tom's to gently hold his hand. I doubt anyone could see. Tom gripped my hand tightly and held me that way for a while, which meant something but I was unsure.

We talked about the rest of the year for us. Tom asked if there was a place we could get a course catalog, something that showed every degree TAMUG offered and the courses required to earn that degree. He said to go into Admissions and ask for a student handbook, they're free. He said sometimes they had boxes of them sitting out on a desk near the door or even out in the hallway on the floor or on a folding chair.

Gram spoke up and suggested we drive there now, the admissions office was open for another 45 minutes, but they often had boxes of student handbooks positioned around the campus, like outside the registrar's office. I looked at Mom and she reached into her purse and tossed me the keys. We left without the dog again and drove quickly to Pelican Island and got two copies of the handbook and then drove back to 12 Mile Road.

After we got back we sat in the living room talking and both of us sat there reading the book while the old folks talked about state politics and the election three weeks ago. One of the election results for a congressman was being re-counted and taking forever.

One topic of discussion in Galveston is always water usage and if they can use sea water and remove the salt, but that process takes a lot of electricity. Tom said they should install a windmill next to the salt plant and let it run 24/7 making fresh water without an electric bill. Grandpa reminded him about tropical storms and what they would do to one of those big windmills, so Tom sort of mumbled, "I guess it was a bad idea." Then he suggested solar instead of wind, then Grandpa said it would not be a 24/7 plant it would be more like 12/4 because we often have heavy cloud cover here. So Tom just shut up. I squeezed his hand.

Back in our books Tom leaned over and pointed out several classes he said he would love to take, the name alone sounded interesting. They had classes on the financial management of a restaurant, wholesale food purchasing, negotiating with suppliers, menu design and pricing, restaurant marketing, and health inspections.

It was getting near 8:30pm when I said I needed to take the doggie outside to do his stuff. Tom followed, I never had to say or gesture to Crow, he knew when he heard the chain links on the leash. He probably knew by the time of day too.

We walked down the street my grandparents place was on. Crow eventually found suitable spots and did his business. We walked back to the garage where he never flinched when I rinsed the sand off his feet and walked up the stairs with Crow in the lead. He had to climb the steps without stopping so he didn't slip.

When we got back Mom reminded us we would be getting up well before the sun to begin the drive home, and she said we were driving straight north to Oklahoma City instead of cutting a diagonal across Texas and hitting every stoplight between Lubbock and Houston. I think Gramps convinced her to drive a different route home for faster speeds and less traffic.

Gramps said the goal of leaving early was to get all the way across Houston before the worst part of the morning rush. He said if you go early enough you can get all the way across Houston in 90 minutes from down here. Mom said the worst part will be crossing Dallas at lunch time. Its three hours from Houston to Dallas. You take I-45 north to Dallas and cross downtown then go north to I-635 and cut over to I-35E and take that to Oklahoma City.

Grandpa said if we hit I-635 at noon we'd be lucky to hit 40 miles an hour because the traffic there is so bad. Once we get out of Dallas we'll do okay the rest of the way, and traffic in Oklahoma City is only bad at five to six PM, but it ain't nothing compared to Dallas. Luckily, the gas tank in Mom's car is extra large so it's great for long drives on the highway at 80mph.

That night we all went to bed early. When we all stood up to leave for different rooms I walked over to my unsuspecting grandfather and gave him another big hug. I think he knew why. Tom and I climbed out of our clothes in a flash while walking to the tiny bathroom. We both fit but it was tight, which was good. Crow climbed up onto the bed trying to claim the center of the mattress. I wonder if he could talk if he'd tell us to sleep on the floor.

It reminded me of a comic I saw once with the caption: `If Dracula had a cat.' It showed the black-dressed man wearing tight fitting PJs asleep on the floor beside his casket, which was wide open and in the center of the cushion was a small black cat, sound asleep.

We kissed for a while in the shower then washed each other from head to toe, stopping to slowly scrub each other's butt and dick. I used my tongue to taste his tits a few times to make sure they tasted clean.

I loved to get my hands all soapy then gently hand wash his nips, BB, and dick, then rinse off the soap and carefully lick each one again to see if they tasted as clean as they looked, but I lied and forced myself to re-do them five times! Tom leaned back against the shower wall and let me do whatever I wanted.

In less than an hour we were both asleep.

Early Sunday Morning.

Around 5am Mom woke us up by opening the door and turning on the lights. Grandma was also up early with a small breakfast packed and ready to eat in the car, scrambled eggs, muffins, sausages, coffee, OJ, plastic spoons, and bottled waters to go. I guess Mom ate before she woke us up. We drove slowly out of the neighborhood down to Seawall Boulevard and turned left. I sat in the back seat with Crow half on my lap, we watched out the window as the familiar sights zoomed by. He jabbed his nose into the side of my head. I pointed out things to him because I will never stop teaching him things.

After we crossed the causeway to the mainland we melted together in the large back seat just me and Crow trying to fall asleep in the dark Texas early morning. Mom drove us to Norman OK where we stopped for lunch and gas, Tom drove the rest because he said he knew Interstate-40, his grandparents lived along our route. Our trip home followed a very different route:

Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Denton, Norman, Oklahoma City, Elk City, and Amarillo. We saw some areas with recent tornado damage in Oklahoma. I've never seen a tornado or a hurricane myself yet, but I'd like to sometime.

We stopped for gas in Sayre Oklahoma. Tom and I went to the bathroom. I avoided the temptation to peek over the wall. We got bottles of water and a bag of popcorn for the rest of the ride home. Our next stop would be Tom's house. Mom filled the car while I walked the dog in the weeds near the gas pumps. Crow was still holding out for grass to pee on, but he found one clump of grassy weeds to pee on. I quietly reminded him about acting like a dog when he wanted to be treated like a person but the scent thing will always be important to him.

Since his home was on the east side of town we dropped off Tom first. Crow seemed to recognize their house. The exit we took off I-40 (Osage Street) took us past their diner so I got to show Mom where it was, their parking lot was 3/4 full. Tom said that was normal for dinner time.

We shut off the car in our garage at 6:41pm. Mom called Galveston to let them know we arrived safely. Crow was glad to be back in his own back yard peeing on real green grass (Oh thank God!). I stripped to my shorts and carried my laundry to the utility room while Mom went through the mail. By 9pm I was asleep in my own bed, I woke up Monday morning feeling back to normal.

I must say in my entire life that was the best trip I ever had going to see my grandparents. I wrote that in an email to my mother but she never replied. I think she is bothered by the fact that I would even consider evaluating such a trip. When she scolds me like that it just teaches me not to share my thoughts with her the next time I feel the need.

Monday November 29, 1993.

In school we started a new semester, new classes, new teachers, new groups of students. I hate new semesters because of all the bullshit we had to endure for the first few days while so many students tested the teacher to see what they could get away with.

After school Crow and I went to play tennis and take a long walk to check out the latest scents on his choice of walking routes. I took a few photos of Crow to finish off the third roll of film.

On the far north end of the gym field I heard and saw the school football team doing drills. The football field is in the far northeast corner and the baseball diamond is in the far southeast corner of the school property. You can see both of them on gmaps along Bell Street. The easiest way to locate the neighborhood is to look for the big pond in Stiff Park. There's only two ponds in all of southwest Amarillo, McDonald Lake is one of them, but I call it a pond.

One time months ago Mom showed me a B&W photograph of this area when it was nothing but weeds and grass as far as you could see. It was very flat without any trees anywhere. It was great land for grazing cattle but not much else.

Back in the 1920s Amarillo was just south of the area known as the Dust Bowl, which was centered on the far western Oklahoma Panhandle, the northern panhandle of Texas, and the nearby corners of Colorado and New Mexico. Amarillo got some of it but the worst areas were further north, but the ground looks almost the same.

Few people know that northern Texas has some huge canyons; it's where Tom's high school got its name. It makes me wonder how in the 1800s they drove those huge herds of cattle from southern Texas all the way to Kansas City, how did they get around the canyons?

After school on Monday I emailed Tom to let him know I was ready to develop the film if he wanted to be there. I told him it was time consuming process because you had to develop the negatives, after that was finished then we could make some prints. I said about 90 minutes to develop the film and a couple hours to make prints. I also told him he could participate and order any negative destroyed, especially ones I took of him naked on the beach.

In all honesty our trip went much better than I anticipated. I wanted Tom to come along so it didn't suck as bad but all of us had a great time. I also decided to write my grandparents a real letter thanking them for their hospitality and thanking them on behalf of the dog too because he also had a good time.

My letter went in the mail on Tuesday but I never heard back from them.

Mom seemed happier than normal, I was glad she pushed for two extra visitors. She didn't have to do that. I wonder what would have happened if they said: No dogs! One thing was certain I would not put Crow in a kennel unless I was in it with him. No matter how she threatened me I was not changing my mind. Crow was a part of our family and I would not compromise on that.

I could have stayed home and Mom could have flown to Galveston for a few days, and I would have earned the title of `asshole of the year.' You're supposed to always put family first, but Crow is family. Not everyone understands that, a Great Dane in the house is a huge presence, they become involved in many things that smaller dogs never pay attention to.

It's difficult to explain but because of their size Danes participate in family things as if they were just another child born to those parents, but with a dog flavor to it. And to Crow it isn't just about food, he truly cares about each one of us, and he watches us closely. The worst part is giant dog breeds don't live long, it's like having a child you know is going to die between their 9th and 12th birthdays.

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