In an era of dirty bombs and decapitation, of Abu Ghraib and acid rain, it's not all that easy to find good news. And while it's indeed true that the term "good news" as used in the previous sentence can certainly take on a dual meaning, I use it here to mean "news that reports the occurrence of something good, positive, or otherwise not bad." To get to the point, a quick scan of the top four headlines on the Yahoo.com website will net you the following items: "9/11 report: 10-plane attack was planned"; "Two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq base attack"; "Family pleads for safety of U.S. hostage"; "Feds watching third suspect in Ohio mall plot." And surprisingly, or perhaps not, the Bad-News-Bearization of modern reporting is not a distinctly American phenomenon. Check out the top headline on the Canadian version of Yahoo: "Alberta police: serial killer may be at work." And the British site leads with, "Football yobs disgrace England." Now, I would be remiss if I failed to admit that I don't really know what a "yob" is, or understand what the headline itself means, but I'm pretty sure the story should not be deemed "good news." Hit up the Australian, Indian, and Asian versions of the site and you'll find more of the same. Hell, I'm even fairly certain that most of the versions printed in languages that I cannot read are imparting one form of bad news or another. I mean, "Ausbildungsplatzabgabe besiegelt"--the top headline on the German Yahoo site--can't be good, right? But, thankfully, amidst this muck of military scandal and yob misdeeds, a beacon of hope does flicker on the bombed-out horizon. The shining star of shiny-happy, it turns out, is Singapore. Mind you, I know next to nothing about Singapore beyond the fact that it resides near Malaysia in Southeast Asia and was in the news some time ago due to the nation's use of caning as a form of punishment for various crimes. As such, I have no knowledge as to whether the national press is solidly independent or whatever. But, for some reason, I am totally digging the fact that the top news headline in that country today is, "Kids' favorite Barney kicks off 26 sell-out shows in Singapore." Laugh at me if you want to, but if you were perpetually nervous about taking the subway and were being bombarded with news about how the Republican Convention that's being held three blocks from your apartment could be ground zero for the next Quaida smackdown, you'd likely understand the appeal of a good, puppet-related top story. "Barney, the purple dinosaur, and his cartoon sidekicks, Baby Bop and BJ, have kicked off a series of 26-sell out shows in Singapore," the article's lead graph trumpets. "The loveable, huggable and very popular Barney and his dinosaur friends are in Singapore for the very first time." The article goes on to inform readers that, "The opening show included a special surprise for one of the dinosaurs, BJ, who is celebrating his seventh birthday." Believe me, it really is great stuff. And aside from some parents' complaints about ticket lines--see, e.g., "I queued for like 45 minutes at Bugis Junction," and "I had to log in on the Internet for five hours before I managed to get good seats"--the piece is nearly devoid of a downer. While it's possible to assert that the second headline on the Singapore Yahoo site should be categorized as bad news, I'd contend that this story, filed under the heading "Residents want compensation for window damage due to grass cutting," should get a pass. "Some HDB residents living on low floors have had their windows bombarded by flying pebbles," the article begins, in true small-town monthly newsletter fashion. "The residents at an apartment block along Jurong West 64 say the damage is caused by the grass cutting in the area." The piece goes on to state that holes in numerous windows from the flying stones resulted in $2,000-worth of damage, and concludes by noting that "the town council has agreed to bear part of the cost but [the residents] are still not happy." This is the second biggest story in the country, people. And while it may technically be classified as "bad news," I'm thinking there's got to be some sort of sliding scale that results in the placement of this article fairly close to the "neither bad nor good news" pile--I mean, I've caused more than $2,000 in window damage with one ill-advised toss of a baseball. Anyway, as I intimated earlier, it's entirely possible that things really are bad in Singapore but that the relevant repulsions are not reported by the press. Still, the notion of a place where Barney, Baby Bop, and broken windows rule the news landscape is undeniably appealing to me at this point in time. Interestingly, the first piece of real bad news to appear on the Singapore site--a story that is slotted third, immediately after the previously menioned items--isn't even Singapore-based bad news. Rather, it's ours: "Iraq assassination spooks oil markets, two US soldiers die in rocket attack." Leave it to us to jack up Singapore's otherwise happy news day. Maybe it's time that our nation's leaders take a cue from the beloved purple dinosaur who's currently wowing audiences from Bukit Panjang to Serangoon. How's that song go again? "I love you . . . you love me. We're a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too."
When I was young, back when my parents were still together, our family pet was a black cat named "Happy."
The cat died when I was 10, so I don't remember all that much about the intricacies of its personality or demeanor. But I do recall that, for the most part, the cat's name was fairly apropos.
Happy was . . . well . . . happy. She caused little, if any, trouble, liked rubbing up against the legs of visitors to our home, and purred a lot.
As you would imagine, the cat and I got along swimmingly. And most people who were fortunate enough to be in Happy's presence every now and again came away from those interactions with similarly positive vibes from the feline.
During Happy's time on the planet, my best friend was a neighborhood kid named Walt Kasevitch. Actually, to be precise, his name wasn't Walt Kasevitch. The "Walt" part is accurate, but what followed that name was some long, odd-looking, impossible-to-spell, Polish surname of the variety that is as common as pierogies in my hometown of Pittsburgh--a word that, when spoken, sounded like Kasevitch (Kass-a-vich).
Anyway, Walt was the son of Walt Sr. and Donna Kasevitch.
Walt Sr. was a burly, beer-bellied man with thinning brown hair and a porno mustache. He had a penchant for Japanese-style manicuring of shrubbery, and maintained an aloof, friendly comportment that made him an ideal dad-of-a-best-friend, as he would rarely get angry about the shenanigans his son and I would get caught up in.
Donna was a blond bombshell--not my type, mind you, but clearly a woman most men would find attractive, if not downright irresistible.
She was the Marilyn Monroe to Walt Sr's aging Joe-D.
Mrs. Kasevitch maintained an impressive, curvy figure that bore no visible signs of child rearing. She had gorgeous, flowing hair, and seemed to always be flashing a wondrously sweet smile.
Meanwhile, Walt Sr. burped a lot and scratched himself often.
It was clearly one of those Ric Ocasek/Paulina Porizkova or Billy Joel/Christie Brinkley deals that make you wonder how on earth an oaf of a man landed such a beauty. The difference, though, was that while ogres Ocasek and Joel are rock stars, Walt was a tire salesman for Goodyear.
Nonetheless, and despite the disparity that existed between the relative attractiveness of the two parents, the Kasevitch family appeared get along just fine. Walt Sr. earned a nice wage, and Donna was a proficient stay-at-home mom who seemed to truly enjoy that role.
When I was eight or so, the Kasevitch's brought home a German Shepherd that would become the family's first pet.
The dog, at first at least, served to bring the Kasevitchs even closer together.
He was small, and cute, and furry, and adorable.
On Walt Jr.'s suggestion, the family named the dog "Happy."
At the time, I was too young to be upset or put out by the ultra-transparent copycatting that went down, but in retrospect it's clear that my best friend basically just ganked the name of my cat and slapped it on the dog tags that hung from around the neck of his new pet. I was busy worrying about baseball cards and searching beneath couch cushions for quarters I could exchange for Bomb Pops from the Ice Cream Man, so I had little time to be mad about what, in the grown-up realm, would be akin to a close friend deciding to give his first child the name that you'd just previously chosen for your own little bundle of joy.
Nope, I wasn't mad at all about the misappropriation of my cat's name.
That is, I wasn't mad about it until Happy . . . the dog version . . . grew up and became known, almost exclusively, for the following two things: 1) breaking his chain, and 2) biting the hell out of me.
That's right, in what just may be the prime example of a pet naming proving to be horribly, horribly inappropriate, Happy grew up to be an absolute menace--big, grumpy, powerful, sharp-toothed, etc.
And he bit . . . hard.
Within a few months of welcoming Happy into the Kasevitch home, the family became well aware that the dog was not of the loveable, cuddly sort.
Simply put, Happy was mean. And after he snapped at three or four of the first visitors to enter their home after the animal's arrival, Walt Sr. determined that it would perhaps be best if Happy was kept in the garage--where there was no one for him to bite.
Well, as you can imagine, a solitary, garage-bound life is not exactly the antidote that one would assume to improve the temperament of a grumpy-ass dog, and the quarantining only served to exacerbate the animal's meanspirited nature.
After a while, even feeding Happy became a dangerous chore. For the most part, he got along OK with Walts Sr. and Jr., but on some occasions Happy would "lose it" and bite an exposed ankle or whatnot.
Eventually, the Kasevitch's were forced to chain the dog's collar to a pole in the garage so as to ensure that he would not attack the person providing him with food. On especially warm summer days, one of the Walts would replace Happy's ordinary chain with a longer one, and then open the garage door so that their pet could spend some time outside on the driveway at the back of the house--while still being chained to the pole, of course. During those times, Happy would simply bark as loud as possible, run around like he was trying to kill an imaginary foe, and do other outrageously scary things.
All in all, the dog was a nightmare.
And for me personally, the whole best-friend's-pissed-off-dog thing was especially troubling.
As it turns out, when I was a child I was both allergic to and really scared of big, huge dogs that will attack you for no apparent reason. And while it's true that Happy . . . the dog . . . hated nearly everyone who did not have the word "Walt" somewhere in his or her name, the monster seemed to maintain a special, extraordinary hatred for me.
Maybe it was the fact that he somehow realized that his name was stolen from my cat.
Or maybe it was some sort of animal jealousy over the fact that I was best friends with the boy that he was supposed to be best friends with.
But whatever it was . . . it sucked.
The few times that I somehow ended up in the same room with Happy, he bit me. And on numerous occasions when he was provided with the longer, outdoor chain, Happy would "break the chain" and run roughshod over the neighborhood, scaring children and sending everyone I knew scurrying for shelter from the beast.
At these times, Happy's focus was quite elemental: He was looking to hunt me down and attack.
Point blank . . . that was it. He was out to get me.
In retrospect, it was almost as though the taste of other children's blood and flesh was some sort of dog poison, or that mine combined to create a secret formula that Happy was convinced contained the potion that would allow him to rise up against the Kasevitch's and escape the garage once and for all.
But, again, whatever it was . . . it sucked.
That dog must've bitten me 10 or 15 times, and on more than a few occasions hospital visits became necessary.
I never understood how a dog could "break a chain" (aren't chains really, really strong?), but when such an occurrence happened I was almost always outdoors and far from the safety of my home.
I distinctly remember a few instances when the dog came bounding into my backyard, barking as loud as could be--he'd usually stop about 10 feet in front of me and show me his teeth for 30 seconds or so before biting the hell out of me--but those scenarios were uncommon.
More often than not, Happy would surprise me and pop up out of nowhere, without any warning. In these cases, his patchwork brown and black coat of fur would serve as a crude form of camouflage. And the battles that followed could not have been more one-sided.
My most vivid memory of a Happy attack refers me to an afternoon in the mid-80s when I was returning home from a killer day of sled riding on a hill located just behind the next street down from mine. I was carrying an inner tube, and had just walked through a thickly wooded area of pine trees that began at the back end of our property line.
I was cold, tired, and ready for some hot cocoa.
Trudging along with my head down, I came to the crest of a small hill located about 50 yards from the back entrance to my childhood home. As I crossed into the backyard, I heard what appeared to be the crackling of breaking sticks.
I immediately stopped in my tracks--hoping against hope that the noise I heard wasn't caused by what I damn well knew it was caused by--and slowly raised my head to confirm the inevitable.
It was Happy . . . and he was pissed. How he got out, or "broke his chain," in the winter, is beyond me.
For whatever reason, on that occasion, he growled at me for an unusually long time--his lean, hulking, muscular frame tensed-up and ready to pounce--before attacking.
Maybe he knew that the inner tube wasn't a Goodyear model, who knows?
Fortunately, on that cold, blustery day my snowsuit and layered apparel helped ensure that the mongrel barely broke the skin on my calf.
"Maybe you should just walk around in a snowsuit all the time," a kid from up the street remarked a few days later.
After a while, people from all over our block who had become aware of my misfortune began feeding me suggestions as to how to escape the wrath of Happy. Interestingly, most of these neighborhood nuggets of wisdom were things that you'd normally hear as part of discussions about surviving unexpected run-ins with Grizzly Bears:
"Don't look him in the eye."
"Move slowly."
"Look him dead in the eye."
"Run."
"Pick up a stick."
"Throw a rock at him."
"Raise your arms and try to look scary."
"Curl up in a ball."
It was all useless, of course.
That dog hated me, and he was set on biting me regardless of what zany piece of self-defense advice I wanted to test out.
As such, for a period of five or six years, my time outdoors was marked by a cautious, ever-vigilant state of attention--well . . . that and a bunch of Happy attack scenarios.
In addition to being a fairly horrifying and unfortunate situation for me to go through, the maulings also provided quite a few ironic--or at least counterintuitive--pronouncements in our neighborhood.
"Happy is loose," frantic children would scream, as though they were sprinting, human warning sirens.
"Happy attacked Matt again," my parents would tell relatives.
"Watch out," Walt Sr. would advise. "Happy is mad today."
And, to this day, the devil dog's legacy lives on.
When I recently reconnected with a former neighborhood buddy, the Kasevitch's canine was a hot topic. After a bit of cursory reintroduction, one of the first things the now-grown-up guy said to me was, "Hey, do you remember how we would always have to climb up trees to get away from Happy."
"Yeah, man," I replied. "I do."
"That damn dog was always breaking his chain," my old friend said. "And he was always looking to bite."
I could muster little more than a groan in response, as I attempted to laugh off all the attacks.
"I wonder what ever came of Happy," the guy shot back, noticeably thankful that he no longer had to experience any terror at the paws of the beast that made a subset of our childhood years fairly scary.
"I don't know," I responded, before transitioning the conversation to our childhood forays into breakdancing.
What I do know, though, is this:
Around the time of my fourteenth run-in with Happy, Donna left Walt Sr. for some dude who rode a motorcycle.
She took Walt Jr., moved to Peters Township, and started a new life with a man who had more hair and a better moustache than her ex-husband.
Thereafter, all that remained at the house next door to the one I grew up in was a portly, aging tire salesman and a dog chained to a pole in the garage.
And neither one of them, I assure you, was very happy.
