Anyway, when we moved from Lover’s Lane to The Johnson Grass Farm we brought with us O’ Jack. O’ Jack was a sort of “Old Yeller” type dog. He was a good, gentle dog but I do remember during our move he tore up a lamp shade that happened to be in the same car he was in. This was somewhat of a disaster being we couldn’t afford a new lamp shade. O’ Jack wasn’t any kind of spectacular dog but was a true friend and has become a family folklore over the years. He had been born on my sister Betty’s birthday, uh, or was it on my sister Peggy’s birthday.

The story seems to change at each family reunion.

Anyway O’ Jack got sick one day. Talk was he may have been poisoned or fed glass in a biscuit. Not sure why (maybe someone thought he was killing their chickens) because to us he was a good dog. Because he stayed sick for awhile, story has it my Dad came close to hitting him in the head with a baseball bat (we couldn’t afford a gun) to get him out of his misery. He didn’t, but soon O’ Jack died up under the pump shelf in our back yard. Yep, we had a hand pump out in the back yard because we didn’t have running water. So we always built a wooden pump shelf under the pump spout to hold the water bucket while we pump it full and tote back into the house.

We sure missed O’ Jack after that.

Even though 60 years have passed, every time we gather for our family reunion, O’ Jack will always end up in our conversation. One year, an in-law even made a yeller cake with his name on top in honor of O’ Jack. Each member of the Atnip clan has their own version of O’ Jack stories but this here one is mine. If O’ Jack was alive today, in dog years he would be at least 420 years old.