In 1996 I was living in south Georgia, and making very little money. I was only able to make it home to Chicago twice a year, once for vacation and again at the holidays. I couldn't afford to fly, so I drove the approximately 900 miles each time. I would leave as early in the morning as I could muster in order to make the 14-hour drive and get home by early evening. I had a ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee with a tired 4-cylinder engine, and I was never certain which trip would be its last, so I never pushed it too hard, making the trip even longer. At highway speeds, the engine seemed to be screaming, so it was usually quite a noisy trip.
I would pack the night before, and Angel, my Dalmatian who loved car trips, would go absolutely crazy in anticipation — or fear that I was going to leave her behind.
Angel For Now
Once we got in the car and she was certain I wasn't stopping off at the place where the sweet-talking people stuck things up her butt and poked her with needles, she would settle down and sleep pretty much the whole way.
On one trip I had the stereo playing, with a borrowed personal CD-player plugged in through a cassette adapter. I was somewhere in Tennessee or Kentucky, music blasting, and I was singing at the top of my lungs to stave off boredom and stay awake. Suddenly I heard this awful sound coming from what sounded like the undercarriage. It was a horrible, deep, moaning, whirring kind of noise. I quickly punched the pause button on the CD-player, and when the music went silent, so did the noise. I slowed down to hear if the noise came back. I sped up to hear if it came back. Nothing. Not one to panic, I drove in relative silence for a while, but the sound did not return. Maybe I blew a speaker? I turned the music back on, but turned the volume down. It sounded just fine, so I cranked it back up.
And there was that sound again! I paused the player. Sound gone. I checked my windows to see if one was cracked open a tiny bit. Nothing. It was pissing me off. So I decided that if I heard it again, I would just listen as well as I could to try to identify it. I started the music again, and within just a few seconds THERE WAS THAT SOUND! I cocked my ear toward the engine. I couldn't tell. I cocked my ear to one side of the Jeep, and then the other. Tires? Couldn't tell. I was getting desperate. I was getting angry…I was getting CREEPED OUT! And then I looked in the rear view mirror. Angel was sitting, and appeared to be sniffing the ceiling of the Jeep, then lowering her head and then sniffing again. But when she lowered her head, the sound stopped. And then it dawned on me. Angel was howling!
I reached over and paused the music, and she immediately stopped. I started the music again, and she immediately resumed howling. I began laughing so hard I nearly went off the road! I looked quickly over my shoulder and she looked back at me, the picture of innocence!
The song finished and the next one started, but she went quiet. I turned it up even louder, but she had no reaction. So I backed up the CD to the beginning of the song that had been playing when she howled – "Shine." Angel remained quiet until the chorus of the song, where the instrumentation saturates, and the vocalist sings,
Oh-h! Heaven let your light shine down…
over and over again. Then she started howling again! I zipped forward and back to other songs, but Angel howled only at "Shine!" This tickled me no end.
I thought it was maybe a fluke, but on the return trip I put the Collective Soul album, Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid, back into the player. Sure enough, when "Shine," the first song on the album, hit the chorus, off Angel went! I was certain I had played the song in the apartment before, and she never had such a reaction, so I thought maybe it was the acoustics of the Jeep, maybe something about it bothered her ears.
Back at home I did a little experiment, and put the CD on the big stereo (big for me at the time…). A peculiar thing happened. As soon as the song started, Angel stared at the speakers intently. Did she recognize the song? Did she like the song? And when the chorus began, so did Angel.
"Shine" was one of my favorite songs at the time, so I played it a lot, and Angel "sang" along with it just about every time! It was the only song that achieved such a reaction. She didn't seem to be irritated by it. She stood, lay, sat wherever she was and just pointed her nose toward the ceiling and bellowed. I imagine there must have been a harmonic tone in the chorus that tickled her ears, or that resulted in a wail much like a siren that causes other dogs to howl. But she sure seemed to know it was coming!
God I miss that old girl!
5 comments:
When I was about 7-8-9 years old, we had a dog that howled every time I played anything on the piano, especially the high notes. It was really funny to watch her, so we tried it often when family were there visiting. The poor dog had to perform nearly every day!
I remember that song when it came out. Funny that Angel only howled at that song, she either really liked it ...or really hated it.
What a great memory, and well told. Thanks for sharing.
Love that song. I even down loaded it to my ipod just the other day!
I read this the other day and was laughing so hard I forgot to reply. It actually sparked a conversation at work among those of us with pets of what makes them do things like this.
For example, Caly just came thundering upstairs at the sound of the keyboard clacking, and she loves to watch hockey on TV!
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