Chickamauga Canine

The year 2004, saw Rebecca’s return to the West Coast after over a year living in Greenville, South Carolina. Her move to and adventures there is the subject for another time but when I flew out to Atlanta, to accompany her driving home, we had many road trip adventures. She graciously allowed me to fulfill a long standing wish to visit Civil War sites in the South. We saw Charleston’s battery and Fort Sumter (from a distance), and then began our trip.

In Georgia we stopped at Kennesaw Mountain, a battlefield where my Great grandfather, William Henry Parrish had fought, as well as the battlefields of Chickamauga and Chattanooga (Missionary Ridge). In Tennessee we stopped at Stone’s River battlefield. At all these spots, Lily, Becca’s canine companion, and still a puppy, romped and stretched her legs. She was the ideal car companion along the whole trip but it was a Chickamauga that she made her memorable run.

We had stopped to see the visitor’s center and then decided to let her play around a bit. Opening the car door, she bolted out like a streak of lightning and romped around on the grassy field where 142 years earlier men had shot at and killed each other, in order to preserve the nation. She was having a ball just running around, in circles, in straight lines, anything, AND THEN SHE SAW THE BIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never seen a dog run as fast as Lily did that day. She reached deep into her ancestry and Whippet heritage as well as her hunting South Carolina Dog instincts and ROARED after a huge flock of birds on the grass. She TORE into that flock like a runaway locomotive! I never saw that puppy run as fast ever again…she was a streak on the grass, hugging low to the ground, her little rear paws reaching all the way to in front of her muzzle (I am not exaggerating!), her forepaws slung out WAY in front and then rotating to almost her behind. She held her head low and just grazing the grass. Had she been a bit older and wiser I am sure she would have caught a few of those birds. They never knew what hit them but all rose in a cloud of alarm and wheeled above us making a cacophony of noise.

After a bit, and seeming very proud of herself, she trotted back to us like a victorious general having vanquished an enemy. I am sure that 142 years earlier, Confederate general Braxton Bragg was not half as proud at defeating his Union counterpart Rosecrans. I never saw her run as fast again, as I have said. It was her Olympic effort and will always stick in my memory as one of the most enjoyable parts of that car trip home.

JP 12-30-2011