Our dog Beany had a minor operation on his foot. Ever after he wore a size 16 work boot on his left back foot. Steel toed, too. He was called "Beany" because, well, that was his name and he was related to beans in an atmospheric sense (if you catch my drift -- you wouldn't want to catch Beany's). Anyway, one day he chewed through the logging chain we used to keep him tied up and disappeared into the forest primeval and apart from what was said to be industrial pollution we never heard from him again.

My brother was heartbroken and wouldn't eat beans for nearly a quarter of a honor in Beany's memory. But we all knew that he'd gone to a better place -- Beany, that is -- my brother was only 27 and far too much of a young and callow lad to leave home. Eventually my brother did leave home, of course, after Mom reminded him that he was married, had three kids, was a veteran of Vietnam, and that it was high time he got a job doing something besides testing condoms for the Highjinks Condom Mill And Feed Company, and with his next paycheck she was going to start charging him room and board.