April 2
Sam tells me, “My dream is to open my own dock dog diving business.”
Only, it sounds to me like, “Mah dream is ta open mah own duck dock diein’ bidness.”
For a moment, I am mystified. I smile, not sure how to proceed. Decide honesty is always the best policy.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t quite catch that. What kind of business?”
She speaks a bit slower.
“Dock dog diving.
Jen says, “Sam trains ‘em. She’s good. We’re following the competitions around right now. Trying to build a name.”
Jan and Sam are in their mid-twenties. They have that wide open, anything is possible aura of enthusiasm I remember with some nostalgia from the first flush of love Janice and I experienced. The magic of lesbian love.
Jen and Sam are clearly young lesbians, clearly in the first flush of love. I said hello to them when they came up from the river where they’d been fishing. It was my first glimpse of members of the Sisterhood, at least obvious ones, since I’ve been on the road.
I find out that they’ve been together for three months. They, and their eight (!) dogs, one cat, and two gerbils, are all of them traveling out of a 24-foot trailer with one pop-out towed by a monster of a Ford truck.
The dogs, I learn, include a Malinois/Shepherd cross, which is eight months old and which Sam has been training since it was weaned- their hoped for soon to be star diver, two German Shepherds, a pit bull/Australian Shepherd mix, a Lab/Shepherd mixes who is good at the hydro speed part of the competition, two Spaniels, and a mutt they rescued. They don’t talk about the cat or gerbils.
I ask about dock diving.
“I’ve never heard of dock diving. I’m from Oregon, which probably isn’t an excuse, but there you have it. What is it?”
Sam grows enthusiastic as she explains to me dock diving is basically what it sounds like. Except that there are three areas of competition.
Distance Jump is the most basic. Dogs race against a clock down a 40-foot dock, then jump into the water of a 41-foot pool. An elaborate point system exists which rates the dogs on style, strength, distance.
Next is Hydro Dash. The dog races into the water toward a bumper it must retrieve. The timer starts when the last foot of the dog leaves the dog and stops when the dog swims past the 10 foot mark of the pool after retrieving the bumper.
In Air Retrieve, the dog leaps toward a toy suspended two feet above the water 6 feet from the end of the dock.
If the dog successfully grabs the toy, the distance grows and grows until they miss the toy or the owner decides their dog has had enough. The Spaniels are in training for Air Retrieve, it seems.
“How are you guys doing?”
Jen says, “We probably should have socialized the Malinois more. He was confused. There was a big crowd, it was loud, lots of dogs. We were just going for the distance jump this time.”
Sam takes up the tale.
“He done so good in practice, I thought he was ready. S’my fault. He needs more ripenin’. He took off’n outta his crate full speed. Then just skidded to stop. The crowd gasped. Alla ‘em. It was embarrassin”
Jen laughs. Sam adds, “Then, he just took a big ole dump on the dock.”
They both fall into gales of laughter. They are young, they are happy, they are in love. Anything is possible.
“So, you’re a trainer?” I ask.
“She is,” Jen asserts. “A good one. This was just us forgetting that socializing takes more time. I’m a vet tech. Or, was. Now I’m going along with Sam.”
I notice Jen’s many tattoos, bracelets, rings. She is slight of frame, brunette, exudes a cheerful demeanor.
This is when Sam shares her dream to open her own business.
“They ain’t another one in these parts. Not in all of South Alabama.” She says. “I figger we can set ourselves up. I can train, Jen can vet ‘em.”
Sam is sturdier than Jen. She wears short, cropped hair covered by a ball cap sporting the logo of some dog business: a dog’s head in red on a black visor. Though Sam looks like “the butch,” I see in their relationship that Jen more often takes the lead.
The look adoringly at one another. Hoist up the buckets of catfish they were carrying when I said hello, lean toward each other in readiness for the next thing.
“I see you need to get going. I wish you nothing but big success. Maybe one day I’ll turn on my tv to see you both at the national dock diving competitions.”
“Yes, Ma’am. That would be awesome. I sure hope it comes to be.”
That’s Sam. She nods her goodbye.
And they are off. To manage their menagerie, their dreams, their love for one another in the South. Living together in these dangerous Maga times when earnest young women just like them are now living in jeopardy.
I offer up a sincere invocation for their safety and success.