Gene Tunney. My Three Legged Dog

The first time I saw Gene Tunney it was 1940. I didn't notice, and later didn't care that he only had three legs.

Herman Baker heard that my father was forced to give away my dog Blackie and wanted me to have his dog, Gene Tunney. Blackie had become mean and unruly.

For Gene Tunney and me it was mutual love at first sight. He was a little Fox Terrier, solid white and with one black ear and a half black face. He had lost his right rear leg doing battle with the county sickle mower.

"He will fight anything," Herman said, proudly. He was nipping at the heels of the mules that pulled the mower when one kicked at him. He scrambled away form the mule's hoof only to run into the sickle mower and it cut off his leg. Didn't seem to bother him, though. He was chasing rabbits the next week".

He was tough as a boot. He and our old Tom Cat, Smokey, settled that issue the first day, and it didn't come up again, as they both walked a wide swath around one another.

Gene Tunney, the human being, was courageous ex-World War I marine that held the navy middleweight boxing championship and after the war turned professional. He worked his way up to and defeated Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight title in 1926. Tunney was a popular champion. The return match with Dempsey was marred by the famous "long count" Tunney received because Dempsey wouldn't return to his corner until Tunney had been on the canvas for several seconds.

I only mention this to point out how the popularity of this man spanned 13 years to have a three-legged dog named after him.

Gene Tunney the dog would meet me each morning at the door when I went outside. He would lie beside the door until I would return and then he would greet me with an abnormal amount of body wiggling. He was the most loyal dog, or human for that matter, that I ever encountered.

He would race to meet me when I came home from school. Jumping high into the air and falling each time as he landed on one rear leg. When it became time to scratch he had a real problem. Without the right rear leg he would sometime lie on his side and scratch with his left rear leg. The other side went virtually unattended since he had to service the itching spots by nibbling at them with his teeth.

I wish that I could report a glorious hero's ending for the courageous Gene Tunney, the dog, but I can't. His death, though sad, was nonetheless tawdry.

He, and five or six of his buddies, were happily running with a female collie of low degree, a brazen hussy no less, when the group began to attack old man Cross's milk cow. Old man Cross shot into the group and killed Gene Tunney.

Like their ancestors, dogs running in a pack get caught up in the mob mentality. They were just trying to impress their lady friend.

Gene Tunney was merely answering the call of the voices of the past. A call that dates back thousands of years, urging him to tend to the duties of procreation, canine style. It was the natural tendency of his species. He should not be blamed.

Pay no Mind to Your Mind:It's Not Healthy

By: Harold Mounce


It has come to my attention, after all of these years, that
my mind does not always act in my best interest. In fact, I
sometimes wonder if I have enough control over it to even claim
it as my own.

Take the times I've tried to quit smoking. My mind would
pester me constantly until I would start back. After numerous
attempts over many years, I was finally able to beat down the
real enemy--my mind, not the nicotine.

My mind would tell me that I had earned the right to smoke.
That I had worked hard, had very few other vices and why worry
about the harm to my health. Didn't my uncle Bunyan still smoke
at the age of 90? My mind pointed out that I could quit smoking
and die in an automobile accident. Look at all the fun I could
have had by continuing to smoke.

I was only able to quit after I learned to ignore my mind,
and that's no easy feat. To this day eight years later, it has
not given up, and at every stressful situation, it offers me a
cigarette, and my hand, like that of a robot, grabs at my left
shirt pocket.

I am now in a death grip with my mind on a daily basis about
my weight. While I am shopping for oat bran, fruit, fiber laden
and iron rich foods, my mind is shopping for ice cream, pastry
and candy bars. When I find the strength to resist white sugar,
and white flour and remain true to my diet, my mind begins to
point out old fat people and remarks how healthy they look. It
says things to me like, "You really ought to have another piece
of pie, your face looks drawn. You need to fleshen up a bit."

When I have trouble sleeping and am tossing and turning,
wide awake at 2 a.m., do I get support from my mind. No, I do
not. It is then that it becomes even more chatty and continually
reminds me that if I go to sleep instantly, I'll only get three
hours of sleep and will really feel beat the next day. Of
course, I worry about that for a half hour.

Let me caution you, your mind is not your friend. My mind
has taken me places bare handed that I shouldn't have gone with a
loaded shotgun. When a traffic cop is scowling at me and writing
out the ticket, where do you think my mind is. It's flitting off
somewhere else, cooking up yet another mess to get me into. It`s
certainly not there explaining to the cop, as it did to me, that
all police radar alarms are set at 10 miles over the speed limit,
and it's OK to roll along at 74 mph.

It plays on my weaknesses and says, "Go ahead! Buy it.
You'll find the money to make the payments somewhere." Or the
one that works too often, "Just send flowers, there's nothing you
can do for him now."

It's plain to see that my minds no friend of mine. I hear
about people losing their minds. That must be nice.

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