Some Dogs Got to be Walked!?!

By POOR WILLIAM

Poor, Poor William has been insanely busy with his three jobs as of late and preparing for the awesome 8th Annual Clarksdale Juke Joint Festival being held right here in Sunflower River City. As a result, he has been behind the curve writing the last two weeks and is forced to amend yet another article from his brief days as a Gothic City reporter for the Clarksdale Press Register. NEXT WEEK AND TO INFINITY AND BEYOND there will be new stuff du jour.
How can Poor William age gracefully? He can’t–some dogs got to be walked!

It ain’t easy getting old! Poor William, whose girth is but a fine hair shy of four feet, still sees himself as the svelte Greek god he was back in the day. Now he has dropped 22 pounds over the last two months, but he just now got down to FAT!

Young William, while training for the 1986 New York City Marathon, was running shirtless up the Desoto Avenue hill. His mother’s friend, upon glimpsing his fine physique, told Martha Jane her son looked like a Greek god.
Older ladies always thought he was cute; it was just difficult to find chicks near his own age who deemed him worthy of a second glance. It ain’t easy being Poor William, he who tenaciously hangs on to any compliment launched in his general direction.

Jumping ahead 15 years, Poor William was reminding his ex-wife, prior to his being traded to another team as a free agent, that chicks did in fact dig him in days of old. She was gloriously reminded of the Greek god comment by a gloating Poor William.
His then wife appeared to agree with Poor William’s self-assessment of his demi-god status. He was beside himself thinking he was finally being recognized for the Olympian he should have been had he been taller, faster, more lithe, and infinitely more athletic.

His triumphant moment was at hand; breath was bated. She said, “Honey, was Buddha really a deity?”

Ugh–bubbles were burst–Poor William was no longer immortal, but in his own mind. Until recently, he has spent the last 10 years not improving his previously, conspicuously fine self, but lamenting his lost status as a semi-mortal.

An oft-played tune in the land of the Blues, “Walking the Dog,” instills Poor William with a feverish desire to regain his lost glory. The lyrics go, “I’m just walking the dog; if you don’t know how to do it, I’ll show you how to walk the dog.”

Upon hearing the tune, ever the teacher at heart, wanting to instruct lesser Whirling Dervishes, Poor William drops to the floor on all fours, bouncing up, down, and all around, gyrating in a grotesque version of the game Twister, often to querulous looks petitioning, “What in the hell is that fat man doing? Are all rednecks like him? Is he really trying to pro-create with the dance floor? Marge, what is he doing?”

“Well, NO, Honey, all rednecks are not like me, and I already have four children, so the floor is safe from bearing even Poorer Williams than I.”
This Delta Bohemian seemeth not to care what others think when the spirits are high and the tunes elicit capricious acts. He must appear cavalier in order to be confident in his skills as a “known” dog walker.

Poor William used to “gator” in college, often in a cashmere sweater on a floor sticky with suds. He was 60 pounds lighter, much better looking, and at least did not require an oxygen mask after roiling on the planks at the Sigma Chi House.

Animal House obviously had a terminal effect on me. I have never quite given up my 1978 persona, an identity shaped by the nugatory, despicable, non-insipid, but easily-envied members of Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, galvanized by John Belushi’s Bluto.
The problem with walking the dog is not that Poor William’s spouse is horrified; in fact, for some reason she seems to fancy his walking the public dog–she is about as eccentric and fatuous as he is.

No, the problem is that his busted joints from years of bone breaks and hard living do not support his voluminous corpus delicti. In other words, it is hard on a fat man to shudder and sway exuberantly, while trying to hold up over a tenth of a ton of formerly twisted steel, now masquerading as Buddha’s bowl full of jelly.

So, no more walking the dog, right? Wrong! Some dogs got to be walked, and Poor William is just the corpulent correspondent to do it! Make way ye skinny mortals! Who let the dog out, who, who, who?