Barkley’s Sandbar Christmas Miracle
Christopher Metcalf
TT Tree Tunnel Publishing
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Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Metcalf
Smashwords Edition
Published by
Tree Tunnel Publishing, LLC
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Cover artwork and photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Cover photo by Lilly M. Great Dane drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9837447-5-7
www.treetunnelpublishing.com
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For kids. Yours and mine.
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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thru' the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
—Clement C. Moore, 1823
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Thank you for believing.
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CHAPTER ONE
The water in the Arkansas River flowing southeast through Tulsa, Oklahoma drops to a trickle each winter, like it often does during July and August when it is burning hot outside. During the spring and fall, the water level will sometimes rise to the top of the banks of the river’s edge nearly a half-mile wide.
Tulsa would flood regularly until they built the Keystone Dam about 15 miles upstream. The dam keeps the water under control. The result is a bunch of sandbars forming in the middle of the river like islands in a slow moving sea. Some folks think the sandbars are ugly. Visitors will often say "you call this a river?"
What does all this have to do with anything? Well, not much really, unless you believe in miracles.
I’ve never told this story before.
I never told my late wife, although I'm sure she knew what was up. Never told my kids or their kids or even their kids, my great grandkids. I kept my word to a certain fella who crash-landed on Barkley’s Sandbar just after midnight nearly 50 years ago. Barkley kept his word as well.
I remember that night like it was yesterday. I'm no writer, so bear with me...
CHAPTER TWO
Barkley and I liked to take walks late in the evenings. It was our special time together at the end of the day. Barkley, in case you’re wondering, is my faithful and truest best friend. He’s a giant, and I do mean giant, Great Dane. He’s huge, really huge. He’s mostly white with big black spots like an enormous Dalmatian on steroids. Did I mention, he is huge.
But when I look at him, I still see the tiny little puppy looking up at me in the pet store. Just like whenever I looked at my wife I could always see the beautiful young woman with bright blue eyes that melted my heart the first time I saw them.
And just like my wife, who I met awhile after Barkley came into my life, it was love at first sight the first time I saw that adorable little puppy. How could something so cute and tiny yelping up at me in his little crate grow to be so big?
My name is Gerald Vaughan, by the way. I was a young attorney working in Tulsa when I found Barkley in a neighborhood pet store in 1963. I had just wandered into the store one Saturday afternoon to get out of the rain. I recall the store had a parrot in a cage right at the front that said hello to everyone who entered. I remember looking at a few fish and then some kittens.
But then I walked up to that little crate with a litter of Great Danes in it. They were all pretty small, and Barkley was the tiniest one. But man, when he looked up at me and I saw those big eyes, that was it. I knew I'd found something and someone special.
Barkley was the runt of a litter and I remember the pet store owners thought he would never get that big. They were wrong. Boy, were they wrong.