Rodney Curtis

For most of my life I’ve lived with a dog or two in my house.

Lovely Mocha gave us litter after litter of puppies back before society realized it just wasn’t cool to add surplus dogs to the population. Her little runts — Ajax, Tiny Tim, Brownie and Blackie — were fathered by neighborhood dogs who hopped our fence or in one insane case, enjoyed Mocha’s feminine wiles while staying on the opposite side of the fence. Try getting that image out of your young, impressionable head.

After Mocha’s 16 years ended, Brindle joined us for a psychotic streak of 12 years. There is no doubt in any of our minds that he was just wired differently than normal dogs. If he were human, he’d be either long incarcerated or a commentator on Fox News.

Marci and I had our first dog together, Alex One, although at the time he was just known as Alex. I’ve written extensively about Alex One and his relationship with his successors Bernie and Alex Two. It’s in my first book if you want to catch up with the rest of the class.

But the point of my story rests with our latest dog guests, Bernie and The Current Alex. They always hang around us in the house. Right now, as I adjust my desk chair, I reflexively move slowly in case one of them is lying right next to the wheels. Nope, just a clump or four of their dog hair.

Dog hair, it’s everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. Dog hair is obnoxious, annoying and fluffy in the wrong way. If dog hair was Fox New… wait, I used that one already.

I have taken to grooming them as often as possible now that I have a little more time on my hands. I like to get as much of it off them as I can and leave it outside to reduce my seemingly endless vacuuming. If you want to catch up some more, here’s an earlier video I did where I cut right to the chase and actually just vacuumed Bernie.

Today Bernie and Alex Now got their coats nice and worked over. Clumps all over the backyard — and not on my carpet — remind me of a job well done. But as I was examining the black haired tumbleweed outdoors, I noticed the little discarded hair balls had gathered quite a bit of attention.

They were being examined, pecked and even fought over by a number of birds.

Birds.

Really.

I watched as whole groups of them went from pile to pile, picked up what they could in their beaks, and flew off to parts unknown.

Following their flight path, I watched with a mixture of amazement and pride in my ability to give back to the Universe. In one of our little front yard trees, one of the backyard birds had landed and was busy weaving the hair into its nest.

We provide a safe domicile for our dogs and they provide a cozy nest for winged creatures everywhere.

For this tiny moment, all is right with the world.

It was supposed to rain all day and all night long. Some old, bearded guy down the block was starting work on a massive boat and Relay For Life was surely going to be washed away.

And yet, though the clouds held sway and a few drops did pitter down, the Troy, Michigan event pulled in around $90,000 last weekend.

I’ve written a lot about Relay For Life and Rodney’s Runners, the awesome team my daughter, Taylor, put together to raise money, awareness and hope. These events happen all across the country every summer. You show up, walk around a track, buy some baked goods and voila, you’ve just helped out.

The American Cancer Society is closing in on a bunch of new and amazing cures or ways of avoiding The Big C entirely. I’ve recently heard about researchers using people’s immune systems to battle different forms of the disease. And now that they’ve mapped the Human Genome, they’re talking about cancer switches and receptors. It’s almost like we’re big, complex machines that just need a software reboot.

It’s a very exciting time in the cancer world, even for people like me who the doctors say are cured. If you get a chance to attend one of these Relay events, you probably won’t find sadness or despair. It’s likely you’ll see a bunch of energy, love and more than anything, hope.

That and cookies.

How to get involved in fighting back against cancer this year

RELAY FOR LIFE IN THE MILLIONS AND BILLIONS: Since Dr. Gordon Klatt organized the first large-scale Relay For Life in 1986, 4 million people have walked in 5,000 U.S. cities and raised more than $3 billion. That’s not counting the similar events in two dozen other countries around the world.

FIND A RELAY FOR LIFE NEAR YOU: Here’s the official Relay for Life “Find an Event” page.

GET YOUR FRIENDS EXCITED ABOUT RELAY FOR LIFE: Click the blue “f” Facebook icon at the top of this column and invite friends to stop by and read this short column—and look at the photos, of course.

GIVE A ‘CUTE’ LEUKEMIA TO FRIENDS: Learn to laugh in the face of fear. That’s one way to get friends on their feet and support Relay for Life. You can also order a copy of Rodney’s book, A “Cute” Leukemia here.

Kyle was frightened. Was that the ghost of Old Man Punderson disturbing his slumber at 4:00 am?

Nope, it was just me coming back from the toilet.

Let me start over. My long-time photo pal J. Kyle Keener asked if I’d assist him on an assignment down in Ohio this past week. I’ve always been an admirer of his, even more so when I got to be his editor for a short time. The guy’s a master class photographer; he’s given lighting seminars from coast to coast.

I thought I could learn a thing or two and when he told me he treats his assistants very well, I was definitely in.

After a few great meals and a quick trip to the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, how else could the assignment get any better. Oh, I don’t know, how about a stay in a haunted manor?

In 1806 Lemuel Punderson — or as Kyle and I called him instantly, Old Man Punderson — settled the property around one of Ohio’s largest and deepest glacial lakes. We were hoping that there was some insane tale of desperation or heartbreak that led to the so-called haunting of the manor. But the hotel and restaurant, situated incongruously in a state park, had no grisly or shameful past to speak of.

Nevertheless, people claim all sorts of spirits haunt the renovated manor home. It’s mentioned in any number of guide books (on sale, of course, in the hotel gift shop). And the staff likes to share stories of things that go bump in the night (or dump, in my case).

There is even a regularly scheduled Punderson Haunted History tour where you might hear tell of a ghostly maiden climbing the spiral staircase, a lumberjack swaying in the rafters or even the bizarre story of Old Man Punderson himself paddling out into the lake in his golden bathtub, only to pull the plug and drown peacefully.

So you can imagine neither of us slept too peacefully that night (the fact that we both stuffed ourselves silly at the local Italian eatery, Mangia Mangia, had NOTHING to do with it). When daybreak rolled around, there were no tubs in the lake, nor ghosts clocking off duty. We were a bit disappointed, but thankful in no small measure.

The photo assignment went off pretty much without a hitch. I fumbled my way through my assistantship, Kyle all the while explaining what I should and shouldn’t be doing (Note to any new photo assistants out there: it is definitely not okay to let the photographer’s lighting kit fall off a chair.)

We drove home amidst thunderstorms and Burger Kings. All was well. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

But then something fascinating happened. As I was looking at my snapshots from the trip, in among pictures of Kyle balancing a mini flash on a Diet Coke bottle and quick pics from the classic car rally we stumbled across I found a few unexplainable photos.

To say the very least, they were odd and out of the ordinary. I don’t want to prejudice you or interpret the images for you. So let me just present them without comment and let you make up your mind about what you’re seeing. Our reputation as working class journalists is on the line here, so please don’t think I’m espousing one line of reasoning or another.

Like the surprise stuffed raccoon that greeted us as we walked into the room. These bottom two pictures showed up in my photo editing software upon my return.

Pretty spooky, eh?

My grandfather had a lifelong love of hardware stores. For my parent’s Silver Anniversary, he bought them a whole bag full of things from the local store; silver nails, a silver hammer, a screw driver. I think there may have even been some saw blades in there too. He was a curious ol’ chap.

My wife is having a love affair that’s lasted more than a decade. It’s with Costco. I swear if she could figure out how to make Costco mow the lawn and clean our house, I’d be kicked to the curb faster than you could say, “I’ll take three barrels of Acai flavored Quinoa, please.”

Me? I seem to have spent a lot of time over the past few years in drug stores, wandering the aisles waiting for this or that prescription to be ready. You know you’re a regular when one of the bald pharmacists jokes with you about hair care products and you buy bagels for another who offhandedly commented that she hadn’t eaten breakfast.

It was during one of my meanderings (or Spiritual Wanderings, if you will) that I came across the most unusual thing in the deodorant section. Old Spice has a new scent called Wolfthorn, but it’s only for Nocturnal Creatures.

I thought it was a Photoshop joke at first, then my quick-acting brain reminded me that Photoshop layers don’t apply in real life … yet! Then I was sure someone was just having fun or being silly at my local Walgreens. But upon further examination, the darn things are real.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a YouTube video with three million hits. Getting creative with advertising is one thing. Creating an entirely new product to support that ad is a whole other thing. But which came first the chicken, I mean, the wolf or the thorn?

I did a little digging around and found out the above ad ran during the Super Bowl. Metaphorically scratching my head, I simply couldn’t remember such a commercial. I’m pretty good at keeping track of Super Bowl ads; maybe it ran during the power failure. Nope, it ran alright, in exactly one city, one time. I guess to help stretch their advertising dollars, according to Adweek it only ran in Juneau, Alaska.

I’m told the commercial has hit the national airwaves off and on ever since. I guess I just never bumped into it while watching Mad Men or Wolf Blitzer.

The ads come out of the creative Portland, Oregon agency of Wieden + Kennedy. I don’t know where the actual Old Spice is made though, probably in some … wait for it … sweat shop somewhere.

Recently, I called my wife back from the Costco brink and begged her to watch a funny commercial involving a surgeon who is followed all day and night by his shower and a bar of soap. It turns out it’s Old Spice soap and the commercial is by those zany Oregonians.

I wonder if I missed my calling. If companies can convince their boards of directors and share holders to go out on a flimsy limb and make weird products and commercials just because they’re funny, there’s hope for America yet. I want in on the fun too.

Now I just have to figure out who does Costco’s TV ads and get a job with them. I can save my marriage and maybe pick up a metric ton of toilet paper in the process. Oh wait, Google tells me Costco doesn’t advertise on television … or anywhere.

Yet!

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Rodney has been rubbing Old Spice and only Old Spice under his arms since the late 80s.
He has not received any paid compensation for this piece … YET!)