Try Dog Food

By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

“When will we learn that childhood is in a great sense not simply a preparation for adult life, but a thing unique and complete in itself – a masterpiece of God.”  (Carl Schmitt, American artist)

Baptism makes a child.  

Boys try dog food at ages eight or nine.  Girls might try it too.  Seven-year-olds are too interested in dogs.  Ten-year-olds don’t like gross experiments.  Ages eight and nine are innocent:  dirty, stinky, and unscientific.  Unseriousness is key.  

In my golden age, we had two dogs: Braniff and Woodstock.  Braniff was half German Shepherd and half Something Else.  Woodstock was an Australian Frump, said Dad.  Dad bought fifty-pound sacks of Field Trial from Winn-Dixie to cheap-feed the dogs. Cornmeal wafts floated from the bag.  Braniff downed it.  Woodstock crunched it like her skull might crack.  Woodstock begged at dinner, sitting upright to earn a sliver of real meat.  When tossed meat, she snatched it like catcher for the Yankees.

Timmy and I tried dog food in 3rd grade.  Field Trial was cheap southern grit chunks, flavored with meat by-product. Crunching a chunk, doubts sank in.  Timmy stared at me, crunching his chunk and concealing doubts.  This was my first round, but not Timmy’s.  In his telling, he ate it all the time, though he spurned USDA surplus hot lunches at the school cafeteria.  

Kids don’t try cat food.  It stinks. Dry cat food is boring, like Alpha Bits.  Canned cat food smells toxic – like rotten fish, chicken, and liver.  Alpo dog food, on the other hand, looked delicious like deviled ham.  I felt hungry watching TV dogs wolfing down Alpo.  I never felt that way watching TV cats apprehensively eating Fancy Feast.   TV dogs reminded me of me at Burger King. 

I ate a Milk Bone once.  No witnesses.  Woodstock didn’t like them.  She loved Liv-a-Snaps, “made with real liver.”  When darting around the backyard, she didn’t return when called “Woodstock!!!”  If I yelled “Liv-a-Snap!!!”, she beelined home. Why was she ravenous about these little crackers?  I tried one.  Tasted like cardboard.

What does this have to do with the 5th Sunday of Easter?  Nothing.  Save for innocence. Baptism makes a child. 

“When will we learn that childhood is in a great sense not simply a preparation for adult life, but a thing unique and complete in itself – a masterpiece of God.”