Virgie Bell's View: For Allie

Allie’s visits with me at my apartment were rather sporadic at the very best. She was just a baby when De'on and I lived in Littlefield, and Bennie could not seem to go to Lubbock that he did not somehow have her stashed to bring back to our hometown. One of the last visits she had with me was when I lived in the apartments that belong to Linda Dale and her family. I had moved there after I lost Otto, and I was faring pretty well. Just had the place fixed up gorgeous: a female place to the max. It was one of the places that I lived where I was happiest. Just right for a bachelorette, which I was for at least a year. I never went out with any men from there. I kept my home and my family very private from any of my dating; In fact, I really didn't do much of anything except work at my little business. It was just a small one woman affair, but I was successful with it. I know most of it was because I was in the home territory where I grew up with my family.

I didn't have to do more than make it from one month to the next, but I find that to be true, no matter what the money situation is. I had more than many people did and less than some others, but I was from one of those towns that support their own. This one particular time that I kept Allie, she was just about two or three and she spent that day playing with Otto’s dog, Bright Eyes, an Australian Heeler.

Bright Eyes was the faithful Mama Dog that Otto loved. She was a dog that lived on a ranch that was a haven for Otto and his horses. Bright Eyes came to be the defining reason that Otto’s estate is still in limbo years later. But that is another story. For years there was just Otto and Bright Eyes at the end of the day, and then for a couple of years it was just me and Bright Eyes.

I used to feel so sorry for Bright Eyes. She never understood about her master leaving one day and never coming back. Bright Eyes had never played with a little girl in her life. Not a little human girl. Allie played like Bright Eyes was her baby. She brushed and combed that dog’s hair. Bright Eyes looked up at me with the saddest eyes you ever saw, as if to say, “Papa’s Baby, do I really have to do this?” And Papa’s Baby (me) would just smile and say, “Yes, Bright Eyes you do. Today you are a baby. You are Allie’s baby and she is the granddaughter of the finest man that ever lived.” We spent the day in a peace that I will always treasure. Just Allie, Bright Eyes, and me.

+++

Editor’s Note: The man VB speaks of as “the finest man that ever lived” is her brother, Mickey Pickrell, who lost his battle to cancer while I was in Panama.