Old, Young, Man, Woman
By
One of the interesting benefits of walking a dog in the morning, in this case a five year old chocolate lab named Cassie, is having the opportunity to observe the reactions of the people we meet along the way. This month, while travelling coast to coast, the opportunity to validate some observations is too good to pass up.
Having a dog that believes people were made to say hello to and always looks like she is smiling is a great attention getter and produces some very interesting reactions. Admittedly, most reactions are positive ones – but not always.
In my current home state of
When travelling I gauge the local residents by the staff at the hotels and restaurants we patronize, as they’re the real locals, everyone else is like us and undoubtedly from someplace else, unless I find out differently. What I found is a common thread that revolves around age and gender.
Women smile the most; men the least. Now why is that? When confronted with a dog that is staring at you with its mouth open and its tail wagging so hard that it looks like it’s going to fly off at any moment: women smile. Even if they just walk by with a hello and are, obviously, not “dog” people, they smile and even laugh. Many men do as well but an awful lot of them ignore what they see; their expression never changes and sometimes don’t even acknowledge a greeting.
It’s also an age thing. Men of a certain age, seemingly between 55 and 70, are apparently the grumpiest. Why this is so, again, I’m not quite sure but it seems quite consistent. I suppose they have a lot to think about at that age – it’s over the hill time and they’re suddenly beginning to realize it so they dwell a good deal on the negative side of life and death. Once they get into their 70’s they’re probably surprised to have lived that long so they lighten up a bit.
Men with young children seem to be better than the older ones. Young children react positively to animals and it just naturally flows to their parents. I see smiling mothers and fathers pointing to Cassie with the newspaper in her mouth as she trots along. The whole family enjoying something together that they will talk about later on; of course the conversation will probably end on an off note when the kids start asking for a dog again.
Teenage boys are a strange bunch. Girls lighten up a bit but the boys all seem glum as though they were between the ages of 55 and 70. I suppose how a teenager reacts to a Labrador retriever happily marching along with a newspaper in her mouth is a good precursor of how that same man or woman will react when they get to be 55. I’ll bet there are multimillion dollar studies underway at some university trying to determine how teenagers will be at age 55 and all they really need is a few hundred dollars for a dog that likes to carry a newspaper.
Being grumpy is not a permanent condition, I’m happy to report. I remember one instance where we would pass this same man a few times a week every morning on our way home. He would be coming down the walkway from his apartment building, he would look neither left nor right and Cassie would eye him as we passed but keep on going. After about a week of silence and stoic determination to ignore us, Cassie could take it no longer. One morning when we saw him coming, she stopped, took a few steps down the walk in his direction, sat herself down and, refusing to move, blocked his way – tail wagging and smiling as usual.
I apologized for my efforts in being unable to move her but the man never looked at me he was watching Cassie, who continued to look back and wagged ever harder. Suddenly, the biggest smile appeared on his face and he started to talk to her and then to me. Whenever we come across the man in our walks now, he always stops to chat and breaks into a smile from a good distance off and if we have missed one another for a few weeks he always mentions it.
About 40 years ago The Chase Manhattan Bank in
© 2008 Timothy Holland First
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