Be Like BESSIE!

Be Like Bessie!

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”―Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few days each week during the winter I work in a giant laboratory studying the behavior of vast numbers of people. My specific areas of interest are the characteristics of patience and kindness while in pursuit of happiness and outdoor adventure. More specifically, I am a greeter at a New England ski area. From this vantage point I have face-to-face contact with hundreds of men, women and children of all ages. The stories my colleagues and I collect could fill a book. (Hey, that’s an idea!)

One of a Greeter’s responsibilities, beyond welcoming guests and answering basic questions, is to be sure each visitor’s wait in the line to purchase lift tickets is as short as possible, hopefully no more that 7-15 minutes on the most crowded days. This is no mean feat in the age of data collection required for the issuance of a re-usable RFID card that can be detected by a scanner in the pocket of even the most high tech parka. We also draw the short straw sometimes and have to facilitate traffic flow in the “drop off” area. If the entire ski area is the laboratory, then this particular area is the active Petri dish. . Maybe we should put up a sign that says, “Remember! Children are watching and listening.”

If I was looking to hire people to build a team for a task that required intense, cooperative effort in a stressful situation, I’d insist on seeing videos of how these job candidates handled their cars, friends, family and Greeters in the “drop off” area. Surely I’d learn more than any resume or interview could reveal.

Since we Greeters spend most of our time managing ticket lines, that’s where the best stories come from. Just the other day a person was in such a hurry to get his ticket that instead of walking through the short, simple, ten-foot, back and forth maze to the ticket window, this “gentleman” ducked under the ropes to take a more direct route, knocking over several stanchions, which he did not fix. He may have saved a full three seconds getting to the ticket window. I just smiled at him sympathetically. You know, one of those smiles that says, “I hope you get better soon.”

We greeters pick up a wonderful assortment of sound bites or snippets from the hundreds of conversations that swirl around us. My all-time favorite came from two brothers, strolling past with their arms on each other’s shoulders. The older brother looked at his younger sibling and said, “Hey, your wife’s happy and your girlfriend’s happy. I think everything is going to be fine.” Then they disappeared into the crowd leaving me with a number of questions that will forever go unanswered.

I’ve been thinking of asking management to position a large video screen in the ticket line waiting area showing highlights of good and bad behavior of guests collected over the course of the winter season. We would obscure the faces to prevent law suits, but the instructional value would be powerful…and highly entertaining.

Most people waiting in line to purchase tickets fall into one of three categories:

Group A. “I am too important to have to wait in line with all of these other people. Can’t you do something?”

Group B. “It’s too bad the wait is so long. Have you considered ways that might make things move more efficiently?”

Group C. “I’m not at work, I’m in a beautiful place and eventually we are going to have a great day on the slopes.”

The hybrid of groups B and C is my personal favorite. By the way, guests can purchase their tickets online at a reduced price and eliminate or greatly shorten their wait in line. It’s a reward for those thoughtful people who plan ahead. Let’s call this Group S for smart.

So how does this all tie in with BESSIE’S STORY? It’s simple. Bessie is the model of patience. She’ll stand with her nose to a door calmly and peacefully if she wants to go outside. When it’s time for breakfast or dinner Bessie sits like an angel without barking, whining or grumbling. In her dark, fragrant world she somehow just knows that we’re going to do the best we can to take care of her needs. When we are going somewhere in the car she’ll hop in and sit calmly as long as necessary. Very few people can follow her example of poise and good manners. The only time Bessie ever acts or behaves as if she is the most important piece of the puzzle is when someone is playing retrieving games with her. She can be a little antsy during these times, but we understand.

I’ve said it before. The best way to make friends and influence people is to BE LIKE BESSIE. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

September 18, 2018

Have You Seen Bessie?

September 18, 2018/ Tom Farmen

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.―R.H. Tolkien

Bessie is nine years old now. I often compare the dog she is today with the dog she was before her blindness. In so many ways there is no difference, at least in terms of her personality. She seeks affection the same way by nudging in close and batting you with her paw until you stop what you are doing and scratch her somewhere, anywhere. Her bark is the same, and she still has this funny way of mumbling when she hears or smells something that makes her nervous or excited. She continues to exhibit an inexhaustible, almost irrational, interest in retrieving. Bessie’s posture, body language and sleeping habits are identical to when she was a young dog, and food, of course, continues to be a prime motivator. Perhaps the most durable trait of all is that she still marches to the beat of her own drummer.

Years ago, when she did normal puppy things like chew newspapers into shreds, or gnaw on the leg of a chair, we would scold her in a deep, serious voice. When our other dogs did something wrong this reaction caused them to pull back their ears and drop their heads and tails in sullen remorse like captured criminals. Not Bessie. When we’d say, “Bessie, stop that, no, bad girl,” her ears would pop up, her eyes would open wide and her expression seemed to say, okay, okay, I get it, save your breath. And just so you know, I’ll do it again when I want to. And she would. We may as well have said, “Good girl, Bessie. Nice job making a mess of things.”

As a young dog Bessie would sometimes disappear into thin air. One minute she’d be right next to us following our every move while we were gardening, washing the car or working on some outdoor project, and then―poof―gone without a sound, silent as smoke.

Often times we’d find her at the farm across the street, meandering among the cows and searching for a snack of some sort. I’d berate her, tell her how dangerous it was to cross the road, grab her collar, pull her home and put her in the house. A week or so later she’d vanish the same way. When Bessie wanted to be somewhere else, that’s where she’d go. We might find her in a neighbor’s yard or somewhere on the school campus with a group of kids. I guess when she caught a whiff of freedom she liked the way it smelled and followed it.

Before launching a search party after she disappeared, Ashley and I would call her with our own personal whistle noises. Mine is a loud, high pitched whistle, made by placing my fingers in my mouth just so and blowing hard. Ashley’s whistle is more conventional, a lilting, up and down melody that is more beckoning and gentler. We’d whistle and wait, whistle and wait, turning in circles, speculating from which direction Bessie might appear. When she did return it was never at a trot or a gallop. Rather, she’d come around a bend or from behind a nearby house or out of the woods in a slow stroll. It was a, take it easy, I’m coming, I’m coming, sort of saunter.

I simultaneously loved this behavior in Bessie and was disturbed by it. I loved it because she just seemed so confident and adventurous; curious about what’s out there, willing to track it down and check it out. Of course the disturbing aspect of Bessie’s wanderings was that my imagination would spiral up until I was sure we’d never see our girl again―she’d fallen through the ice, been hit by a car, jumped in a stranger’s truck. It was similar to the way I felt when Tyler and Trevor were younger and missed curfew. Minutes feel like hours at these times.

Bessie still disappears now and then. We have a small, open meadow behind our house and from an upstairs window I sometimes watch our aging adventurer on the prowl. She’ll sniff tufts of grass, chew on a stick, paw some deer droppings and slowly, ever so slowly, work her way toward the edge of the grass area and then surreptitiously duck into the woods. It’s a big world out there and Bessie still wants to explore it. I call her while she’s still in sight and she turns reluctantly back toward the house

We have some neighbors whose daughter wants to be a veterinarian. She is fascinated by Bessie and likes to observe her. This family stops by to check out the old girl and sure enough, we can’t find her. “Have you seen Bessie?” I ask Ashley. “Nope.” We check both cars, call around the house, nothing. We tell our friends not to worry, but of course they do. We are all concerned. Once they leave, promising to search nearby roads, Ashley and I head off in separate directions calling and whistling with ever increasing levels of anxiety. No matter how much we remind ourselves that this is just Bessie being Bessie, our worry intensifies, just as it always does in these situations. This can’t be the way our time with Bessie ends, I think to myself.

An hour later, as I’m sitting on the front steps, she walks slowly around the corner of the house, completely at ease and wearing a look of deep satisfaction and contentment. She also has several of those round, spikey burrs embedded in her fur, postcards from her journey. This puzzles me because the bushes that produce these things don’t grow anywhere near our house. Ashley checks Bessie’s breath to see if she ingested scraps from an abandoned deer carcass or some other found treasure, but is doesn’t appear so―there are no mysterious odors on her breath and no telltale indigestion. I give her a hug, ask her if she enjoyed her adventure and let it go at that. It’s late summer, after all, and don’t we all feel a little more free-spirited when the leaves begin to turn color?

Earlier this summer, during a thunderstorm, Bessie disappeared for three hours until she turned up on neighbor’s front porch a mile away. Before we found our wanderer Ashley posted a notice on the town’s Facebook page and two-hundred-and-fifty people shared the alert. The community seemed to be worried about our dog and was looking for her. Their concern was inspiring. Turns out Bessie’s blindness has turned her into somewhat of a local folk hero. But the important part of this story is that she still enjoys and exercises her independence.

How wonderful that Bessie retains a youthful approach to life. I’m glad she is willing to break curfew now and then in order to make a good time last just a little bit longer. And how inspiring that she’s not afraid to get lost in a world she can’t see, knowing that as long as she doesn’t panic and trusts herself, she’ll eventually find her way home or to a safe place, incrementally richer in spirit and wiser from the experience. She teaches by her example.