From the managing editor, February 2014

Admittedly, I’m not the first person most would choose to call crying. I tend to be less empathetic, more analytic—let’s figure out how to fix whatever is wrong and do what needs to be done. What makes me good in a crisis makes me a somewhat less than optimal friend.

Unless you’re a friend in crisis, then I’m exactly who you want to call. So that’s what Robin did. As next door neighbors, we typically texted one another to meet on my front porch for an afternoon glass of wine. When my phone rang instead, I knew something was wrong. 

“Do you have a fax machine?”

“Um, what? No,” I said. “Why?”

An important letter with an important deadline had been lost in the mail, and as a result, Robin was in a crunch to get paperwork sent to a central licensing office. But there was an even more immediate problem.

“And Gus is missing,” she said. 

Gus was Robin’s beloved, longhaired, miniature dachshund. He was a good dog. It wasn’t like him to wander off. 

“I let him out in the yard, and he hasn’t come back,” Robin said. “It’s been two hours.”

She’d already driven circles around the neighborhood calling his name. 

“OK, well you work on the fax machine issue, and I’ll look for Gus,” I said. 

I went to the kitchen, pilfered my dog Bruce’s supply of treats, put on my shoes, and headed outside. Dachshunds were bred to be hunting dogs, small ones, but hounds nonetheless, used to flush out burrowing animals such as rabbits and weasels. They have good noses. They like treats. Gus was no exception.

Gus also liked sunshine and to wallow in the dirt. I’d gotten only halfway around my house before I found him splayed out on his back in my flowerbed, fallen leaves tangled in his ruddy brown hair, his front paws tucked happily under his chin. 

“Oh, Gus,” I cooed. “Your mommy is gonna be so mad at you.”

Still on his back, he fervently wagged his tail in the dirt like a tiny garden broom. With both hands, I reached between the azaleas, seizing his warm, wriggling body around its middle, pulled him into my arms, and walked next door. 

Robin was standing in her driveway, her ear pressed to the cordless phone she held in her right hand with the central licensing office on the other end of the line. Her eyes widened as I arrived carrying my furry prize. 

A year or so later, Robin called crying again. She’d come home from work to find Gus crawling across the floor using only his front legs. She and her husband were rushing him to an emergency vet in Greenville, S.C., for surgery. 

“Can you feed Heinz?” she asked. Heinz was Gus’ “brother,” an affable black lab the size of a small horse with a head solid as a cinderblock. He too was a good dog—as long as you didn’t throw him a ball. Fetch was his favorite game in the world, and his energy knew no bounds. 

“Yep,” I said. “Consider it done. We’ll take care of him for as long as you need.”

Robin, her husband, Pat, Heinz and a recovered Gus moved not too long thereafter. And despite a run in with a one-ton Dodge Ram flatbed, little Gus once again survived, but sadly, Heinz suddenly became ill and passed away. Today, Robin and Pat have two little girls, the youngest of which I’ve never met. With time and distance, relationships change, yet Pat and Robin always will remain our neighbors. 

This edition of Smoky Mountain Living is dedicated to neighbors—those in the wild and those in our local communities. I hope it inspires you to better get to know yours. 

— Sarah E. Kucharski, managing editor