February 27, 1973

I remember the clothes we wore that day. I wore a ski jacket, dark blue with pale blue spots. I'd bought it when I was still single, at Cohoes Manufacturing on a shopping trip with Pat White, the exchange teacher from England, and another teacher when we were planning a ski trip. It was a nice jacket, and I received compliments when I wore it. (OMG--this can't be my life I'm writing about). The day was quite warm for February, so the kids wore only the jackets of their snowsuits. Marilyn's was pink, and David, who was 2 years old, wore his first winter jacket, not a one-piece snowsuit. The jacket was blue, with a few red accents, including a little airplane embroidered on the front. The jacket had pockets, which may have contributed to his fate, and the hood was shallow and didn't come very far forward on his head, which may have been a life saver. As was our usual routine, we all got into my old Impala Supersport convertible and drove to the post office to get my mother's mail. The post office than, before handicap accessibility, had steps on the side as well as the front steps. As I ushered the kids up the side steps, we were met by a large black German Shepherd, who was evidently anxiously waiting for his owner to emerge from the building. He came toward the 3 of us in a very friendly manner; I remember he had silver chains with tags attached to them that were jangling as he moved toward us. He appeared very friendly, tail wagging and body moving, and I recall moving the kids to my right, against the wall so that he would not accidentally knock them down the steps. We went into the post office, spoke to his owner who was chatting with Gloria the postmistress. Looking back, I can think that they'd probably been talking for quite a while, possibly a cause of the dog's anxiety. Marilyn used the combination to open Ma's mailbox. (People were astonished she could do so, because the boxes were fairly new, and baffled a lot of the customers.) As we left with the mail, I started to take David's hand to help him down the single step at the door, but he pulled his hand away, wanting to put it in his "new pocket." The dog came to the doorway as we left, saw his owner was not coming out and retreated to the far side of the porch, out of our area, or so I thought. Marilyn was a few steps ahead of me on the porch, David a few steps behind, and I was scanning the mail which I was holding when I heard a terrible sound behind me, incredibly loud snarling, and a child's cries. Looking back, I saw this huge dog, (130 + lbs) on top of and mauling David, who was 28 months old and weighed 27 pounds. David had been knocked onto his back, and the dog was repeatedly biting at his head. The 3 of us were all still on the concrete porch, but I remember it seemed a mile away from where I was to where David was being attacked. I ran to the scene: I have no memory of any encounter with the dog. I think he might have just left when I got there. I'm not sure. I picked David up, his whole head covered with and dripping blood and carried him back into the post office, which I'd just left seconds ago. Marilyn followed me in. The owner was horrified when she learned what happened. Gloria brought us into the back, sat us down, took a box of kleenex, and placed them all on David's bleeding head, while she called 911 and Dave at work. I remember asking her to look and see if David's eye was there. I wasn't able to look. She lifted off the wad of blood stained kleenex, and told me that his eye was there. (Later I learned that in one of the bites, the dog's tooth was stopped by the drawstring in the jacket hood, and that bite ended just above his eye. That shallow hood may have saved his eye.) The ambulance came, Joyce Bott had come in to get her mail, and she drove Marilyn to Ma's. She later told me that she thought Marilyn was about 5 or 6 because she gave such clear directions to the house. I hadn't thought to do so. Of course, there's much more to the story, maybe for another day,or maybe not. I know when I finally got home from the hospital for a while, after the surgery and when Dorothy and Gus came to relieve us, I put my ski jacket in the sink to soak, and the water turned red with blood and clots. David did get an infection, Dr. Grattan ordered the dog euthanized amidst owner protests because the dog had had his rabies shots. Dr's case was that because the teeth had penetrated the skull, the 10-day wait for test results could be deadly. He also told us that because of the force of the bites that if the dog had bitten him anywhere else but the head, he probably would not have survived. David still has the scars to show, a little more noticeable now than when he had his mane of hair. But at least his brain was unaffected. My mother always had a dread of any fever or injury that could result in a person's being "not quite right." She had prayed and kept the candles lighted for the 3 days he was in the hospital. Because she was watching Marilyn, she didn't see him until he came home from the hospital. He walked into her house, and the first thing he said was ,"Nana, did you get your mail?" She told me that she knew then that he was all right.