10 Best Soft Sweatshirts

Best Soft Sweatshirts in 2023

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How a Dog Sees the World

A kid, a sweatshirt, his dog, and a very cold January morning.

As a bonus, when Pop remarried, there were two extra sisters added to the mix. This meant some serious adjustments had to be made, since now I no longer got to hide under the dining room table when it was time to eat, because now it was actually used at meal time. People began to recognize that I needed some encouragement to change. So, while they did encourage change, what really got me out and about was a ball of fuzzy fur that turned into a long-haired German Sheppard puppy when you got it wet.

The creature arrived one Christmas. I think it must have been 1980. Yes, Reagan had just been elected, and a dog was new to the home. It was obvious from the start that the dog knew it was important. The best example I can conjure of just how self-righteous this dog, Tiffy, really was, I have to involve the kitchen floor.

In our house, it was nothing short of a Jimmy Hoffa punishment if you walked on the kitchen floor with dirty shoes. To give you the real picture, about what a Hoffa punishment was, my step-mom was keen to let you know that if you crossed her on certain rules, they wouldn't find your body. I actually heard her threaten one of her own kids with the very act, so she was at least being fair about it.

So, one day, when I saw that gold and black German Sheppard dog sitting in a pool of water and mud exactly centered in the kitchen floor at the end of a long trail of dog-paw shaped prints leading from the front door to the kitchen, I just quietly went over, hugged Tiffy the Dog, and started telling her how much I was gonna miss her.

Then mom walked in. Now let's paint the picture: The dog, covered in mud, sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. Paw prints straight from the front door to the kitchen. And me, right there, hugging the creature that did it. This moment is the moment that the dog learned its place at the top of the family food chain. The dog made what could only be described as a dead break for the front door just as mom opened her mouth to begin the rant to end all rants - at me!!!

So I took my cue from the dog: I ran. Ran as fast as I could. I knew that if I was caught, the pain would not subside for at least a week. My Pop owned over a hundred acres, so I had plenty of places to run and hide until I knew the anger had passed, and I could explain everything. I didn't get very far, before I had noticed something. Mom was at the door, yelling for me to come back. Then dad appeared, and with the voice only Fathers can muster, issued the command that retrieved not only me, but the wayward Tiffy as well, who was by now fully three hundred yards across the field, chasing birds, and utterly unaware of the trouble she was in.

I got back to the house, and discovered that Dad had let the dog in, because she wouldn't sit still outside. The dog would sit still in the kitchen, long enough for Dad to cut the mats of fur out of her hair. I wondered why Dad would trim the dog on the kitchen floor, but apparently everything had changed with the addition of the dog.

This dog attacked everything it saw with one rule: Run. Just get it in your chops and run with it.

My room was the center room, and on the side of the house facing the road. So, this meant that every night Tiffy, who slept outside, would curl up on the patio beneath my window and sleep there. She'd sleep there right until a car came along. Then the sound of a flurry of barking followed by the thumpy thump thump of four paws propelling one hundred pounds of dog and cocklebur-bearing fur coat out into the country dirt road after the passing car would spur me from my place in bed, to go and harass the dog back to her place under the window.

I remember thinking quite often that I was glad we lived on a dirt road; it kept traffic at night down. I also remember being grateful for washboard roads, all because of that dog, until well after I had learned to drive - nobody used washboard dirt roads unless they lived on it. So that meant I could sleep at night - since only six families lived on a dirt road that was three miles and a half long.

One winter set in pretty hard and cold. It was a January morning, the kind of brisk morning that comes with a think rime of frost on the ground, turning the word a very cold and wonderfully white place. The dog had slept outside all of her life, and this cold night would be no exception, no matter how I pleaded with mom to let my most dear and best friend sleep inside that night. So mom, wonderful lady that she is, had managed to keep up with the Jones's and their pampered pets by trimming the sleeves off a sweatshirt of (you guessed it,) mine and throwing it on the dog. So, imagine my surprise when I walk out to wait on the bus for a morning ride to school, and Tiffy sits upright from her sleeping place next to the garage, wearing my sleeveless sweatshirt that I had just been looking for to wear to school that day, and the grass underneath is mashed flat, and has not one trace of frost on it. The sweatshirt, however, has frost all over the outside of it, but that dog just stood up and barreled right at me.

My sisters were still inside, so they didn't see what happened next. It must have been all for show, and looking back, I realize the dog was excited to see the frost - she had never seen it before. It must have been according to God himself that the frost should be so thick that day, because only that creature in a blue Lee brand sweatshirt with the sleeves cut out could possibly have done what she did next.

As fast as she could, she ran. Ran straight at me, and at the last moment, veered to one side, passed by so close the tail swished my pant leg, and the frost from her running hit my jacket and books I was carrying. Then, as dogs are wont to do when they are excited by something new, she tried to bite the frost. Her nose hit the ground sideways, and her momentum carried her further off balance, with the frost-assisted result being a sideways slide across the frozen grass of about ten to twelve feet. This of course, was accomplished while wearing that stupid sweatshirt that I had been so proud of. Now, laughing almost uncontrollably, I think I was more proud of that sweatshirt than I had ever been. I remember thinking that Tiffy would not have slid so impossibly far if it had been for the layer of frost already on the shirt. The end of the slide was further made impressive by a half-roll thrown in at the end by the dog. At the time, I thought it was because she had tried to right herself during the slide. But Tiffy stood up and did it again, finishing a second slide across the white frosted grass with a half roll that almost carried her back up onto her feet.

So, I took my cue from her. I ran. Ran as fast as I could, and picked the place where I thought I could try a decent slide without going down, and hit the brakes. I was sliding, alright, further than I thought possible.

And then the dog, performing a slide of her own, hit me from behind. I remember seeing my legs as they passed even with my waist, and felt the resulting snap of momentum as my upper body was thrown backwards. I landed on my shoulders, and as the rest all came down, I realized the dog was probably underneath. I shuddered for what I thought was coming. It didn't. Tiffy's slide had carried her right under me, knocked my legs free, and allowed her to slide right past the impact point, which, now, thanks to the sweatshirt, was frost free. It means I landed square on the only patch of grass available to stain my jacket, which it did.

I was about to stand up, when hot dog breath hit me square in the face, followed immediately by an excited and sloppy wet dog tongue, and my own hands which had risen up to fend off the sweatshirt clad German Sheppard which had only just recently arrived that morning from Frosthappyville.

I tried to stay angry at the dog, but as I stood up, she jumped into me, sideways, knocking frost everywhere, and then she followed her rule: she took off running. This time, she ran to a place in the yard where the frost was thicker still, and pulled off yet another slide with a half-roll finish, and then stood up, and looked at me from her place across the yard, at the end of a visibly frost-free slide path.

I promise, as I looked at that creature, that beloved dog of mine: sweatshirt wearing, outdoor living, cockle burred-fur containing, frost-happy creature, shot me a look that seemed to say excitedly "Try it over here!!" So, I did. This time, she stood still as I started my slide. The best way to describe the result of this is, to simply mention that shortly thereafter my jacket had a grass stain on the front as well.

It took longer to get up after the second hit, of course, and Tiffy had gone off to slide around on her own right in the center of the front yard, by the road. The fun couldn't last, and that morning fate was painted yellow and had rows of windows set over black lettering, as the school bus could be seen rumbling its way down the washboard that six families called a dirt road. The route the driver took carried her away from the house first, and then around a small community we all called Green Village, and back down our dirt road. So the first sighting of the bus meant you had about five minutes before you actually had to be ready. I hurried back inside, remembered to at least stand near my toothbrush, if not actually use it, and clean up myself and whatever damage the grass had done.

As I got on the bus, some of the guys just had to ask:

"Hey! Why's your dog wearing a sweatshirt? Is it not able to handle the cold?'

"Naw," I said, "it's because in a sweatshirt my dog looks better than you."

The burn of that comment simmered with those guys all the way to the school house.

I made sure get to off the bus first. I knew what was coming next. I ditched my books with a pal, who was in my first class with me.

The bullies got off the bus, and I did what any self-respecting stripling of a kid with a dog like mine would do, when confronted with three to one odds: I ran. Ran as fast as I could. They ran after, as well, but without a dog like mine, on a cold frosty morning, they did not have the ability that I now possessed, which delivered me from their anger safely to class that cold January morning: They did not know how to slide on frost.