Carol Kirkpatrick, possibly the brightest writer I ever met in a writing group (proof positive being her ability to scribble out a pithy, brilliantly crafted story on the spot) had the additional charm of treating me to an oral history of Brooklyn whenever we walked its streets together. Combining warmth, depth, humor, and subtlety well into her 90s, she will always represent perfectly what I’d like to be when I grow up. My hope is to charm you with this sample of her writing:
Leo
A walk with Grandma. I’m pretty sure it was Grandma George, but even that detail is somewhat overshadowed by the memory of a majestic dog.
He was standing quietly in a small, gated front yard as Grandma and I stopped to admire him.
His silky fur was a brilliant burnt orange. His tongue was purple…a blue-violet huckleberry sort of color. Grandma and I were transfixed.
Almost seven decades later I was being prevailed upon to adopt the reincarnation of that long ago dog. This dog was also a Chow: nine years old, arthritic from having been hit by a car when he had been out roaming. Now the small rescue shelter was trying desperately to move Leo and its other dogs into homes before their eviction date.
How I longed to take Leo…who was being shown daily on Montague Street by one of the shelter workers.
But how could I?
