Braxton

Cycle Guy had a friend in college named Braxton. They lived together for 3 or 4 years and are still good friends. Braxton and his hilarious wife are quite the entrepreneurs with condos and a pizza joint, a day job and 5 kids.

With an unusual name like Braxton, it is common for people to mess it up. I've heard stories of him being referred to as Beagsley, Bergstrom and Branson. Mike is frequently coming up with new ones like Beakerston and Bergstrom. Well, Mike and I got to take a Florida Splash vacation last summer. Wonderful. We stayed at their New Smyrna Beach property and left a little note in the guest book. Of course Mike wrote the note to some fictional character like Bragerston.

Shortly thereafter a contractor of some sort came to do some work in their condo and being unsure of the name of the owners, looked through the guest book for some direction. Yes, the bill was written to Bragerston.

Cycle Guy told Braxton years ago that someday he would have a dog named Braxton. That day came when we bought our first house. Our Braxton is a Golden Retriever.

Braxton and I have a daily ritual. We walk our little girl to her bus stop. Brack loves this, and waits (er, I mean jumps around) impatiently as she gets her backpack and jacket.
After she gets on the bus Braxton and I walk back up the hill to the entrance of our trail. It's awesome and I love the people who made this little green belt possible.As soon as we get to the entrance I remove his leash and watch the amazing and instantaneous transformation from arthritic old man dog to rambunctious active puppy.
He runs, he sniffs, he marks and he runs some more always looking back to make sure I don't get lost or hurt (he is part Lassie).Sometimes we'll turn around and go back through the trail again and one day last week he stopped (I kept walking, he always catches up and passes me anyway). Not this time, so I called him to come. He just looked at me. I walked toward him, he went further into the trail. Obviously, I could see that he didn't want to go home. It was time to go home, I had things to get done. I stood my ground, he stood his ground. Pretty soon Jenny and arthritis won. Braxton lay down on the muddy trail accepted the leash and followed me quietly home.