Beavis and Chief 1994

Backtracking a couple of years to 1994, In the Spring of 1994 I bought Kelvin an English Bull Dog puppy. He saw an add in the paper that a lady was selling these dogs, show dogs, champion bloodlines, north of Savannah, MO. We went to see these puppies and I raked and scraped together the 600.00 for the asking price. It was a cute little fat puppy that Kelvin named Chief after the KC Chiefs. In the Summer of 1994 we had a family reunion at Donald’s house. Everyone came. We brought Chief with us since we didn’t have a “dog sitter” and couldn’t leave him at home for very long without taking him outside. Kelvin had fenced in the small yard but we were afraid someone would open the gate and he would get out or someone would steal such an expensive dog, so we took him with us. I was a little afraid of what Donald would say, but it turned out that he loved the dog and wanted one just like him. Everyone oohed and ahhed over the puppy, he was really cute. It wasn’t long that he grew up and took on the characteristics of his parents which were big and ugly. He slobbered all over everything and had a deep gruff sounding bark. We decided to take Chief and Pebbles to Bluff Woods to walk along the trails there, climbing steep hills, over the creeks and higher. Pebbles ran around like a crazy little dog while Chief was fat and lazy trying to keep up with us while Pebbles chasing squirrels and rabbits, never seemed to tire. On the way back down the trail Chief fell over and lolled his tongue out of the side of his mouth and couldn’t go on. Kelvin picked up the 70 or so pound dog and tried to carry him the rest of the way. I told him we needed to get him to the little waterfall where we could put him in the water to cool him off. He was afraid he was going to die as Crusher, the pit bull had years before. We got to the pool of water and Kelvin bathed him in the cool water. He seemed to perk up a bit but he carried him to the car just the same.
We finally got Pebbles to calm down and get in the car. Chief was fine after that but he had a bad habit of chasing cats, mine and others in the neighborhood. I told Kelvin I wouldn’t stand for that. He would have to do something. The neighbors next door had a full Persian cat that had had kittens and gave us one, a fluffy yellow and white one with a typical pugged face. He named him Beavis. We paid 50.00 for him and I didn’t want Chief chasing Beavis all over the trailer court and into the path of a fast moving car. Beavis had the habit of not using the litter box and I got tired of that too, made him stay outside except to come in and eat.
One day a man from Amazonia came and wanted to know if Kelvin would sell the dog. I didn’t think there was anyway he would give up Chief but I went into the bedroom where Kelvin was taking a nap and asked him. He said he needed the money for child support and yes he would sell him for the 600.00 I had paid for him in the first place. He didn’t come out to say goodbye he just laid in bed with tears in his eyes.
Later a lady I worked with at the hospital said she knew the man who had bought Chief and said he ran a puppy mill. Chief would spend the rest of his days in a small cage grinding out puppies. Kelvin was furious, I was too. I had never thought Kelvin would ever sell that dog! The man had come over twice to ask us to sell him. Kelvin had turned him down the first time and said there was “no way” he would sell his best friend. Vallie was still young then, she and Shelby would come over on weekends, put a leash on him and he would drag them all over the court chasing cats. They fell many times as he was too big and heavy for them to control.
One day Kelvin came inside and said the neighbor on the right side of us said he heard two big dogs growling and fighting with a cat that morning. The neighbor said he knew it was Beavis. The two dogs, the culprits in the melee, was a Doberman and a German Shepherd. We had had Beavis’s toenails removed on his front feet because he was to be a house cat so his defenses were limited. We had gotten him neutered when he was 7 or 8 months old. That was supposed to stop his urination in the house, after 3 weeks he started it up again and that was why we put him out. Kelvin found the remaining sections of Beavis’s body and buried them at the salvage yard where Kelvin had been working for the Baldwins.

Unemployment! Here I come again!

When we arrived home the weather was chilly and the winter snow was starting to melt. I got my schedule for my new nursing job at the nursing facility in Wathena, Kansas. I had applied for my temporary Kansas license. I had three months that I could work there before I had to start gathering nursing credits to receive a permanent license. The credits were expensive and I would have to take a week or so off without pay to travel back and forth to Topeka. Sometimes they had classes in Falls City, Nebraska that would work for Kansas but I jut couldn’t afford to take the time off and pay for the credits. I decided to work there until my license expired and find work in Missouri, in Missouri the credits weren’t necessary as long as you attended In-Service meetings which the institution you worked for paid for and they were held during the daytime, I usually worked evenings so I had to come in during the daytime to attend the meetings or on my evening off. They would be held just one day a month.
At the end of my 3 month temporary stay in Wathena I had applied back at Citadel where I had worked when I first graduated nursing school. The administration had a new name but the facility was still Citadel.
In the Fall of 1996 we learned that Kelvin’s step-dad, Larry Higdon, had been diagnosed with Prostrate Cancer and it had spread to his bones and Lymph glands. The Doctors said this may be his last Christmas and wanted all the family to come to California to visit for the last time. Kelvin’s family wanted us to come to stay for the whole month of December. I didn’t know how I would be able to get that much time off but decided to check with the Administrator’s wife to see how much personal time I could take under the circumstances. I hadn’t been there but a few months so I knew it couldn’t be much. With much trepidation and dread I eased my way to the office at the end of the shift before I went home for the day. I worked the day shift there as I had always wanted to, the day shift seemed to be able to do more things, any parties etc were usually held during the day and the other shifts were always left out of pot luck dinners for the staff etc..
I waited for another person to leave the office and went in. I had my coat and my purse in my hands, sat down in one of the chairs. Before I could say anything she told me I was fired because the VA had sent a van to pick up a patient to take to the VA hospital in Kansas City and when they sent him home instead of back in the van the way he had come they sent him home in a cab. He, of course, didn’t want to go to the nursing home, he wanted to go to his home where he had lived with his daughter and granddaughter. The granddaughter was in school and not at home and his daughter was working in Cameron. He walked up the sidewalk to the granddaughter’s school and sat in the Principal’s office waiting for the granddaughter to get out of school and take him home and let him in the house which was locked. The granddaughter called her mother who called us at the nursing facility and wanted to know why her father was out wandering the streets when he was supposed to be at the home? I was outside on break, they came and got me since I was his nurse for that day. I spoke with the daughter and explained that we didn’t have anything to do with his taking the cab home instead of taking the van. We had sent him in the van, he should have been sent back in the van. She agreed with me that it didn’t appear to be our fault it was the VA’s fault and talked as if someone was going to be sued. She, however was nice to me and was glad I had answered her questions. Mr. Fox the administrator was upset and afraid of a pending lawsuit. I tried to explain that the daughter didn’t blame us, but he was mad and upset enough that he wanted someone fired over it and since I had been his nurse for that day he decided it would be me. I explained to Mrs. Fox, how was it my fault that the VA sent the man home in a cab instead of the van? I had sent him in a van etc… Anyway I definitely got the time off I needed.