Mike Barzacchini Mike Barzacchini

Izzy, Our First Rescue, She Saved Us and Almost Outlived Us

Izzy, our first rescue who also rescued us. Mike Barzacchini photo.

Izzy, a yellow-lab mix, was our first rescue dog. Susan and Jonathan found her at a shelter in Cincinnati. We brought her home when Jonathan was two. He grew up with Izzy.

Izzy was a gentle dog. All she wanted was to love and to be loved. Not a big barker. Not a big player. In fact, I called her my labrador non-retriever because she might go after the ball, but she never brought it back.

I remember a lot of things about Izzy, how she liked to go out with me in the middle of the night while I looked at the moon. The bones she’d bury in the backyard but never remember to dig up. How much she loved to lay in the sun and take car rides. I'll remember two things most of all about Izzy. Once she saved our lives and once she almost outlived us all.

One weekend evening when Jonathan was about nine or ten, he and Susan were in our kitchen. I worked at my desk in our upstairs bedroom. Izzy slept on the floor by my side. My desk faced a window overlooking our backyard. Our kitchen also had a big picture window that faced the backyard. A tall privacy fence enclosed the yard. On the other side of the fence was a road. On the other side of the road were railroad tracks for the Northwest Chicago Metra line.

izzy at rest. Mike Barzacchini photo.

Visitors rarely came through our back gate. That night, approaching 11 p.m., a man with a backpack, did pass our gate. He started down the walk to our back kitchen door.

At the sight of the intruder, I raced down the stairs, first with Izzy trailing, then she bolted in front of me. Through the storm door, I confronted the stranger, asking him his intent. His answers were nonspecific and suspicious. He kept the backpack, now slipped off his shoulder obscured behind his legs.

I may have stopped him from approaching. But it was Izzy’s aggressive barking and the way she threw herself against the storm door that turned him away. We’d never seen her so fierce. She sensed the danger and responded to protect her family. Susan called 911 but by the time police arrived, the intruder had disappeared into the night.

A few weeks later, the news carried a story about a woman stabbed to death in her home. She lived on the same Metra line in a neighboring town. The intruder had entered through a back patio door. Was she killed by the same person who invaded our backyard? There’s no way to tell, but Susan, Jonathan, and I remain convinced that Izzy saved our lives that night.

Flash forward about six years. Izzy was near the end of her life. She was in pain. Her legs and bodily functions failing. We’d made the appointment with our veterinarian to have her euthanized in a few days. But now it was Sunday, a beautiful late summer evening. Jonathan, Susan, and I drove to a neighborhood pond with our younger dog, Daisy. Jonathan fished while Susan and I walked Daisy around the lake path, a path Izzy could no longer travel.

Before going home, we stopped for takeout food. We looked forward to a quiet evening. On the way home, a car ran a stop sign and t-boned us, sending our car on its side. Fortunately, we survived with minor injuries. I’ve often thought since that if the worst had happened, Izzy might have outlived us all.

Later that week, we helped Izzy pass on in peace. I don’t know about heaven and hell. I expect to learn someday.  I do believe, like Jim Harrison, that our beloved dogs will be wherever is next, patiently waiting to greet us. I look forward to seeing Izzy basking in the sun, with her smiling eyes, and wagging tail.

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Mike Barzacchini Mike Barzacchini

Six-Word Hoops Stories

Celebrating spring and the start of the NCAA basketball tournament with a few hoops-inspired six-word stories.

Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash

Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash

Celebrating spring and the start of the NCAA basketball tournament with a few six-word stories:

Full court press...against the couch.

That’s about my basketball speed these days.

Dunking dreams. Waking tired and sore.

I've had reoccurring dreams of dunking in pickup basketball games. Something I've done in reality only once or twice. I guess you could say sleep adds many inches to my vertical leap.

Only foul now is my shot.

Yea. I'm beyond rusty. I have a plan to put a goal up at our house and become this old man shooting and dribbling (in the basketball sense) in our driveway.

Rocking chair league. Ready to join.

Do you think there is such a thing as a rocking chair hoops league? Maybe I should start one.

Best advice: Stay off the court.

It's one way to keep from pulling, straining, or breaking anything. But what fun is that?

Once more up court, knee willing.

When my mind makes a basketball promise my body can't keep.

Morning after hoops. Ankle won't move.

Based on many real experiences.

Geezer hoops: Pick and roll over.

My days of setting a hard pick are way behind me. Another version of this read: "Geezer hoops. Pick and fall down."










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Mike Barzacchini Mike Barzacchini

Back to Go Again

Photo by Pedro Santos on Unsplash

Early in our marriage when we still lived in Ohio, Susan and I took a long weekend trip to downtown Chicago. During a cab ride to dinner, we engaged in lively conversation in the backseat, probably making plans for a visit to Navy Pier or one or another museum the next day. The cab driver found an opportunity to join in.

“You know,” he said, “life is like a game of Monopoly. No matter where you go or how far you travel, you always end up back to go again.”

We all laughed, but that insight has stuck with Susan and me for nearly 30 years. In fact, it’s become one of our marriage mantras. We run into a challenge, Take on a project. Start a new job. And one way or another it feels like “we’re back to go again.”

Instead of viewing this as a negative, like I’m stuck in a rut or I can’t move forward. I tend to view it as a positive. And I think that’s what our cab-driver philosopher intended.

By declaring “I’m back to go again,” I’ve acknowledged that I’ve made it around the board. Maybe I’ve collected $200. At the very least, I’ve gained wisdom and experience that will make my next trip around more fun and fruitful. This “back to go again” approach also helps ground and reset me when I face a big or unexpected challenge.

We drove back to Cincinnati from our wonderful Chicago adventure only to be greeted by a for-sale sign in the front yard of the home we rented. Our landlords had decided to sell and hadn’t bothered to tell us. We found ourselves, not for the last time, back to go again.

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