Cain
part two - a Saturday Story
It’s funny what a dog will like. Cain had a taste for something I didn’t expect—something I would never have guessed.
One Independence Day weekend, we took the boys over to my in-laws’ house for a cookout. It was a Saturday, and I didn’t want to stay late for the fireworks. July has the longest days, and by the time the fireworks were done and we got home, Sunday morning would only be a few hours away. I was the pastor—I needed to be rested for the Lord’s Day.
So we planned an early celebration. We headed over in the morning, hung out, grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, and ate watermelon. The boys played in the yard. It was a good day.
By late afternoon, we started saying our goodbyes and headed to the car.
At the time, our family car was a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88—faded yellow, made of hardened steel with brown vinyl seats. Monica’s favorite car of all time. (Sarcasm very much intended.)
We drove along peacefully, passing through Claremore and then Foyil. Near the turnpike, we took the road north and headed for home.
Just before reaching our house, the road crested a small hill. As we topped it, I looked east and noticed something strange in the yard. Something was scattered all over our front lawn. I couldn’t quite tell what it was from a distance, but I mentioned it to Monica as we rolled on.
When we pulled into the driveway, it became obvious what it was—though not immediately clear why it was there.
Our front yard was littered with corn stalks.
I got out of the car and walked around back to the garden. Sure enough, every last stalk of sweet corn I’d planted and tended for the past month had been pulled up by the roots, dragged to the front yard, and dropped unceremoniously like so much yard waste.
Still trying to piece it together, I walked back around to the front of the house—and there was Cain, right in the middle of the mess, calmly chewing corn off the cob like an old farmer on a porch swing.
That’s when it hit me: Cain had figured out the sweet corn was ripe. And apparently, he loved sweet corn. Maybe it was a discovery for him too, but once he found out, he threw his own Independence Day party while we were gone—complete with fresh sweet corn, courtesy of my garden.
Who would have thought a dog would love corn so much?
