Charles Wallace the Magnificent – A tribute part 7
Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard is former executive director of The Paramount Theatre. John Turchiano, his friend for 52 years, was formerly the editor of Hotel Voice, a weekly newspaper on the New York Hotel Trades Council. They are co-authoring this column to tell short stories on a wide range of topics.
Author’s note: A short recap – in Part 6, we left our pup licking my face and hoping the swollen, purple mess of the face of his pal would return to normal.
We now give propulsion to the passage of time.
While in the new home in Pittsford, my strong hunch that I would fall in love in that environment came true. I met and fell in love, to my complete shock, on the same evening, Jan. 27, 2019, with an utterly magical woman: Maureen McKenna Padula. It did not take time to discover that she was a miracle in all manner of being — kind, warm, thoughtful, considerate and a finely honed ethos, no drama, no judgement and live-in-the-moment. She hummed with a sensual vibrancy and had the most thrilling blue eyes I had ever seen — pure beauty inside and out.
On our second date, the next night, I took Charley over to her house for a meet-and-greet. She took to Charley and Charley took to her; and in short order we were spending much of our free time together. We loved our time in the Carriage House, but eight months later, decided to make it official and all three of us moved to a unique and eccentric duplex apartment in a stately old Victorian mansion in downtown Rutland. We were on a street called Nickwackett, between Washington and Center Streets. It is two apartments made into one, much like one of those pre-war rambling Upper West Side apartments that just go on and on. We all loved it there.
Charley, however, had to make a huge adjustment to this new home — no roaming whatsoever. We were a block west of the busy Route 7 traffic, and cars buzzed by on the main downtown streets, day and night. We could feel him straining and I was betting he was badly missing that daily run up the hill in Pittsford.
One day while we were distracted, he wormed his way out of one of the screened doors in our new apartment. When we discovered that he was missing we panicked and set about to find him. A couple of streets over, we were told that a police car had picked him up and taken him to the ASPCA hoosegow. I bailed him out, happy that nothing bad had come of his adventure. His rather grand and purposely dismissive air seemed to sniff and say, “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
Special note: This experience, in spite of his dismissive air, chastened him and he never “roamed” again. It was a huge adjustment to being a more sedentary animal.
– Bob and Irene Walker are Charley’s other family.
Charley meets his “step-family” the Walkers
A kind man in his late 70s was a volunteer at The Paramount, an usher named Bob Walker, formerly a beloved teacher in the Rutland Northeast School System. He often came up to my office to love Charley up.
One day he said, “If you ever take him to Doggie Day Care or board him for weekends, with advance notice you could bring him to our house instead… I know my granddaughter, Mallory, would love to have a dog to play with from time to time and I would get the joy of having a part-time dog with none of the major responsibilities.”
His lovely wife Irene (a master gardener and a mentor) was also involved and became Charley’s step-mom.
This new relationship grew over time into a weekly “sleep over” and sometimes a full weekend as Maureen and I started venturing out beyond our borders. Little Mallory, aged 7 when this relationship began, could not have been more delighted, her little friends would show up with her after school and sometimes if the weather prohibited outdoor play, they would dress him up in fanciful outfits.
Little Mallory getting Charley dressed up in Christmas gear. Charley’s response: “Oh, the indignity, but I will suffer it for dear little Mallory!”
His generosity extended to the other end of the age spectrum as well. Bob Walker’s mother, Viola, in her mid-90s, was living with the Walker family, and was nearing the end of her life. She would spend long hours sitting quietly in a comfortable chair with a window on one side and Charley sitting calmly on the other. She would pet him gently and scratch his head, calling him a “good boy.” And sometimes he would put his chin in her lap. And, yes, for Charley there was the ever-present possibility of a small snack at hand.
McKenna Padula, after watching this relationship unfold, hit on the new idea of turning Charley into a “comfort dog.” We sought out the organization, Caring Canines, and took Charley over for the mandatory tests. After about 10 seconds of being around mellow Charley the two nice ladies running the program pronounced, “Oh, he’s in, for sure!”
Shortly thereafter, McKenna Padula set out with him to the nursing home communities, elementary schools, middle schools, Castleton State University, his newly won ID badge branding him as delivery system of “comfort.”
They were all delighted to have him, but one big obstacle remained: in every room, in every circular meeting of residents in the lobby or even in every trash can anywhere, was food. Remember: Charley had a nose attached to a stomach attached to a dog. Poor McKenna Padula had numerous kerfuffles trying to keep Charley out of trash can temptations. With the complications of his incessant need to plunder for food, and the arrival of the Covid shutdown, the comfort initiative was disappointedly short-lived.
Pandemic slowdown
The projected life span of an English Lab is 11 to 12 years. We had celebrated our first 10 years together. Charley in 2020 was now 11years old…and he was definitely slowing down, by attrition and by the “shelter in place” mandate — except when it came to food.
Then, one evening Charles Wallace walked away from his bowl of kibble. A few minutes later he returned, sat back on his haunches and gave us a baleful look…one defined by McKenna Padula as, “Hey you two, wake UP!! I am getting on in years and I am sick and tired of only eating this dirt brown kibble!! Could you give me some human food, please? Help me out here, will ya?”
From that moment on we gave him a little kibble, white rice, carrots or green beans and chicken. He almost did a Simone Biles front flip and pulled a big look of satisfaction, like a Philadelphia lawyer who just won his case. It was the set meal, twice a day going forward.
After my retirement from The Paramount at the end of 2020, McKenna Padula and I decided to travel to Mexico during the cold months and we worked out an amicable agreement with the Walker family who agreed to take him for January through March. We provided food and a gateway to Charley’s vet and left for our time away feeling secure that our beloved pup was in good hands. He was now loved by two families and by a little girl (and her circle of friends) who adored him.
During our second journey to the Riviera Maya, in 2022, Charley began to have seizures in the middle of the night at the Walkers’: trembling and twitching and total disorientation. Bob was alarmed and frightened by them. He called us in Mexico, and after consultation with our vet, we put him on anti-seizure medication, which almost immediately had a positive impact.
Upon our return in April of 2023, from our third winter in Mexico, Charley was diminished. He had a faraway look in his eyes and we were reasonably certain that his hearing was starting to wane and his eyesight was fading. No question, he was still the sweet guy we know and love; and, above it all, he still wagged his tail and loved to eat. In the morning, his eyes would open, he would lift his head, and his fast-wagging tail would hammer out that familiar drum beat on the rosewood chest of drawers at the foot of the bed; it was the drum beat of pleasure and anticipation — something like Audrey in “Little Shop of Horrors.” Saying, “Feed me, feed me NOW! Rice, and beans, and chicken…WOW!”
