Every day, when we Ainsworth kids unboarded the school bus in front of our house, the race was on for after-school milk and cookies. On one particular day, though, the little black dog tied to the back of the Gran Torino stopped us short. A cute little cocker spaniel. Not ours. Not inconsequential to this story, we were in one of those rare stages of my childhood when we didn’t have a dog.

I walked right up to this dog and said, “Hey, Smokie.” I have no idea why I called him Smokie; I didn’t even know he was a “he.” He just looked like a Smokie to me.

As it turned out, the dog had wandered up during the day to Fruehauf...

Please subscribe to keep reading.