It was the summer of 1996. Molly wasn't quite full grown, maybe ten months old. We were at Bruce's family's cottage up at Inverhuron, on the shores of Lake Huron just south of the Bruce nuclear power plant.
There was a bunch of us walking along the narrow dirt road that ran behind the waterfront cottages: Bruce, me, Bruce's cousin and his wife and their two kids. The kids were young, maybe four and eight, fully ambulatory and energetic. We were taking Molly for a walk and one of us had a yellow NERF ball.
We stopped in a small ball field by the lane that went down to the water. We took Molly off her leash and started playing keep-away.
The day was warm and partly overcast. The grass on the field was soft, green and dotted with tiny yellow flowers. We flipped the ball between us as Molly jumped, ran, and snapped at the ball, trying hard as only a terrier can to grab it in midair.
But she was a small dog, and even warm-hearted humans can be treacherous, so we threw the NERF ball just a bit higher than she could jump.
But then one of the kids flubbed the throw! Molly got the ball! She had it in her mouth (the ball was almost the size of her head) and she darted in and out of the feet of the slow-moving, inagile humans.
Molly bobbed and weaved like a basketball star. She braked, zipped back, spun and ducked. Six humans trying as hard as they could failed to get the ball away from her. At one point I made a dive to grab her, did a two-point face plant, skinned my knee, and came up empty-handed.
Finally, Molly ran to a spot about ten feet away from the clutch of defeated humans, holding the ball in her mouth, panting around it.
I looked around. We'd drawn a crowd. People walking on the lane and - I recall this very clearly - two guys sitting in the cab of a truck parked by the ball field, were watching us, laughing.
Molly also felt the gaze of adulation (more about which in the next post), lost her concentration and didn't see Bruce's cousin come up from behind her and snatch the ball out of her mouth.
Our dominance re-established, we put the dog back on her leash and carried on our way.
Recalling an earlier post, we imagined that Molly's secret name was The Fetcher. Molly, however, from that day in the ball park on, knew that her secret name was Molly: The Clever Little Dog Who Always Gets Away.
