Archives: Pt. Reyes in '77; the arrival of Attila in '75

     In the summer of 1977, my brothers, Ron and Ray, and I got the notion of travelling up the coast to visit my sister Annie, who lived in the Bay Area with her husband Dave. (I had just finished college at UCI; Ronnie had just turned 11 and Ray would have been 16.)
     We borrowed my folks' 1971 Volkswagen Vanagon, and off we went.
     Here are some shots of our visit, with Annie, to Point Reyes National Seashore, a wonderful place across the Golden Gate. It was pretty quiet and isolated at the time. Couldn't see anybody for miles. Don't know about nowadays.

     Ray started to get into "trouble" (drugs, etc.) two or three years earlier. It was a big deal, devastating to everyone. My parents decided to get Ray a dog, a purebred German Shepherd named Attila. (Mostly, we called him "Billy.")

     Well, that didn't work out so well--Ray made no effort to take care of Attila, though Ray grew to love him, as did everyone in the family. 

     That pup was wonderful. He and I became great pals. We used to explore together in the Santa Ana River. We drove around the Santa Ana mountains together, where the family moved (right after acquiring Attila).

     Here's what Attila looked like as a puppy (in 1975). A year later, we acquired a companion pup, Ildico. Another wonderful dog.

     As a small pup, Attila seemed obsessed with biting everything, including our ankles, with his tiny, needle teeth. He also loved to chase small objects, such as the pea gravel in a part of the yard. I recall coming home after midnight from my job at a gas station, taking him in back to play the "rock game." He was nuts about it. Later, we played the "shadow game," which involved a flashlight.

     The ear thing finally got straightened out after a few months.

     Attila's favorite thing in the whole world was to bound through mountain creeks, looking for rocks and stuff in the fast-moving water to pull up. He'd stick his head into the water and check out the creek bottom. His face would get wet and sandy, and then he'd yelp from sheer joy!

     The previous family dog, Prince, was nuts about oranges, which were everywhere in the county when we arrived in 1960. As we drove around (which we seemed to do endlessly), Prince would smell oranges nearby and he'd just go nuts. We'd let him out of our pink ("salmon") '55 Ford station wagon, and he'd run through the orange groves, ferociously chewing up any orange he could find.

     Attila turned out to be a very good-natured, kind-hearted guy. (He was over 100 pounds.) He welcomed the pesky young Ildico; he actually took care of her in surprising ways, e.g., guarding her when she go loose from the garage during her first night with us. But, despite her relative smallness, she was the domineering type, while Billy was the go-along-get-along sort. He'd good-naturedly put up with her endless directions and peevitude--though, occasionally, he would have enough of it and he'd suddenly roar or snap at her. Awesome. She'd cower for a few seconds. But that's all he'd ever do.
     Billy was a very virtuous and loyal fellow. He could be ferocious, but he inevitably acted as a peacemaker (I won't get into that).
     One of the great dogs of all time.