Morley's Dog!
Years ago when the stars shone brightly in my eyes and I had far more sense than I do today I would visit a friend in Johnstown PA. He was part of a living architecture program sponsored by the Pennsylvania State University. A group of students inhabited a low rent house in a back tide water neighborhood of Johnstown. About ten of them went about applying their architecture magic to small scale urban planning deep in the craw of the Little Conemaugh River Valley.
Weekends I would drive into Cambria County following the side of the hill above the River until the industrial descent into town. My friend Terry and his cohorts would greet me. We'd have a beer and settle most of the world's problems. It was a good time, sleeping on the floor and having coffee on a door, sanded smooth tan, fashioned into a table, designer chic, in the morning.
'Course everyone knows what happened in Johnstown, PA. Twice! On May 31, 1889, a dam ill maintained by bunch of big wig fat capitalists up from the wealth of Pittsburgh, The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club sprang a leak during a heavy rain and cascaded a 40 foot wave of water down into the little town of Johnstown. Oops! No more sailboats on the lake up in the mountains! I would have been in a world of trouble sleeping on the first story living room on that day.
Several of us would take lazy walks on autumn afternoons. Eat a chili dog, notice the effect of France en Provence on PA house buildings. Sing praises of Louis H Sullivan and Louis I. Kahn and Beaux Arts. I learned more architecture those days than I would have in course at the University. I still judge a building on the attention paid to the lavatories. I was told, “If the detail isn't there it isn't in the structure either.”
On one of those strolls when we traipsed into Johnstown proper, my eyes lighted on the bronze statue of a dog.
"What the hell is that all about?" I asked. They told me
The day of the flood, liquid seeping and breaking the earthen dam works, starting a wall of water, speeding and growing with the aid of that self same gravity that struck Newton on his head, following Second Law, the least path down into the valley below, taking with it houses, trees, a locomotive engine, bridgeworks, the now silent and cold works of a steel mill, o! the humanity, farm animals, boulders mixed in a deadly forceful concoction. The dog, Morley's Dog, sensing the world of wet and harm that was about to envelop everyone, began racing up the streets barking a warning for the citizenry to hear. Perilous flood waters. Saving, I presume a life or so. And in reward, a statue in celebration of his bravery.
My perverse nature, in the face of the story, began to ask questions, which quite frankly will dull the gleam of the story, but I felt that I had to ask.
How is it that this mongrel pooch could do what only the Psychic Friends Hotline can do, in our day and rather frivolous age, namely foretell an encroaching disaster? Did his excellent doggie nose smell the water in the air? Did his doggie senses perceive the change in atmospheric pressure that must have raced along in front of the deluge? Did his miraculous ears hear the roar of the raging monster? Or did he use all those senses in some sort of doggy intuition that foresaw the doom that was about to befall the poor people of Johnstown?
Ultimately I gave Morey's pup the benefit of the doubt. Somehow this heroic canine did sniff out the danger aborning .
But what really dogs and bogs me down was who understood him? No one, except for Doctor Doolittle, Rex Harrison and Eddie Murphy, can talk to the animals. Okay, Francis the Talking Mule or Mr. Ed, perhaps Saint Francis and Aesop. But I stop there! People and animals don't communicate in English (or Latin I guess for the Saint). C'mon I know your dog thinks that it’s a human. And isn't it cute that your cat can use the toilet just like normal folks. But What?
They have little brains and never once have I had a stimulating intellectual conversation with one. Except one evening while I was under the influence of several psychotropic substances. I think even a lamp post impressed me with its wit.
The story has bothered me for a long time, yet there was the statue of the dog! I visited Virtual Johnstown and found a picture of the Morley’s cast dog. It turns out that the statue itself is a survivor of the flood. Dragged from the debris and the water and placed in the town square for all to view. The dog has become the mascot of Johnstown. A beer, Morley’s Red was named after it.
Architects lie, I now conclude! What is bothering me even more is why Morley, whoever he was, had the casting of a dog in his front yard.