[Critique Group 1] forwarded submission for Deanna for Wednesday

[Tuchyner5 at aol.com]

In case other's are having difficulty receiving Deanna's submission, I'm  
forwarding it from my computer: My internet just went back on line. It's in  
business again.
 
Leonard 
 
 
  
____________________________________
 From: quieth2o at charter.net
To: Tuchyner5 at aol.com,  group1 at bluegrasspals.com
Sent: 9/25/2017 8:03:27 P.M. Eastern Daylight  Time
Subj: Here is my piece for Wednesday



This is the third time I have sent it, but Leonard hasn’t  received it, If 
no one else has, it is obviously a problem at my  end. 
This is late, but hopefully you will be able to critique it  anyway. 
College Co-eds 
My mom, baby sister Christina, Tammy and I drove north from  Santa Ana in 
late August.  We were headed to the small farming community  of Turlock, 
located 
in the San Joaquin Valley near Modesto.  I had been  accepted at both San 
Francisco and Stanislaus State Colleges, but found the  idea of living off 
campus 
and learning my way around San Francisco  overwhelming.  Stanislaus was 
actually smaller than the high school I had  graduated from in June. It was 
then 
the youngest of the California State Colleges.  The  dormitory was located 
across highway 99 from the college.  There was a  pedestrian signal 
activated 
by a push button to permit students to cross the  highway.  Then we had to 
follow a tarmac path through fields a long way  to reach the two buildings 
that 
made up the campus.  The library, cafeteria and  administration offices 
were in one building and all classes were in the  other.  A field house was the 
only 
additional structure completed when Tammy and I started our  freshman year. 
 The college was barely ten years old and most of my  professors were 
holders 
of P.H.D. degrees.  Except for some of the freshman  introductory courses 
held in the theater, classes were small.  When the  college had first opened, 
some 
classes had to be held in barns at the fairgrounds.   So our unflattering 
nickname among the other Cal State Colleges was Turkey  Tech.  Rather than 
being 
stung by this designation, we had a cheer that went,  “Gobble gobble, that’
s our cry, Turkey Tech, do or die!”  The cheering  crowd broke out with an 
imitation 
of a turkey gobble.  It was a lot of fun.   Actually, the school wasn’t an 
agricultural college but was noted for its  business department. 
Mom helped me carry in my things and I sort of rushed her  off because I 
was scared and didn’t want to prolong the good-byes.  I  left my door open and 
put 
Tammy on a tie-down while I unpacked.  Two girls from  Stockton who had 
known each other in high school came along and introduced  themselves.  Annie 
Williams 
became my best friend during our freshman year.  Like  me, she was the 
first member of her family to go to college and the eldest  child in a family of 
five 
siblings.  We were both able to attend college because  we had won 
scholarships and qualified for education opportunity grants.   Although she was an 
art 
major while I was leaning toward psychology, we had a lot  of things in 
common.  Cathy Dent was more outgoing and interested in the  social scene.   
All freshmen were required to live in the dormitory, unless  they had a 
waiver signed by their parents granting them permission to live off  campus.  
The 
dorm was an L-shaped two-story structure with a separate  cafeteria 
building and a swimming pool located between the two  buildings.  It was co-ed with 
women’s 
rooms upstairs and men’s on the ground floor.  The  entrance was at the 
junction of the two wings.  Tammy and I had the third  room along the left 
wing.  
We didn’t have a roommate.  The dorm wasn’t completely  full and it was 
decided that rooming with a large dog might be too crowded for  anyone to 
share the 
room with us. 
My room had two beds, two desks with shelves above them, a  large closet 
and a sink.  It was connected through an adjacent bathroom  that held a shower 
and 
an enclosed toilet to the room next door.  Two older  girls shared that 
room.  Sandy and Virginia had attended junior college  and were transferring to 
Stanislaus 
as juniors.  They were from Los Angeles and were  friendly.  Another upper 
classman named Carol came by and invited me to  join her and some others for 
tea 
in her room after I finished settling in.  I began to  feel a little less 
nervous.  Everyone seemed eager to help make me feel  at home.   
The freshmen started off on a bus the next morning to  attend a freshman 
get acquainted camp in the mountains.  There was a  dance and several 
activities 
designed to give us a chance to meet and to be talked to by  upperclassmen 
and teachers.  Tammy never stopped wagging her heavy otter  tail as we moved 
with 
the group from one area to another.  It didn’t matter  to her if we walked 
on a dirt path or a sidewalk.  She followed the crowd  and located a seat or 
whatever 
I asked such as the exit or entrance door.    
Tammy enjoyed the opportunity to meet and greet each new  person that we 
encountered.  I made the first time guide dog user mistake  of allowing 
everyone 
to pet and fuss over my beautiful girl.  She was  definitely an icebreaker 
encouraging people to approach and introduce  themselves to me. 
When I was fourteen years old, I had decided that I  couldn’t afford to 
allow my natural shyness to continue.  When you are  different from others, 
people 
who don’t know you tend to keep their distance.  I  realized that if I 
wanted to make friends, it was up to me to make the first  overtures.  My high 
school 
classmates were generous about helping to carry my heavy  books or 
braillewriter, but it didn’t occur to them often to invite me to join  them in after 
school 
activities.  Tammy made everything so much easier by  serving as a topic of 
conversation.  Other students approached us to  introduce themselves, rave 
over 
Tammy’s beauty, and ask questions. They talked about  favorite pet dogs and 
that led naturally in to discussing other topics.    
If someone offered to show me how to get to the dining hall  or other 
place, I knew I could find it again with Tammy’s help.  If I  wanted to go to a 
concert 
or play held on campus, I could just go on my own and  friends came over to 
sit with us. I was no longer dependent on the time  schedules of others.  
If 
I needed a break from the noise of the dorm, I could take a  quiet long 
walk confident that I wouldn’t get lost.      
The only hitch in all this was that I soon found that  everyone knew Tammy’
s name and almost no one remembered mine.  Since  DeAnna seemed to transform 
into 
Diana, Dina, Daria, Dena and almost anything else that  began with the 
letter D.  I started using Dee to make things  easier. 
Our room was next to the pay phone for the two women’s  wings. The phone 
rang and rang.  Finally when I couldn’t stand the noise  another minute, I 
gave 
in and answered it.   Sometimes I got bored  saying “Yosemite Hall.”  I 
substituted “Hello, devil speaking. Who in  hell do you want?” Or using my 
sultriest 
voice I’d vary my routine to say, “Good evening, this is  Peggy’s house of 
fun and games. Who is your pleasure?”  That one got me  in trouble when the 
caller 
was one of the other girls' mothers.  Things usually  went something like 
this.  The call was for someone at the other end of  the hall.  Tammy and I 
ran 
down the corridor only to find the girl wasn’t in her  room.  Then we ran 
back to take a message.  I typed the note and we  ran back to the right room 
to 
post it.  This gave us lots of practice locating rooms  and meeting more 
people.  Tammy became so popular, that a group of  fraternity guys decided to 
run 
her for freshman princess.  They made up posters  claiming that she was a 
perfect size twelve, (her collar size) and had a  winning personality.  
Everywhere 
we went, people called out greetings to her.  I began  to feel invisible! 
Tammy loved to wear a string of bright beads, scarf or  other ornament.  
Annie gave her a blue plastic peace symbol and she  seemed to know she was 
especially 
pretty when decked out in any little bit of finery. Her  step had an added 
bounce and became almost a prance.  One day, we walked  past a yard where 
some 
students were holding a barbecue.  A girl’s voice  exclaimed, “Look at 
that beautiful dog!”  Then a pleasant male voice  answered, “The girl’s not 
bad either.”  
I felt like doing a celebratory dance.  I wasn’t  invisible after all.  
One of the people I met at the freshman camp was a quiet  young man named 
Curtis Noriega.  He made such a fuss over Tammy, she  hurried toward him in 
any 
crowd to say hello.  It wasn’t until we had been going  out for a burger or 
movie on occasion, that he admitted he didn’t really like  dogs.  He 
preferred 
cats as pets.   
I discovered that I would have to put a stop to Tammy’s  desire to meet and 
greet her friends.   When she saw Curt as we were  coming down the stairs 
at 
the dorm, she surged forward pulling me off my feet.   I fell badly 
spraining an ankle.  Some lessons just have to be learned  the hard way. 
It is often difficult for the general public to understand  the insistence 
guide dog handlers must make that their dogs not be spoken too,  petted or 
fed 
by everyone.  They are so beautiful, intelligent and  friendly, people long 
to reach out to pet or speak to them.  However, a  moment’s lapse in 
attention 
to their job can cause a serious injury to the person they  are guiding.  
Seeing a friend across the street might lead them to start  the crossing 
without 
checking for traffic.  A scrap from someone’s lunch  could upset the dog's 
stomach, causing an embarrassing accident at a crucial  moment.  It could 
impair 
the dog’s ability to guide due to feeling ill.  It  could lead to bad 
habits like begging or scavenging.  Un-authorized  snacks might also result in an 
unhealthy 
weight gain and shorten the guide’s working life.  For  both our sakes, I 
had to curtail Tammy’s social interactions. 
As winter set in, a group trip was planned for those living  in the dorm to 
go up to Yosemite for the weekend.  I was still finding it  difficult to 
manage 
on my sprained ankle received when Tammy bounded down the  stairs to greet 
our friend Curt.  Since I had already paid my fee, I  decided to go.  Sandy 
and 
Virginia, the two girls from the room next to mine asked  Curt to drive us 
up into the Sierras.  Since he drove, the girls didn’t  want him to stay in 
another 
cabin, in case we wanted the car. He got teased about his  four female 
roommates, three human and one canine.  However, we each had  our own bunks. 
Since 
all of us were quite modest young ladies, he wasn’t treated  to any free 
floorshows.   Everyone got to practice getting into  pajamas with lights 
turned 
out.  Tammy loved the snow.  She thought catching  and eating snowballs 
great sport.  Also high on her list was burrowing  through snow banks rolling 
and 
snorting.  Of course this necessitated a vigorous  rubdown with a towel 
upon our return indoors.  The trip was fun and Tammy  and I had many more 
visits 
to this lovely valley in the Sierras over our years as a  team.   
I put up a one foot Christmas tree in my dorm room and  discovered that my 
dog loved packages as much as I did.  Two of them were  of particular 
interest 
to her.  She took every opportunity to steal and try  to open them.  The 
crackle of the paper always gave her activity  away.  When I heard that sound 
I 
demanded the return of the plunder.  One gift was  actually for her.  I don’
t know how she guessed that, as it was in a  box.  Perhaps her nose led her 
to 
believe that no one would be giving me a rawhide chew  toy.  The other 
present though was one meant for me.  It was a  closet sachet filled with some 
kind 
of scented mixture of flowers and herbs.  This made me  wonder if there was 
a comparable plant to catnip that appealed to dogs  included in the blend. 
Tammy loved the cold.  Whether we walked through the  central valley fog 
and rain or into a brisk sea breeze, her pace and pull  increased as the 
temperature 
dropped.  Best of all she loved walking through  falling snow.  Her tail 
wagged constantly.  She could brace me over  patches of ice if I slipped, but 
just 
loved striding out into a cold wind.   
Tammy’s retriever soul manifested itself in a new  way.  She began to pick 
up things she could easily carry in her  mouth.  She didn’t chew or damage 
them.  
However, I did feel obligated to pay for the can of soup,  bunch of bananas 
and candy bar she carried to the checkout line at the grocery  store.  Odd 
tennis 
balls, ashtrays, and candlesticks began to appear in our  room.  I finally 
solved this tendency for indulging in kleptomania by  giving her a small 
change 
purse to carry when we went out.  It didn’t interfere  with her guiding, 
and eliminated her desire to appropriate other people’s  possessions.  
She loved to retrieve anything I dropped and proudly  presented me with 
lost pocket change, my shoe or anything else she thought I  was searching for 
on 
the floor.  Soon she associated a name with my  sweater, or jacket, my tape 
recorder case, my backpack, her leash and  harness.  I could ask her for 
any 
of these items and she dashed to find and bring them to  me. 
Her habit of making a dive for anything I dropped was  finally curbed when 
I accidentally allowed a bar of soap to slip from my  hand.  Not realizing 
that 
Tammy had snatched it up.  I kept searching the  bathroom floor.  Finally, 
Tammy thrust the bar of soap into my hand and  charged off to get a drink. 
After 
this bubble blowing misadventure, she waited to be asked to  retrieve 
dropped articles.    
Tammy’s skill at choosing good footing made it possible to  work safely at 
any speed.  When I hadn’t allowed enough time to make it  to a class, she 
enjoyed 
covering the distance along the paved path at a dead  run.  Although she 
moved quickly with a strong pull on cold, windy or  foggy days, on hot sunny 
ones, 
she hurried across hot tarmac and slowed down to walk in  the shade of 
trees.  Whatever our pace, she focused on her work.   Her alert eyes scanned for 
hazards, 
took note of people and animals but concentrated on  navigating the best 
course to keep me safe.  She took her work very  seriously.   
Tammy had an exceptional memory.  One day when I was  wearing new sandals, 
I left the classroom building by a side door.  I  slipped on rain slick 
steps.  
Whenever I subsequently used that exit, Tammy approached  those steps 
cautiously.  She seemed to think that they were likely to  cause me to slither 
down 
them again if she didn’t take special care.    
Her sense of fun was a constant source of laughter to  everyone.  I was 
taking her out on leash to relieve when a football  whizzed past us.  Tammy was 
off 
after it in a flash.  Catching it by the laces, she  entered the impromptu 
football game being played by some of the fellows from  the dorm.  It took 
them 
nearly ten minutes of chasing her around the swimming pool  before she 
returned to me so I could give back the ball.  If she got  bored watching me 
study, 
she began a game of tossing her tennis ball for herself and  chasing it 
around the room.     
Her favorite toys were ones with squeakers in them.  I  am sure people were 
slightly concerned about that poor blind girl’s sanity  when I took her 
shopping 
for a new toy.  I made each type on offer squeak and  placed it on the 
floor in front of Tammy.  She sat cocking her head  listening to the sounds.  
Finally, 
she picked one from the line in front of her.  After I  replaced the 
rejects, she walked proudly to the cashier carrying her selection  so I could pay 
for 
the winner.  Life with my best friend and college  roommate was never  dull.

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