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Can you please describe your childhood pets? Well, I mentioned earlier about getting our puppy the little beagle, and we named him Winky.

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And he was really more my brother Brad and my dog. Dave liked him, but he really wasn't that much of a dog person or into him.

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So Brad and I just kind of owned Winky, and we had so much fun with him.

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But, you know, he's a beagle, so he's not truly attached to anybody but himself. And he was a foodmonger.

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We both have similar stories about beagles. Winky was notorious for digging under the fence.

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He couldn't climb over it. It was a six-foot-tall fence, but he could dig and dig he did, and he would be wandering the neighborhood, and people had their grills just by the side of their house, and he'd eat meat off of it.

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He'd get into their milk box. He learned how to flip the lid of the milk box and take stuff out of it.

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He was a notorious foodhound. Needless to say, he was kind of roly-poly too.

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But he was a fun dog, and as beagles do too, he liked to howl. So, you know, we had to be careful and keep him howling.

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My favorite story of him was in 1964. We were selling that house on East Virginia.

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It was a torrential rainstorm. Huge, one of the bigger floods, hail that was like snow this deep.

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Our realtor was at our house, and his car was parked in the street, and the water was up to the door handles, and Winky had gotten out.

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Lo and behold, Winky had gotten out. And he's, you know, a little beagle, and we're thinking, "How is he ever going to survive this storm?" Because everything was just flooded, floating ice, big floating ice chunks.

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And sure enough, all of a sudden, towards the end of the storm, here comes Winky just shaking off and curling up, lying next to the fireplace.

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And he'd survived, and done just great, none the worse for the wear. I do even remember his death.

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I remember my dad coming home one afternoon, and he came home early, and he comes running in the house, and he goes, "Where's Winky?

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Has anybody seen Winky?" And I said, "Yeah, he's just curled up by the back fence, and by now we were on at the address of 7101 East Walsh Place." And he knows it was a big yard.

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And I said, "Well, yeah, he's just asleep by the back fence." And my dad tore to the back yard, and he goes, "He's not asleep." How my dad knew? He must have known that he wasn't, well, the night before, but he kept that from us.

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And he knew something was not right, and he went back to the back fence, and sure enough, Winky had just laid down there and died.

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And it was terribly hard, because he was the only pet we really had ever had. And really, the only pet we would have until my brother Brad went to college and started bringing home his ex-girlfriend's dogs every summer.

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So we ended up having a lot of dogs from that. And I did have a bird in high school, Pocopahro, that died in my...

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It was a canary, but as I was trimming its nails, one died and he died. But otherwise, we didn't have any other pets.

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Winky was a one and done, but he had a good life. And it is interesting, because how old was he?

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11 or 12. Well, my first pet was in Evanston, it was like a border collie.

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His name was Pal, and I don't know much about Pal. There's pictures.

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But apparently, you know, he was able to be kind of loose, and granddad backed over him and crushed him.

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And I don't think there was a vet in town, so dad shot him. And somewhere after that, after Evanston, we lived in Libya.

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Timbs was born, didn't have any pets, but when we got back, we had a cat. What was his name?

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Oh, I'm going to remember that. He was gray and white.

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Sadly, I'm having a moment. Anyway, that cat fought and fought and fought.

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I think he probably got put to sleep because they got tired of taking him to the vet for abscesses. And then we got our beagle.

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Because, yeah, this is the late 50s, 56, 57, 58. Well, they were very popular, and they were very cute, and they were prolific.

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And so he came from Montgomery wards, had a mail order thing. He came in a wooden crate full of diarrhea from Illinois to Sydney, Nebraska, and immediately got him out.

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He looked like he was damn near dead, had hookworms all galore. So the vet in Sydney kind of got a little tallie squared away, and we liked tallie a lot, but he had the gift of beagle running.

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His nose let him astray for years. So we had tallie all over the place, and he lived to be, I think he didn't get put to sleep till...

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Well, I knew tallie. Yeah, Debbie knew tallie.

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And I think he didn't get put to sleep till I was dang near in vet school. Pretty close, bro.

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Pretty close. He was 17.

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Yeah. He was going to vote.

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And then while when he got old, my mom always wanted a golden retriever. And so your mom, Debbie, had a friend, forget Lori somebody.

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Lori Simmons. She had a pair of golden retrievers, and they had a nice litter.

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A college roommate. And so my folks were real interested, and we picked, they picked this one male Rufus, golden Rufus of the Rockies, and he was a hell of a dog, and he lived to be a while.

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He wasn't that old though, because we got him after the freshman year, and he got put to sleep when I was... Got him that freshman weekend, practically.

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Yeah, when I was a junior, yeah, when I was a junior in vet school. So he had terrible seizures, but he was a really sweet, fun, great dog, a lot of fun.

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So that was it. I had a few turtles that all died of malnutrition from bad care of unknown care.

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So that was one reason I kind of got into turtles from a veterinary aspect. But yep.

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You know, I can't believe I was remiss. We had Peppy and Sean.

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Yeah, Peppy and Sean. I totally forgot.

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We had two more dogs, but they were later. We weren't little.

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Dave might have been even gone. He was the black poodle, and Sean was the eunuch apricot poodle.

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Why was he a eunuch? Well, he only had one testicle.

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Oh, he's a crypt orbit. He was a crypt orbit.

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And they were kind of silly dogs. I used to teach him to sit up and do silly things.

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And Brad would dress them up. Not me.

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Brad would dress them up. And we'd play circus in my parents' backyard with all my dad's circus stuff.

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And so they were the circus animals in the backyard. I can't believe I forgot about Peppy and Sean.

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And they would get out. And if you remember where 7101 East Walsh Place is, it's very close to the cemetery, Fairmont Cemetery.

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And so they would get out and we'd think, oh my God, they're in Fairmont Cemetery. Or they could just be in so many bad places.

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And we found them all but the last time. And that was Peppy.

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That was actually Sean was the last time. And that was hard.

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But many nights we were out. I guess I could say we were almost looking for these poodles as often as we were looking for Winky, the beagle, which seems crazy.

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But yeah, so we had Peppy and Sean. And then again, it was all these dogs Brad would bring home.

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So yeah, beagles. Everybody I know that's had a beagle pretty much in those days were escape artists.

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You had a roommate in college, Dave Claiborff. They had a beagle.

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Oh, they had six. They were glutton.

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And I remember. No one has more than one.

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No, well, yeah, we were lucky we had ours so long. Because I mean, my brother and I used to chase him around Boulder when he'd get out and he wouldn't come.

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He had no recall. Oh, no, they don't know we had to cut him off, hurt him around, jump on him.

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And when we lived out in Martin Acres right by this Bear Creek, he got out and he was gone for two weeks. He came home.

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He'd been across the turnpike to the north where there's this big Angus ranch thing in the open space now. And he came home covered in cow poop exhausted.

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He slept for about two days. You had the time of his life.

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My Angus tail, hi guys, slept and that was a typical beagle. Yep.

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So we don't have beagles. You know, as we tell these stories, it's interesting how similar, kind of similar up-greaming, our parents, our lives, it's pretty amazing.

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Yeah. And unlike Clayburn's, Mrs. Clayburn said, yeah, they all died of traumatic deaths, which I think meant all her beagles pretty much got whacked on the highway, the sidewalk where some hit by car stuff.

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So we were kind of lucky. Yep.

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Okay, next question. What is your funniest childhood memory?

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Oh, you can go first. Yeah, but I don't know if I have a funny childhood memory.

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I mean, this is a stumper for me. I'm going to let you go first.

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All right. Because maybe yours will help me think of something.

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Yeah, maybe so. So my little brother, Tim's and I, like little boys do, always scuffled and fought.

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And we're somewhat not paying attention. So we're in Sydney, Nebraska.

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So I was in kindergarten. He was like two and a half.

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And he's digging with the shovel and I'm messing around. I'm not sure it was deliberate, but he hits me right in the head with the shovel and I get a cut on my forehead.

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And so, you know, I'm crying and he's crying and we go in the house and they call my dad, go to the pediatrician. I got this gash in my above my eyelid on my eyebrow and the doc says, well, you're going to have to have stitches.

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And the only thing I knew about stitches at that age was my mom's sewing machine. And so at that age, I thought there is no frigging way.

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You're going to stick my head under a sewing machine and that needle is going to go right into my brain. So I pitched a ginormous fit and they can't hardly hold me down.

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And then eventually they sort of explain it's not going to be a sewing machine. And so then I calm down.

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They gave me a little local and sew me up. Well, and so that point I was in kindergarten.

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So fast forward a couple of years to Boulder on up on Grant Street. And my dad was like, if you have a knife or an axe or a saw, it demands great respect.

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It's a tool and knives and axes are going to be your axes and knives are going to be very sharp, very sharp. You can cut your fingers off.

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You hit your leg with an axe. You're going to cut your leg off.

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So generally Tim's and I stayed away from messing around with stuff we weren't supposed to mess with for fear of paddling. Just hand slapping.

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So anyway, I'm out splitting wood or cutting something with my little axe, not a hatchet bigger than a hatchet. And I miss up and I cut my left leg right about the knee cuts through blood is pouring forth.

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I'm scared. I figured, well, I'm going to lose my leg.

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Number one, my dad's going to kill me. So I grab my pants and I grab my leg like it's going to fall off and I go in the house.

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And some there are some guests at the house. I don't remember who, but I immediately was relieved because my father wasn't going to smack me.

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He wasn't going to do anything bad. He was like, oh my God, Jeff, what did you do?

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How did this happen? I explained, oh, I wasn't supposed to use my axe, but I was and he knew, you know, boys will be boys.

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So then we go down to the pediatrician. Well, now I'm like first grade and I think, well, I'm not getting the sewing machine this time.

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And the docs as well. I can give you a shot in your leg there so you won't feel the pain or I can just show you.

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So you up by this time I had enough vaccinations. I was like, just sew me up.

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So I did. He just sewed me up.

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So those kind of relate to the colorful memories of childhood funny memories. I still haven't thought of a funny one.

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I guess kind of funny, but this is an older. You just didn't get into hijinks.

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You were. My dad did enough hijinks to last for a family.

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And your brothers, your brothers, they occupied the crazy part. Yeah, I think I was too straight.

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So, but the one that I like because it just it caused some laughter was when the circus days. So my dad was involved with the circus heavily for two years.

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And so we as the children of him had the good fortune to do something in the circus. Dave elected to be Dave.

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My oldest brother elected to be a clown. Imagine that girls.

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Brad Middle Brother elected to work with the Tigers and Lions and Debbie elected to ride the elephant in the circus. So what that meant was going and getting dressed in a elaborate costume and climbing aboard the elephant.

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And what they would do in the circus is they'd have a big parade at the beginning of the circus. And the elephant was the lead animal.

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And this was it old McNichols arena in Denver where it was torn down, but it's kind of the site of where empower field is today. And it was pretty new at that point.

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Very new. In fact, it was the very first it was the first time the circus had been there. And it used to be out at the stock show, but they just built McNichols.

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It was a much bigger venue and everybody said to my dad, don't do it there. Don't do it there.

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You can't fill the seats. Willie filled the seats.

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But so I got dressed up in my costume, a big skirt behind me, a big address, heavy climbed on the elephant and walking in. And I was like, well, McNichols kind of a bowl shape and unbeknownst to me, I had some friends sitting kind of in one of the top sections.

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Well, that was almost I height with me riding the elephant. So I look over at them like the low and I start waving.

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You know, I'm supposed to wave anyway. So I'm already doing my wave, but I'm waving more vigorously at them and really looking at them.

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And all of a sudden they look at each other and they look back and they look and they go like that. And they realize that I was riding the elephant in the circus.

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And I just thought that was kind of funny and fun to be able to do that. And so I did that twice that year and then again the next year too.

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And so it wasn't funny, but it was just kind of fun. It was funny for them to see me riding an elephant because how many of your friends are riding an elephant in the circus.

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That's my dad for you. Along with his Calliope.

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Yeah. He rode the Calliope and the Kelly did too.

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Yeah, downtown Christmas. Yeah, Christmas parade downtown.

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Just a little lights parade. Yeah.

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Yeah. And he couldn't play the Calliope.

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He couldn't play the piano. So we always had somebody else play the piano.

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He played the Marimba. Remember how he talked about his toys?

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Yeah. Well, we had a Marimba.

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So which is like a giant xylophone kind of pedal. One more of his toys.

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Boing, boing, boing. Yeah, he had a lot of toys, a lot of toys.

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But you have the circus and the Calliope and then you couldn't just have, you know, a golf cart pull the Calliope. Because of the shrine, he knew a guy that had Shire Draft Horses.

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And so most of the time was the Shire Draft. Bob, what's his name, would hook up a big old Shire to pull the Calliope.

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And that was an event. In life when I was working down here in the 90s, he would bring his Calliope down here for events that I did down here.

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And that took a lot. But that was the kind of guy he was.

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Yeah, assisted fibrosis stuff. Fun reason.

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He wanted to help you. [no audio]