Flash back

I watched a new show on TV this evening called "World's Funniest Animals." It was a cute show, as you would expect but the scene that jogged a memory was that of a dog howling while a man played a guitar.  Many years ago when I was somewhere in the middle of my high school years and experiencing relationships of the romantic kind for the first time, I was sitting on the picnic bench in our back yard with my first true love.  It was a warm spring night and he had brought his guitar along.  He was still fairly new at playing the guitar but wanted to play for me.  That was fine with me.  Any excuse to sit by ourselves in the dark away from pesky brothers and concerned parents was fine with me.  He started strumming and immediately our old farm dog who was keeping us company started howling.  It wasn't a soft little howl.  She was really getting into it.  Immediately my boyfriend, who was after all a teenage boy, got into the game.  He played and the dog howled.  It was quite a duet.  The final blow to my romantic fantasies was hearing my father laughing in the kitchen.