A Little More History

On April 15 Lynn and I will celebrate our 39^th anniversary! I'm posting two pictures taken on the big day. Memorable events of the evening include an excruciating headache from all the bobby pins holding the veil headpiece in place, my Chi Omega sorority sisters serenading us, our theatre friends singing "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You" to us on the church steps, the cake cutters slicing our wedding cake into pie-shaped pieces (???), the minister handing two of our guests brooms to sweep up the rice on the church steps, and (because I'd told Lynn days before the ceremony to "kiss me like he meant it") the "you may kiss the bride" kiss going on and on and on … until everyone in the church was laughing.

Actually, our Lhasa anniversary passed without me remarking on it. Last month marked our 38^th year of owning Lhasa Apsos. Here is an excerpt from my April 2009 blog post that tells the story:

…it all started with an encyclopedia salesman! Shortly after our marriage, Lynn and I were besieged by door-to-door salesmen who tried to sell us all kinds of things we couldn't afford. (We were in our last year of college.) One of those salesmen succeeded in selling us a set of encyclopedias. We both had grown up with dogs as part of our families and knew we wanted to have a dog. The "Dogs" section of that encyclopedia happened to have a very nice picture of a Lhasa Apso in it. Now, if you have ever looked at some of the older Lhasa Apso resources, you would know that some of the pictures of the dogs were not very attractive. So, I suppose if I'd seen one of those photos first I wouldn't be where I am today in the Lhasa world.

After we graduated from college, I landed my first teaching job at a high school in Iowa. With my first paycheck, we bought a refrigerator (Harvest Gold, all the rage in 1970's appliance colors!). When the second paycheck arrived, we bought a dog, our first Lhasa Apso, whom we named Joyslyn's Pheebe. We'd seen an ad for Lhasa Apsos at a nearby kennel. Of course, other than the picture in the encyclopedia, we knew nothing about the breed. We did, however, know how to pronounce its name correctly from the start!

Joyslyn's Miss Buffy Jo and Joyslyn's Pheebe

Unfortunately, as evidenced by the photo of Pheebe and Buffy, our first two Lhasas, we did not have a clue about how to groom. As happens with so many first time Lhasa owners, we ended up having to have both girls shaved. We kept Pheebe's coat short but tried to get Buffy's grown out again to show her. She was not having anything to do with being in the ring so, of course, we soon had to get another to show! (That's how it all begins -- just so ya know!). Our third Lhasa was Lutzmor's Dolsa Bo Jangles, but his story is for another day.

Life is good when you have a Lhasa to love you!

Joyce