NEWTON AND THE ANTIQUE TELEPHONE
	Practically everything in my old two story house and studio in Tampa was antique or rustic. From the ornate wooden unpainted picket fence to the TV antenna with a half dozen gourd bird houses hanging off of it. During the day when I was at work at Busch Gardens my little hobo looking dog, Dono would jump out of the studio window and spend the day running around all over the roof of the house to the delight of the school kids that walked past my house on their way to and from school. To them, I'm sure it must have been like Bo Radley's house. Dono had once belonged to my best friend, Sharon. She just showed up at Sharon's house one day. When her little boy asked his mom "What's her name?" Sharon replied "Don't know." and that's how she got her name. It was my day off and I was at home and I decided to call my friend, Jack who was a police detective and also an artist. I thought he was off that day. I called his house and his wife answered. We had never met but I knew that she knew me and that I worked at Busch Gardens. When she answered I was going to say "This is Lynn Ash from Busch Gardens. Is Jack there?" I was sitting and talking on one of the old timey candlestick telephones with the U-shaped disconnect things that sticks out on the side. When you're through talking you hang the receiver, that's sort of shaped like an ice cream cone but blunt on both ends, on it and it disconnects the conversation. Almost every time I'd sit there my cat, Newton would jump up in my lap. This particular time I saw that Newton was getting ready to jump up right on top of the telephone. I said kind of loud to him "No, don't! Newton, get down from here!" He jumped anyway and his foot hit the disconnect thing and it hung up the phone. Unfortunately, all Jack's wife heard was "This is Lynn Ash from Busch Gardens. NO, don't!" and the phone went dead. I tried to call back but the line was busy. About thirty minutes later Lou ("Zoo Lou"), one of the men I worked with at the zoo building called me at home and said that two policemen "came tearing into Busch Gardens to check on you. One of them said he had word that something bad might have happened." Jack's wife had called and told him about the call. I guess he was working a side job that day because detectives as a rule aren't in black and white police cruisers. I don't know if the lights were flashing and the sirens were whaling but I like to think they were because it makes me smile. Lash Out Loud