Newsworthy

An issue for aging male dogs is erections that come and do not go.

Yesterday morning my friend’s dog woke up with this problem. His wife called the vet who said the solution was to massage it with Vaseline until it would go down.

The two of them are in a house in Bridgehampton along with two men. For the XY chromosomes in the crew the idea of massaging the dog’s organ with Vaseline was unthinkable. Therefore the wife ended up doing it on and off for four hours until the problem was resolved.

That morning there was an article on the front page of the Times’ Style Section about the Peter Pan-like behavior of men in their 40s in summer share houses. It was written by one of my housemates.

On the patio of my house there were winces and groans as the article was read aloud.

“I’m depressed,” Daryl said. He put his head in his hands.

After the night of revelry no one was up for much more than a collapse on the beach. We left entertaining in the paws of Jennifer’s dog, a curly-haired retriever that obsessively digs holes in the sand when he sees a shadow.

He is a large dog. Watching him I hoped that Jennifer does not have to deal with the same issue as my friends in Bridgehampton.

I took a walk down the beach to photograph some kite surfers and ran into the bass player from my former band. He was lying on a towel away from the gathered masses with his girlfriend. She is a blues singer whose career is rapidly on the rise. They were nice there on the towel. Two rock ‘n roll peas in a pod.

I thought about that article again as I walked back.

Damn aging dogs.