A Boy and his Dog

This is my father. His name is Keith Donald West. You might find a similarity between his name and mine. I don't think that was coincidence.

My father was a hansome boy. I always thought that he looked like "The Beaver" in this picture. He even had an older brother like the "Beave". But he had two older sisters too.

Dad's dog's name was "Beans". Dad often talks fondly about Beans. He was a GOOD dog.

Perhaps Dad can comment about his age when this picture was taken and where it was taken...

This picture reminds me of a story that Dad tells from his childhood. Maybe he was about this age when the story took place. It seems that his mother, my grandmother, had a diamond wedding ring that was missing the diamond. Against his mother's wishes, Dad liked to play with the ring because he discovered that the missing stone exposed some very sharp prongs. He could use the prongs to leave his mark in soft wood and other materials (like furniture perhaps?) I don't remember the details, but Dad imagined himself as a super spy who had this secret coded ring that he could use to leave his mark whereever he deemed. One day, Dad wore the ring to the movie theater. He put the ring in his pocket for safe keeping. When he came out of the movie, he reached inside his pocket and the ring wasn't there. He searched everywhere for it. He was very upset that he lost it because it was his mother's wedding ring! He prayed and prayed that he could find it. But the ring stayed lost. He couldn't tell his mother what had happened because he wasn't supposed to be playing with it in the first place. Months passed...

Now in those days, women would iron the bed sheets. I can't imagine doing that but I guess that was before permanent press and fitted sheets. One day when Dad's mother went to the cupboard to get out some sheets to iron, the ring fell out on to the floor. She had been missing the ring too and had been looking for it. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine how the ring got into the linen closet. But to my Dad, it was an answer to his prayers. In retrospect, he believes the ring must have fallen out of his pockets and got caught in the cuff of his pants.

Yes, boys wore cuffs on their pants back then. They probably wore them because mothers would buy or make the pants too long so that they would last a few years. And yes, I too remember wearing pants with cuffs for that very reason.

UPDATE: Dad had this to add...

I was actually sick to think I lost my mother's ring! The ring had what is called a Tiffany setting and no wonder the diamond fell out. My dad gave mom (Marjorie) the ring after grandma died and she had a diamond put in it. However, it was so thin Mom had to have some of the prongs replaced several times.















Finally, she had the diamond daken out and put into a new ring along with several little diamonds on the side. Here are pictures of the original ring and mother's new ring.