Published: 11 Jun 2026

Chapter 33– Much Going On

During the following weeks, our visits to the dog park and the hunting camp went pretty much without incident. Preston and I would chat while we were together, but the conversations were fairly mundane, although one day he asked me a question that led to some interesting follow-up.

“How is the project you’re working on to earn a little extra money?” he asked, since that was how I described my work on the baseball cards with him.

“It’s going much better than I’d expected and we’ve already put some of that money aside to cover our expenses while job hunting. We also intend to put even more money away for our wedding.”

“I’d be willing to chip in for your wedding, if it would help.”

“Thank you, Preston, and I appreciate your offer, but I don’t feel that will be necessary. I believe Devin and I are going to be able to pull it off on our own, without any help from our parents or anyone else.”

“I’m impressed, but the offer still stands if you discover you’re coming up a little short later on.”

“Thank you and I’ll keep that in mind.”

When we returned to the house after leaving the dog park, I decided to mention to Devin about the conversation I had with Preston. “While you were running around with Bailey and Finn, Preston asked how I was doing with the special project I told him I was working on. What his question was actually about was the baseball cards, but he didn’t know that, and I merely told him we were attempting to make enough money to put away for job hunting and our wedding. That’s when he surprised me and suggested that he was willing to chip in to help us out with the wedding.”

“What did you respond after he said that?”

“I told him it wouldn’t be necessary, but he said the offer still stands, if we decide we’re running short later.”

“Wow, that was really nice of him.”

“Yes, it was, and it caused me to think about a couple of alternatives. First of all, I’m beginning to think that we should get married before we start going for interviews, because it would be easier for our guests to attend. The second is that I think we should invite Preston to the wedding, no matter when we have it.”

“Yeah, he’s been a really nice guy, and after the comment he made to you, he’d probably also give us a nice wedding gift.”

“Yes, he probably would, but that’s not why I was thinking of inviting him. He’s made other statements about being willing to help us out in different situations, but I’ve always turned him down, since I felt it might be unwise to get too close to him, but now I’m reconsidering that choice. Do you think I should tell my mom about this when we go home for spring break and have her check about reserving the church and a location for the reception?”

“Yes, she’s been really good to us lately, and letting her do this for us would make her very happy. She seemed excited about attending our graduation and your parents are taking us on another rafting trip right after that, so we should also let her start making plans for the wedding.”

“Ok, then when do you want to have it?”

“What else have we got going on?”

“Graduation is the third weekend in May and the following week we’ll have a chance to pack up and get ready for the rafting trip, so we can leave on the following weekend for Glenwood Springs. That means we won’t be getting back from the trip until the last weekend in May, so the earliest we can do it is sometime in June.”

“Ok, then do we have anything going on in June, because we’ll have to start job hunting and I don’t want to wait too long before we begin doing that.”

“No, we don’t have anything planned for June yet.”

“Ok, so what if we get married the second or third weekend in June?”

“That’s fine with me, and it will give Mom two different weekends to choose from, in case there are conflicts with the church or the reception hall.”

“Do you know who you want to invite?”

“Yes, I think I have a pretty good idea. There will be the four of our parents and Gramps and Pops and their wives, and I should also invite my dad’s parents, Aunt Linda, Uncle Ted, Ben, and Katy. I don’t think my mom’s parents will be able to attend, but we can still invite them, and then there are also the Fitzpatricks, Lonny and Clint, and Preston. We’ll also tell the guests that are single that they can bring a date, if they want.”

“What about the guys we went to all the football games with?”

“Next time we see them we’ll tell them we’re getting married this summer and see if they want to attend. If they do, then they can bring a guest as well.”

“So, how many people do you think that will include?”

“From a quick calculation, there are 19 that are definite, 5 more if the single people bring dates, two more if my Harris grandparents are able to come. Then there might be three more if our football buddies come and three more if they bring a date. That comes to 19 that are definite and 13 more that are possible, so we’ll tell my mom to plan on having the caterer prepare for 20 to 32 guests, and we’ll give them a final count later.”

“Ok, that works for me.”

The next two weeks were pretty normal, with trips to the dog park and attending classes, at least until Preston had more questions for me, but this time they were about our classes. “How do you think you’re doing on your midterms?”

“So far, so good, or at least I think so, but I won’t say any more than that for fear of jinxing myself.”

“Now that’s something I can understand, because it’s a topic I cover in my classes. The term jinx was probably derived from the ”wryneck”, a bird that was associated with witchcraft, whose genus is ”jynx”, which is spelled with a “y”. During the seventeenth century it was believed that the wryneck was used by witches for making curses, and since the bird was associated with witches, it was believed it would attract bad luck. The wryneck is part of a very distinctive group of small, old-world woodpeckers, and the source of the word jink, with an I, that refers to a person or object that can bring bad luck. I’m surprised you pay attention to such superstitions.”

“I merely believe there’s no sense in inviting the possibility of having bad luck, if it can be avoided.”

“I see, and it does sound like a wise precaution. Does Devin feel that he’s also doing well on his midterms?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I replied, and then I decided to change the subject. “I’ve noticed that Bailey and Finn seem to be getting along really well and there doesn’t appear to be any jealousy between them when Bear gives one more attention than the other.”

“Yes, they get along really well and there doesn’t seem to be any jealousy between them, but that might be due to the fact that Bailey has been acting like a mother to Finn. Bailey still looks forward to seeing Bear every day more than Finn does, because she keeps looking toward the gate or pacing in that direction until he arrives.”

“Do you think Bailey and Finn will do alright once Bear isn’t around any longer?”

“Let me put it this way. It’s like an adult spending time with a toddler. The toddler enjoys the attention the adult is giving it, and for a time the adult enjoys the interaction as well. However, if the adult has to spend every minute of every day with the toddler it can become overwhelming and the adult will eventually need a break. I believe that’s why Bailey looks forward to spending time with Bear, because it’s about the same as the adult getting a break from spending all of his or her time with a toddler.”

“That’s an interesting analogy, but I get the point. So, do you think Bailey will be able to deal with it once we graduate and she has to spend all of her time with Finn?”

“Finn will be a little older by then, so I think they’ll find a way to make it work. In fact, it might just be the encouragement that Bailey needs to start making friends with some of the other dogs that come here. If she does that, I’m certain Finn will be able to make friends with some of the younger dogs, so they’ll both get a break from each other.”

“I see, and I hope that’s the way it works out.”

Oh, I almost forgot to mention something that doesn’t have anything to do with Preston, Bailey, or Finn. There was one other interesting thing that occurred one time when Devin and I went out to the hunting camp. We’ve gone there many times and have never seen anything other than the different animals that reside there, except for a few kids, but that all changed during one of our usual trips there.

It was the start of February and Devin and I had already transitioned into dogs and were running around in the meadow when we spotted something moving up ahead. It appeared to be standing upright, and at first we thought it might be a bear, so we immediately stopped and crouched down so we could observe, without being seen.

We attempted to ascertain what it was, and eventually realized it was a human wearing a dark ski mask and wearing a dark coat, probably due to the biting wind. After watching the person for several minutes and judging the style of his clothing, we felt it was a boy in his teens or twenties. He seemed to be aimlessly wandering around, although he was currently heading in the direction of the meadow.

We hadn’t heard of anyone else having permission to be out here, so we had a feeling he was trespassing. I was trying to decide if we should do something about this and wanted to discuss it with Devin, but there was no way I could talk it over with him, since we were both dogs. I was even considering charging the guy while growling and snarling to scare him away, but before I could act, I noticed Devin had come up with another solution.

When I looked in his direction, I was thinking I would start barking and charge the guy and Devin would follow my lead, but he had already transitioned into a skunk. Realizing what he was up to, I transitioned into a skunk as well, and then we made our way toward the intruder, but we didn’t stay together as we approached. Instead, Devin moved farther away from me and we were walking toward opposite sides of his current position, but he didn’t seem to notice either of us at first.

When he finally spotted us, he attempted to scare us away by yelling and waving his arms, and when that didn’t work, he picked up sticks and stones and started throwing them at us. Now I’m sure that none of you would have chosen this particular action, but the guy thought his antics were paying off, since Devin had turned away from him. When I observed Devin doing that, instinctively did the same, but when we didn’t scurry away from him, he began throwing even more things at us, and a couple even hit us, which was his next error.

Since we were already in position to react, we lifted our tails, arched our backs, and squeezed the muscles around the scent glands and sprayed him instead. He appeared stunned at first, but when it finally dawned on him what had just happened, he began to swear like a sailor on shore leave. He attempted to run away, thinking he could leave the smell behind, but the odor merely followed him, since it was embedded in his clothes and was coating his skin. When he realized that he couldn’t escape it, he was totally panicking.

We had no idea how he’d arrived here, but I hoped he hadn’t driven here or that smell would get into the upholstery in his vehicle and he’d have an even tougher time getting rid of the smell. There are special products he’d be able to purchase that he could wash his clothes in that would help to remove the odor, and I believe he could also use it on his body. I’ve also heard that bathing in tomato juice will do the trick as well, but there’s one thing I’m fairly certain about – I’ll bet we won’t see him trespassing out here again.

After he took off, Devin and I walked well away from the area before we transitioned back into dogs, because we wanted to ensure that we were far enough away from the smell so it wouldn’t cling to our fur. It would be awful if the smell attached there, because we weren’t sure if it would also transfer onto our bodies when we transitioned back to ourselves. I guess we’ll soon find out, one way or the other.

After we’d put nearly a mile between us and the spot where we had sprayed the guy, we hesitantly briefly before transitioning into Bear and Buck, and then we quickly sniffed each other. Thankfully, we discovered only a faint scent attached to our fur, although not nearly as bad as what had happened to the guy we’d sprayed. Since we were encouraged by the fact that we didn’t totally stink, we made our way back to the cabin.

When we got there, we looked around to make certain that we were still alone, and then we transitioned into ourselves. As soon as we did that, we quickly smelled our arms to see if any odor remained, but we didn’t detect anything and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I doubt that guy will come back here again,” Devin said as we were getting dressed, and then he giggled.

“And if he does, I’ll guarantee that he won’t throw things at any skunk that he comes across. I’m assuming he’s now learned that nature’s penalty for trespassing is much worse than a fine,” I added, and then I chuckled as well.

“I wonder who he is and what he was doing out here. I hope Gramps and Pops’ friend hadn’t given him permission to be on the property or I’ll feel terrible.”

“I know, I will too, but nothing bad would have happened to him if he hadn’t started throwing sticks and stones at us.”

“Maybe you should call Gramps or Pops and have them check with their friend, because that way we’ll know for certain who made the mistake, that guy or us.”

“Yes, I can do that as soon as we finish getting dressed, if there’s any reception out here.”

“Why don’t you just wait until we get to the house? There’s no rush now and we know you’ll have reception there.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s a much better idea.”

After we finished getting dressed, we locked up the cabin and hopped in the SUV, but then Devin had another idea.

“You don’t think the guy might have been someone coming here to dig up the baseball cards, do you?”

“Hell no. Johnny’s siblings would all be much older than that guy.”

“But it might have been one of Johnny’s nephews, but we’ll soon find out if he asked the owner’s permission to be here first.”

We drove back to the house without making any stops, and when we arrived there, we raced inside, went up to our room, and quickly undressed. We then raced to the bathroom to take a shower, just in case some of the skunk scent had clung to us as well, even though we didn’t detect anything. We felt it would be better to be safe than sorry, because we didn’t want to go somewhere with a lot of other people around and then discover we smelled like a skunk too. If we did, it would be far more offensive than just being near someone with bad body odor.

When we finished our shower, we put on clean clothes and headed downstairs. When we got to the living room, Devin called Pops to see what he could find out and he put the call on speaker. Devin explained the situation first, and then he asked Pops a question.

“Would you please call your friend and see if he gave the guy permission to be there?”

“Yes, I’ll be happy to do that for you, although I doubt my friend gave anyone else permission to be there. He only allowed you and Mac to go there as a favor to me, and there’s also something else you should consider. Even if my friend gave someone else permission to be at the hunting camp, it doesn’t mean it was the same guy that the two of you sprayed. Although even if it was, no one outside of our families, except for Tokala, Hania and their wives know about our ability, so it will merely appear to have been a freak accident.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” Devin replied, “but please let us know what your friend says, because we’re really curious about it.”

“Ok, I will.”

After spending a few more minutes talking about the call and the things Pops had said, Devin and I started debating whether we should head to the dining hall for lunch or wait for a return call. We hadn’t made a decision yet, when Devin’s phone started ringing, so I stopped talking while Devin answered the call. He chatted with the caller for a couple of minutes, and even though he hadn’t put his phone on speaker, I immediately knew he was talking to Pops because of what he was saying. After he ended the call, he turned to me and spoke.

“Pops said his friend hasn’t given anyone else permission to use the hunting camp other than us, so he was glad that we chased the guy off.”

“Did Pops tell him how we did that?”

“No, he just told his friend that we saw a guy there, but he got scared off before we had a chance to call the cops to report a trespasser.”

“Ok, because I was wondering how he’d tell his friend about the skunks.”

“He started laughing after I told him what we did, so he’d probably would’ve started laughing again if he attempted to tell his friend about the skunks.”

“I’m just glad his friend wasn’t mad.”

“Nah, the guy knows we were doing it to keep trespassers from wandering around there.”

Besides my conversation with Preston and the incident at the hunting camp, there was only one other thing out of the ordinary that occurred during this time. It was when we heard a news report on the campus radio station while we were in the SUV one day.

“The thieves that broke into dormitories at CSU over Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks had an appearance in court today in front of the Honorable Paul Smithers. It was reported that the four suspects opted to plead guilty to charges of burglary and breaking and entering to receive a lesser prison sentence, rather than taking a chance on a jury trial.

“According to our sources, two of the suspects had no prior criminal history and agreed to testify against the other two men, who each had an extensive rap sheet. The first two men were sentenced to 5 to 7 years in prison, while the other two were sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison, so I believe we can all breathe a little easier during the upcoming Spring Break.”

This was great news, but only Devin and I knew the details about what had happened. The timing of this report was also welcomed, since there are only a couple more weeks remaining until midterms and then Spring Break.

Since Devin and I were both hoping to have a shot at becoming the valedictorian for our respective schools, we hit the books harder than normal prior to midterms. We knew we had to do this, because every semester we’d been taking more and more difficult courses and the midterms and finals for those courses were getting more difficult each semester as well. With that in mind, we spent nearly all of our time doing one of three things: studying, attending classes, or going to the dining hall for meals. However, we did make a few exceptions, such as going to the dog park for an hour every morning and spending another hour at the hunting camp on Saturday, but that was the extent of our other activities.

In my case, there was one additional reason for me spending most of my time studying. Since I was minoring in software engineering, I’d been taking physics courses as electives. I had taken Introduction to Physics and Classical Mechanics courses in my sophomore year, and then enrolled in Electricity & Magnetism and Numerical Methods in Computational Physics in my junior year. This year I decided to take Statistical Mechanics during the first semester, and Quantum Mechanics this semester, so I’m sure you realize why it might require that I bear down even more than usual.

Just as we expected, the midterms were excruciating, but I continued to utilize my normal plan of attack when taking exams, which was to only write down information that I was certain was accurate. Several times while taking these exams, however, I had to stop several times and question whether I was positive something was true before using it. I hope I made the correct decision each time I debated whether to use the information or leave it out, but I’ll discover the truth when I get my grades.

Even though we continued going to the dog park while we were studying for midterms, we decided not to go there during the week that midterms were being held. We spent the time before each exam to brush up on the information one more time, and then after we’d taken each of our midterms, we agreed to go there on Saturday morning. Devin felt he needed to go for a run and I wanted to say so long to Preston before we headed to my house for Spring Break.

As soon as he saw me, Preston raced over to speak with me. “I missed you this past week, so how do you think you did on your midterms?”

“It’s difficult to say, because of how often I debated whether to include something in my answer or if it would be best to leave it out. That’s because I’ve learned that you can earn points for each correct fact that you include, but you lose twice as many points for incorrect facts.”

“That’s probably true for some professors, although maybe not all of them. I, for one, attempt to be fair and deduct the same amount for incorrect information that I give for correct information. Your analysis makes it sound like you must have taken some very demanding midterms.”

“Yes, they were the most difficult exams that I’ve taken during my four years here.”

“I hope you did well on your midterms then.”

“Thanks, and I hope I did well on them too.”

When we finally left the dog park, we went directly from there to the on ramp for the highway, as we begam the trip back to my house. We’d loaded all of the things we planned on taking with us in the SUV the night before in order to save time. Not only did it feel good to be heading home, but it also felt incredible knowing that the midterms were behind us, even if we were more than a little apprehensive about how we’d done.

When we finally arrived at the house, my parents greeted us warmly. “I’m glad you arrived safely,” Mom said, “and I’m thrilled that you’ll be home for an entire week.”

“Michael, you received a package last week, so I took it upstairs and placed it on your bed,” Dad added.

“Great! That must be the baseball cards. I can’t wait to see how they were graded.”

“You’ll have time to do a quick check now, but lunch will be ready in a half hour.”

“Ok, we’ll go upstairs and open the package now, but then we’ll come down to eat with you and Dad.”

As soon as I sliced the tape sealing the box, I removed the packing materials that were used to keep the items from getting damaged. At the top was the spreadsheet I’d included when I sent everything to SGC, and I was about to set it aside when I noticed something. I’d left a blank area on the right side of the spreadsheet when I sent it, but now I noticed that someone had written something in that area. I was curious and stopped to check it out, while Devin looked at the cards in their new display case. It didn’t take long before I realized that someone had written a range of monetary values for what each card should be worth, so I decided to study it closely.

I was immediately intrigued by what I saw and decided to examine the spreadsheet more closely. First of all, none of the cards were rated a 10, but there were quite a few that were rated 9 with an asterisk. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but when I got to the bottom of the page, there was an explanation that the asterisk indicated the cards that were rated 9, but were close to being a 10. There were at least 100 more cards graded 9, and the rest of the cards were graded 8, except for the 1933-34 Goudey cards, which were graded either 6 or 7.

It also indicated that many of the cards had a value ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and another group that had a value ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

However, we were totally flabbergasted by what it suggested the other cards might be worth, because there were a few dozen cards that might be worth even more.

In fact, whoever wrote the amounts down claimed there were a few dozen cards that could be worth tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that wasn’t all. There was a final group of cards that could bring in a hundred thousand dollars or possibly up to millions of dollars, and there were two copies of one of the cards that could bring in more than a million dollars. The 1933/34 Goudey cards were graded in mid-ranges, but some of those cards were listed as being worth tens of thousands and up to a million dollars, as well, so this could be a very lucrative venture.

“Then it looks like we’ve got a half-dozen Bowman cards, four or five dozen Topps cards, and two dozen Goudey cards that we should put up for sale at an auction house,” Devin stated.

“Yes, it would seem to be our best option if we want to maximize what we get for them, but of course there will be commissions and taxes that will have to be paid as well. We could probably advertise the rest of the cards for sale in magazines like ”Sports Collectors Digest”, ”Beckett Baseball”, or even ”Sports Illustrated”. We can always put some of the cards up for auction on ”eBay.””

“How do you know all this shit?”

“I learned it while doing research about the cards while you were at the cabin with your parents.”

“And of course you can recall all of these facts that you probably wouldn’t have been interested in otherwise, even though you read those details months ago.”

“That’s where my unusually good memory comes into play. It also helps me get high grades I’ve earned in high school and college.”

“If your memory is so good, then why did you have to study so hard for midterms?”

“I’m always looking for details I might have overlooked or misinterpreted. It also helps to bring them to the surface so I don’t have to dig deep into my memory for things I didn’t consider having high importance when I first read or heard them.”

“I’ve always thought I had a pretty good memory, but obviously I can’t compete with yours.”

“You do all right though, so don’t fret the small stuff.” And after saying that, we went downstairs to have lunch with my parents.

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