October 20-30, 2015

Ya know, as I've often been known to say, there's nothing like a dog, unless it's a superfine automobile.

Actually, while I have indeed been known to express my love and admiration for my share of canines, I have never been one to go on and on about cars.

Still, despite the fact that I have been blessed with some truly wonderful canine companions with which to share my life, I couldn't see writing a top five list, and the fact is that I have known some superfine automobiles in my day.

And so forthwith, here are ten of the best dogs and cars I've been privileged to know or own.

10. '02 MINI Cooper

Indigo Blue with Union Jack decal on roof. This was the first car I ever ordered, and the marketing geniuses at MINI made sure that I could follow it from factory to ship to American shores via the Internet. It was a hot little ride, and I'll admit it, I loved the regardez moi factor.

9. Sam

Beagle/Bassett mix. Sam was my mother's dog, the family's replacement for the redoubtable Duffy, and as I recall, he was named for the dog John Wayne lost to some savages in a terrible western movie. Revenge on said savages ensued as did the ironic naming of our dog. As you might imagine, both the film and the dog in question had some truly dreadful moments.

8. '62 Chevrolet Impala station wagon

White with red highlight chrome strip down each side. My father had a succession of Chevy wagons — '57, '60, '62 & '65 — before switching to the upscale Chevy sedan, the Caprice in '68 or '70. They had increasingly more powerful engines under the hood with this one carrying 327 cubic inches and 300 horsepower. The iconography of these machines is as familiar as milk to anyone from my generation, and so it is that the least car guys imaginable amongst us are able to slip into discussions of their "mills" and "trannies," the latter from an era when it had not yet devolved into a horrid slur for transgender.

7. Babe

Orange and white Brittany. Basically a rescue dog, Babe was a great companion who brought some of the issues with her to which such canines can be prone. However, despite the fact that she came with the name of a movie talking pig and was known to wake up in a puddle of her own pee, I loved that dog. She was a real squirrel killer, that one, offing a half dozen one summer, and for that I give her a lot of credit.

6. '93 Toyota Camry XLE

Dark blue with light blue highlight stripe down the sides. Now that we're getting into the territory of things I actually loved, this is surely one. This was the best car we have ever owned: a real horse on the road, handled well and had plenty of power with its V-6 engine. I hated to see it go after 250K miles, but it seems to me the transmission was going south, and that equaled far more money than I was willing to spend, though it might have been worth it after all when I consider the assortment of motley minivans that followed it, none of which was anywhere near its equal.

5. Bailey

Liver and white Brittany. Ah, Bailey: the prettiest dog ever and the smartest, though the latter quality never translated into a willingness to come when called, which led to her untimely demise at age three when she was hit by a car at the shores of Torch Lake. Nevertheless, in her short time on earth, she taught me how much I had needed the companionship of a dog in my life after not having one for several decades: "They humanize us," I have been known to say without really knowing what I mean by that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that dogs make us act most like our species at its best by allowing us to have an intimate connection with one other species on the planet.

4. '52 Chevrolet Bel-Air

Dull light green with some rust around the rear fenders. This was the first car I got to know the inside of well. It belonged to my mother, and though I certainly could, I will not rhapsodize about tooling around in it as a five year old in the front seat with no seatbelt, needless to say no rear-facing child seat. I just want to take a minute to commune with the cardboard-like panel behind the rear seat and beneath the rear window.

3. Duffy

Beagle. Duffy was my father's dog, a people in a dog suit, as Jack put it, and if any dog could be said to be a "character," it would be Duffy. I have photos of him riding on the cloth overhang on Mike's stroller during our first vacation as the whole family at Interlochen in 1957, and I know I must have some shots of his older, august personage in the late sixties. Duffy was the dog of my childhood and adolescence, and as such, an endless well of unconditional love and consolation.

2. '84 Honda Civic

Silver. This was the first car I ever owned outright, which is to say it wasn't given to me by my mother or some family friend, or bought in a sweetheart deal with a brother-in-law in Saginaw. Nope, I paid off the loan for this with the money I got for winning the Hopwood award for Major Essay in 1992, and I drove this thing into my adult life: from Summers teaching in Pennsylvania to the coldest cold snap (-35° on the thermometer, not counting wind chill) I have ever endured, this car was a great ride. One absolutely thrilling mid-90's night, I drove this down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the towers of Manhattan rising to my left, and I thought I am alive.

1. Gus

Orange and white Brittany. If Duffy was the dog of my childhood and adolescence, I guess Gus is the dog of my adulthood and aging. I named him Argos with the incomparable scene in mind in which Odysseus returns home and faithful Argos pounds his tail on the floor because he is too weak to stand and greet his master. He is my best friend, and I love him more than I can say.