This morning as I was leaning over to tie my shoe, I caught sight of an old looking piece of dried paper. When I picked it up, I realized it was not paper, but masking tape – the masking tape that had Gopher’s name on it. It was bent over and wrinkled; I must have sat on Gopher sometime yesterday and his name came off.

A tremendous sadness overwhelmed me as I remember the day we had put it on him: time passes; things change. I dropped the old tape on the coffee table I use to hold my things – drinks, pencils, remotes, batteries and so forth. Then I felt just really done in and I stared at the tape, thinking, “Just let it go.”  A minute, two minutes. I picked up the tape and straightened it out; it had that fragile quality that dried out old masking tape gets. But there it was – GOPHER – resting in my hand.

So I got the super glue and put it back on.  Call me sentimental . . .

Oh, yeah, I’ll get a picture when Gopher settles down.