BY ROSS FARLEY, BAYSIDE RESIDENT
Animal furs were fashionable when I was a boy. I have a vivid childhood memory of a full-figured, buxom lady who wore clinging silk dresses that were adorned with a dead fox that hung around her neck. The fox’s head sat on one breast, and its tail sat on the other.
She often arrived at church fashionably late, and I would wait for her to make her grand entrance. As she walked down the aisle, that fox came alive and shivered and wobbled all the way to her seat. When she sat down, the fox would continue to shiver for a few minutes before it died.
Every time the congregation rose to sing a hymn, that fox would come alive and wobble, bobble, and jiggle with the music until the hymn finished leaving the fox to shiver and quiver for several more minutes before dying again. Was it a form of canine resurrection or just an indicator of stressed feminine undergarments? I’m not sure if it was good for my formative male mind nor if it caused any permanent psychological damage.
Now, as a senior citizen, when I reflect on the big questions of life, I still wonder why any woman thought it was charming to wear a dead dog around her neck.
