Goodbye Ol Man

Today Old Man Stimpie left us for greener pastures. He was our good 'German Shepard puppy' and when he was young and slept in our bed, when I got up in the morning I would always make sure to put him in his swaddling clothes or on occasion and for a laugh I would wrap a babushka around him to make him a proper old hunky woman.

In his younger days he could play some crazy mad Monkey in the Middle and always ended up with the crumpled up pieces of paper that Col and I would throw back and forth for him to do his acrobatic jumps until he finally game up with the ball. He was always a tough boy and was known to put certain brothers-in-law in their places. Lucky and John particularly seemed to be the benefactors of some wounds from his sharp claws.

We will always joke that he was the 'John Gotti' of Pinehurst Avenue. He ruled a good four block radius and always came out on top of Fight Club every night.

The past week he stopped eating and even though he was weak he would still go out every morning and spend the day outside in the yard. Yesterday he did not go out and later on in the evening I let him in the kitchen to spend some time with us and he slept on the kitchen rug until Craig came home from work.

Today while I was at work he died peacefully on the back porch while the sun was streaming in and a breeze was lightly blowing. He died as he lived with strength and dignity. We will miss you old man stump.