I ventured one evening onto a school playground and spun on the sandlot carousel. Corky was pleased with the game. We went around in slow, breezy loops.
Headlights appeared and two policemen approached.
They saw a blind man and his dog spinning and smiling.
“What are you doing, sir?” asked one of the cops.
“We’re just having a look around,” I said.
It was an old joke.
To the cop’s credit, he laughed.
I told them the old joke—the one about about the blind man who goes into a department store, hoists his dog over his head and turns in all directions. The manager approaches and asks what he’s doing and he says—“just having a look around.”
The first cop hadn’t heard it. The second one knew it. We were briefly, eccentrically happy. The police were relieved I wasn’t an amphetamine addict haunting the schoolyard. I was relieved because they saw the innocence of my nocturnal merry go round ride.
“Oh the bright calligraphies of talk,” I thought, “under stars, with strangers, no one threatened, and all of us united by a dog.”
And we are. United. By dogs. Dogs and humans have gathered in the dark for over 15,000 years. From the ancient temples of Tibet to the steppes of Mongolia…
So I said, “you know this is the oldest human occasion, three people talking alongside a dog in the dark.”
One of the cops laughed, said, “I don’t know where I’d be without dogs.”
The other said, “I’m putting in for K-9 training.”
We were three men, just having a look around.
Planet of the Blind 