One Brick Short

Just when I’m sure the rushing sound of the wind is merely the pull of the handle and that the world is simply circling the drain on its way out to the backyard holding tank where it will be slowly eaten by microbes, a small glimmer of hope shines on the horizon that says, perhaps, everything is not lost and that common sense may make a come back.

A beagle has won the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show for the first time ever.

Obviously God has returned to Heaven from a prolonged rest stop.

“The only breed consistently among the nation’s most popular dogs for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won,” wrote Ben Walker for the Associated Press. “That changed when judge J. Donald Jones pointed to this nearly 3-year-old package of personality.”

The judge, who showed enough common sense and integrity to run for U.S. president, chose the beagle named Uno over a bunch of pansy-primped, prima donna poodles, and dogs with breed names that could be used as tongue twisters.

Uno was chosen on the same basis that Americans adopt and love the beagle, making the breed one of the country’s most popular for a century. He was fun, funny, friendly and cute. Mr. Walker described the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden as chanting Uno’s name and standing and roaring approval when he was picked. Uno then jumped on Wilkerson and let loose a celebratory bray.

“Years from now, it’ll be known as the “ah-roo!” heard ‘round the ring,” Mr. Walker wrote.

Like a true American, Uno let the judge know exactly where he stood. When he stopped to be judged, he sounded his beaglarian yawlp, over and over. I am Beagle, he howled, hear me roar!

Or something like that.

Anyway, even as he walked away to let other dogs approach the judge, he made his feelings known. After his win, Uno celebrated by chewing on the microphones of reporters who tried to interview his winning crew.

If the suit-and-sequin set can see the beauty and love in a working class dog, maybe the world isn’t heading out the pipes into its own cesspool. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe personality and substance amount to more than flash and vapidity. Perhaps, with luck, Uno’s win reflects a return to the virtues and values that made this country great.

If not, he at least kicked those pretty-dogs’ tails.