Laika was a good dog: smart and sweet and loyal. I got her when I was just a kid, 12 years old in the summer of 1997. She and I grew up together.

Going on walks in the woods that were further than her short legs could handle, she would eventually stop and wait for me to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way. She was adventurous, staying outside long after dark, coming home not exactly when called, but a little after. I never did figure out how to whistle properly, so a falsetto yell was our rallying cry.

After a bath, she’d hate her clean new scent and rub her face on the couch until she smelled like herself again. One walk back from the groomer, she found a mud puddle and submerged herself up to the neck in it. Once she was nice and dirty again, she emerged entirely pleased with herself.

She was a good traveler, going back and forth between VT and southern NH on alternate weekends. When I got her I told her she’d have to learn to like the car, and that she did. She’d fall asleep with her head cocked upwards against the seatback, which looked awkward but must have been comfortable. She’d know when we got to Old Ridge Rd, and would perk up to survey her other territory.

When I left for college, Laika went to live with Janet and Lou, but she was still my dog. Coming home for weekends, she’d meet me at the door with a squeal and demand belly rubs for at ten uninterrupted minutes. The whole weekend, she’d be glued to my side. I think it slightly irked Janet and Lou, because what are they chopped liver? But it was always clear she was my dog, and I was her boy.

After moving out of the dorm, I brought Laika down to Boston. I wasn’t quite as conscientious a care-taker as the adults were, but Laika adjusted well to her new surroundings and a smaller backyard. She got new friends in my roommates, snacks whenever we grilled out back, and a spot on the front porch from which she could bark up and down the street. It was a perfect vantage point for keeping watch over the neighborhood.

She knew nothing about cars, and moving from the country to the city was an adjustment for us both. I now had to walk her on a leash and pick up poop with my hand covered in a plastic bag. She had to learn to wait at crosswalks, or at least not go until I let her. She always loved the snow, maybe some of that Tibetan heritage. She would leap through drifts far taller than you’d think a small dog would be able to manage. There was joy in her step, romping through the park.

She was cute; maybe cuter than a young man deserved. I always thought she’d come in handy picking up girls, but walking on the Somerville community path it was always the old ladies who would stop and ask to pet her. She did work on one young woman, though. Ruth knew that the way to me was through Laika, and did her best to ingratiate herself into our relationship. Laika learned to move over in bed, and the three of us became a family.

When I moved to California, Laika came with me. Not at first, but once I found an apartment that allowed dogs, I was on the next plane back east to get her. She did well on the plane, quietly sleeping underneath the seat in front of me. Until I too fell asleep, and she wandered toward the cockpit. The stewardess scolded me with annoyance, but I knew Laika just wanted to go exploring.

California had new smells, new dog friends in our building, and a new routine. I left for work after our morning walks, and she would be waiting for me by the door for my return in the evening. She wasn’t always able to wait to pee for that long, so we got her an absorbent pad and a little piece of fake grass to put in the bathroom. The smell didn’t bother me too much, and Ruth not at all, so it was a workable solution.

Recently, Laika started to lose energy and eat less. I reminded myself that she’s an old lady, just turned 14 in June, and almost 100 in dog-years. I could tell she wasn’t feeling well when she would no longer eat her pill-concealing treats, or even drink milk out of a bowl. She used to bark at me as I ate breakfast, demanding her turn at the sugary milk. That’s when I knew it was time.

Today, I took Laika to the vet for the last time. I carried her in my arms, as she’s gotten used to getting rides down the hall. She peed on me a little in the car, perhaps a parting shot, or a sign that she hadn’t eaten her medication in over a week. She didn’t mind the vet, just closed her eyes and fell asleep. I cried, which I don’t often do, but felt right today.

I don’t think much of heaven, but I know that Laika’s spirit is too strong to disappear immediately. I’d like to think that she joined her namesake and is barking at the stars.

After getting back to San Francisco, I napped for a few hours and then got on a flight to Pittsburgh for Grandpa Eddie’s funeral. His health had been failing for the last few months, and Janet and I had discussed what would happen if he passed while I was out of the country. I was glad to be able to hustle home and make it there for the service and shiva.

The service was touching, and each of his children spoke about the depths of his kindness. I was a pall bearer, and while wearing the overcoat of my great uncle Jerry, found leather gloves that were quite useful when lowering the casket, as well as two pink yarmulkes. Thanks Uncle Jerry!

Grandpa was always interested in technology; he switched from PC to Mac a few years ago, and was always keeping up with the latest thing. As a retired Chevy dealer, he was excited to see the release of the Volt. I spent the afternoon cleaning up his iMac to give to the family of his caretaker, and was proud to find printouts of some of the websites I had built recently. He once told Janet that he thought I had spent more time on this blog than in school. But I know he read every entry, and was pleased to see me travel to Israel, even if our politics didn’t entirely align. So here’s to you Grandpa Eddie; may you play ping-pong once more with the shah.

Grandpa Eddie and the Sable clan at his 90th birthday

My great uncle, Samuel Levinger, fought and died in the Spanish Civil War with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He was a machine gunner in the Tom Mooney Battalion, and died at the battle of Belchité in late August 1937.

The son of a rabbi and an author, Sam was an adventuresome child. At the age of eight he ran away from his home in Delaware to re-enact the story of Huckleberry Finn, floating south on the Mississippi. He didn’t get very far. His family were active liberals and anti-fascists, not Communists. His parents supported both Franklin Delanor Roosevelt & Norman Thomas, a socialist candidate for president in 1936. They were proud defenders of striking workers. When Sam was fourteen, he ran away to join a coal workers strike in Kentucky. He was the sole person to be arrested for “talking back” to the sheriff.

At a May Day Parade in New York City in 1936, he carried on his shoulders a young child named Staughton Lynd, who grew up to be a prominent social and labor activist, and professor at Yale University. In a 1998 address to the Friends of Kent State University Libraries, Lynd said the following about his memory of Sam:

“When I was five or six years old, a young man named Sam Levinger carried me on his shoulders in a May Day parade in New York City. Later that year Sam Levinger went to Spain as a volunteer for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. As a child I was told that he was wounded in the groin by machine gun fire, and died because medical supplies were inadequate.

Recently I was asked to review a book on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and learned more facts about Sam Levinger. He came from Columbus, and attended Ohio State. His father was a rabbi. For the last sixty years I have assumed that Sam Levinger was a Communist, as were most of the volunteers for the Lincoln Brigade. Now I learn that he was a member of the Young Peoples Socialist League, as I might have been had I been fifteen years older. I learned the date and place that he was fatally wounded: in August 1937, at Belchite. These facts are all new to me, but the inward, essential meaning of Sam Levinger’s life and death became part of me as a child. I do not even actually remember being carried on his shoulders. Like so much of oral history, it was told to me, and I accepted it as true, and it was true. Levinger touched my life, teaching me without words that one should be prepared to give one’s all for an ideal.”

Sam wanted to use his experience in Spain to further his writing. He was collecting material for his future career as a professional writer; the talents for which he certainly had. Here is an article published in The Nation under the pseudonym “RP.” I have been told by my mother that it was actually written by Sam. Reproducing this article is probably in violation of copyright law, but given that the date of publication is 1937, I doubt anyone will care. Sam’s war journal was published posthumously in the now-defunct Columbia Dispatch. Rabbi Mark Samuel Hurvitz, whose middle name comes (partly) from my great-Uncle’s, tracked down a copy and transcribed and posted it.

Sitting down with Mother and searching through her collection of family papers, we found a half finished manuscript of a book my great-grandmother had started to write about her son. Elma Ehrlich Levinger was a well published author of children’s and Jewish stories, and she intended to memorialize Sam by telling his story. Her book was never published, but my mother or I may resume the task in the future.

I wrote a research paper on the Spanish Civil War when I was in high school, for which I received second place in the annual American History Essay Contest. (I was bested by the inimitable Jared Malsin, the kind of person who, had he been born 75 years ago, might also have joined the International Brigades to fight fascism.) Given that I wrote this as a sophomore in high school, it doesn’t comport to my current standards of research or writing, but it’s worth posting for the sake of completeness.

Here is a copy of his last letter home, informing his parents that he was going back to the front from a hospital in Madrid. It is a truly stoic piece of writing, almost to the point of being glib. Without ever having known Sam, I have no reference point to compare it with. But it does compare with the standard Levinger humor: always biting, revealing the truth of a situation, even in the worst of times.

Sam’s idealism and courage were far above that of the average 20 year old, and I am honored by the knowledge that some of the same blood flows in my veins. I am inspired by his sacrifice in the face of evil, and I dedicate myself to the pursuit of social justice in his memory. ¡No Pasaran!

Samuel Harold Levinger (1917-1937)