From On the Road with Charles Kuralt by Charles Kuralt, ©1985 CBS Inc.
BLACKIE
(Coles County, Illinois)
We were going somewhere else, like all the other traffic on Illinois 16, when we noticed what looked like a grave beside the highway. Funny place for a grave, so we stopped and asked around. It turned out that this place, which is just a crossing of country roads, has a special meaning for the people around here, because of something that happened here once. It was a long time ago, the summer of
1965, when a little dog showed up, a little black dog who seemed to be lost. Bill Stiff, whose family farm adjoins the road, was ten years old then; probably it was Bill who first called the dog Blackie.
BILL STIFF: Nobody can fully explain why he was here. But I've always theorized that he was dropped off or left or something. And he just stayed here and was waiting for his master to return. That's all I can figure.
HELEN PARKES: He definitely was lost. He would sit and watch. He would get up on the bank and watch each car, and you could see him. He'd turn his head as a car went by.
Helen Parkes is editor of the weekly paper up the road at Oakland.
PARKES: Often I saw him on this island, between the roads here, and just sitting there, kind of watching the traffic, and, apparently, waiting and watching for someone.
The summer went by and the fall came, and Blackie kept his place here at the crossing. People around here worried about him, what with winter coming on, and more than one family tried to adopt him.
STIFF: All the neighbors and everything brought food out here. I remember one Thanksgiving, there was more turkey bones there than anybody could ever imagine. They were stacked up high.
KURALT: And he stayed right around here?
STIFF: Yeah. He didn't leave. He wouldn't leave. I think that unless some motorist hadn't killed him, I don't think he would ever have left. I really don't.
That's what finally happened, of course. On an icy morning in early February, Blackie was struck by a car and killed.
He was just a lost dog, and it all happened a long time ago. It's hard to explain the impression Blackie made on the people around here; hard to explain why all these years later, the kids still take turns mowing the grass and keeping the place cleaned up. Maybe the explanation is in what they wrote on Blackie's grave marker:
BLACKIE
FEB. 6, 1966
KNOW YE NOW TRUE LOYALTY & LOVE
BLACKIE
(Coles County, Illinois)
We were going somewhere else, like all the other traffic on Illinois 16, when we noticed what looked like a grave beside the highway. Funny place for a grave, so we stopped and asked around. It turned out that this place, which is just a crossing of country roads, has a special meaning for the people around here, because of something that happened here once. It was a long time ago, the summer of
1965, when a little dog showed up, a little black dog who seemed to be lost. Bill Stiff, whose family farm adjoins the road, was ten years old then; probably it was Bill who first called the dog Blackie.
BILL STIFF: Nobody can fully explain why he was here. But I've always theorized that he was dropped off or left or something. And he just stayed here and was waiting for his master to return. That's all I can figure.
HELEN PARKES: He definitely was lost. He would sit and watch. He would get up on the bank and watch each car, and you could see him. He'd turn his head as a car went by.
Helen Parkes is editor of the weekly paper up the road at Oakland.
PARKES: Often I saw him on this island, between the roads here, and just sitting there, kind of watching the traffic, and, apparently, waiting and watching for someone.
The summer went by and the fall came, and Blackie kept his place here at the crossing. People around here worried about him, what with winter coming on, and more than one family tried to adopt him.
STIFF: All the neighbors and everything brought food out here. I remember one Thanksgiving, there was more turkey bones there than anybody could ever imagine. They were stacked up high.
KURALT: And he stayed right around here?
STIFF: Yeah. He didn't leave. He wouldn't leave. I think that unless some motorist hadn't killed him, I don't think he would ever have left. I really don't.
That's what finally happened, of course. On an icy morning in early February, Blackie was struck by a car and killed.
He was just a lost dog, and it all happened a long time ago. It's hard to explain the impression Blackie made on the people around here; hard to explain why all these years later, the kids still take turns mowing the grass and keeping the place cleaned up. Maybe the explanation is in what they wrote on Blackie's grave marker:
BLACKIE
FEB. 6, 1966
KNOW YE NOW TRUE LOYALTY & LOVE
From On the Road with Charles Kuralt by Charles Kuralt, ©1985 CBS Inc.
BLACKIE
(Coles County, Illinois)
We were going somewhere else, like all the other traffic on Illinois 16, when we noticed what looked like a grave beside the highway. Funny place for a grave, so we stopped and asked around. It turned out that this place, which is just a crossing of country roads, has a special meaning for the people around here, because of something that happened here once. It was a long time ago, the summer of
1965, when a little dog showed up, a little black dog who seemed to be lost. Bill Stiff, whose family farm adjoins the road, was ten years old then; probably it was Bill who first called the dog Blackie.
BILL STIFF: Nobody can fully explain why he was here. But I've always theorized that he was dropped off or left or something. And he just stayed here and was waiting for his master to return. That's all I can figure.
HELEN PARKES: He definitely was lost. He would sit and watch. He would get up on the bank and watch each car, and you could see him. He'd turn his head as a car went by.
Helen Parkes is editor of the weekly paper up the road at Oakland.
PARKES: Often I saw him on this island, between the roads here, and just sitting there, kind of watching the traffic, and, apparently, waiting and watching for someone.
The summer went by and the fall came, and Blackie kept his place here at the crossing. People around here worried about him, what with winter coming on, and more than one family tried to adopt him.
STIFF: All the neighbors and everything brought food out here. I remember one Thanksgiving, there was more turkey bones there than anybody could ever imagine. They were stacked up high.
KURALT: And he stayed right around here?
STIFF: Yeah. He didn't leave. He wouldn't leave. I think that unless some motorist hadn't killed him, I don't think he would ever have left. I really don't.
That's what finally happened, of course. On an icy morning in early February, Blackie was struck by a car and killed.
He was just a lost dog, and it all happened a long time ago. It's hard to explain the impression Blackie made on the people around here; hard to explain why all these years later, the kids still take turns mowing the grass and keeping the place cleaned up. Maybe the explanation is in what they wrote on Blackie's grave marker:
BLACKIE
FEB. 6, 1966
KNOW YE NOW TRUE LOYALTY & LOVE
BLACKIE
(Coles County, Illinois)
We were going somewhere else, like all the other traffic on Illinois 16, when we noticed what looked like a grave beside the highway. Funny place for a grave, so we stopped and asked around. It turned out that this place, which is just a crossing of country roads, has a special meaning for the people around here, because of something that happened here once. It was a long time ago, the summer of
1965, when a little dog showed up, a little black dog who seemed to be lost. Bill Stiff, whose family farm adjoins the road, was ten years old then; probably it was Bill who first called the dog Blackie.
BILL STIFF: Nobody can fully explain why he was here. But I've always theorized that he was dropped off or left or something. And he just stayed here and was waiting for his master to return. That's all I can figure.
HELEN PARKES: He definitely was lost. He would sit and watch. He would get up on the bank and watch each car, and you could see him. He'd turn his head as a car went by.
Helen Parkes is editor of the weekly paper up the road at Oakland.
PARKES: Often I saw him on this island, between the roads here, and just sitting there, kind of watching the traffic, and, apparently, waiting and watching for someone.
The summer went by and the fall came, and Blackie kept his place here at the crossing. People around here worried about him, what with winter coming on, and more than one family tried to adopt him.
STIFF: All the neighbors and everything brought food out here. I remember one Thanksgiving, there was more turkey bones there than anybody could ever imagine. They were stacked up high.
KURALT: And he stayed right around here?
STIFF: Yeah. He didn't leave. He wouldn't leave. I think that unless some motorist hadn't killed him, I don't think he would ever have left. I really don't.
That's what finally happened, of course. On an icy morning in early February, Blackie was struck by a car and killed.
He was just a lost dog, and it all happened a long time ago. It's hard to explain the impression Blackie made on the people around here; hard to explain why all these years later, the kids still take turns mowing the grass and keeping the place cleaned up. Maybe the explanation is in what they wrote on Blackie's grave marker:
BLACKIE
FEB. 6, 1966
KNOW YE NOW TRUE LOYALTY & LOVE
