The rhythms and rigors of learning, along with their attendant and at times all-consuming extracurricular activities, once again structure the lives of students and their families. 

Education is the foundation of life. 

My human is a big believer in the value and joys of learning. Any glimpse inside our home, a book-filled bungalow in Midtown Mobile, proves how much learning is a part of his life, and thus my own. 

Education in terms of instruction received or refused and lessons imparted figure prominently in my life story. Bitch, Please: The Life Of Mae, A Boykin From Mobile
Installment XI

Long before my human acquired me (more aptly phrased, before I took control over his life), the tubby one knew that Boykins possessed a certain type of intelligence. 

We are a crafty breed. Yes, I know how to manipulate matters to my liking. That reality is not just a trait of Boykins but also an attribute of all truly smart ladies. 

Yes, ma’am or sir, I get what I want at the end of the day. 

My grandmother has noted that I am stubborn in outlook. I prefer to think of myself as determined. The spare has more than once expressed takes on my intelligence by stating that I am either brilliant or clueless. As if to the latter! This bitch has multiple days scheduled around her bowel movements alone!

To impart to you how I became such a wise lady, we must go back to the beginning of my life. 

Again, it cannot be stressed the innate intelligence of Boykins. Our working instincts remain intact. Let us hope the popularity of our breed does not lessen our capacity to respond and learn. 

Little is known of my first few months with my original family. 

Being a pedigreed lady in a trailer park was not working for me. 

I am no mere Zsa Zsa. Reader, I am Zsa Zsa, Magda, and Eva rolled into one! 

My earliest instruction, from humans at least, came from my foster family. They potty-trained me. I took quickly to hygienic matters, because I am a lady, ass face. It was also while I was with my lovely temporary family that it was realized that I am one smart cookie in terms of getting what I want. 

In addition to being great companions, Boykins are excellent bird dogs. 

I should say we can be excellent bird dogs . . . 

A big factor in my adoption was the idea that I would be a great huntress of winged creatures for my big fat human who likes to shoot birds. The realization of this trait, one which was dormant most of his life, came upon him when he moved to Mobile after graduate school. 

As a boy, my late grandfather would have to drag him to dove shoots. The old man, who loved a social occasion of any sort, did what most Southern fathers do in that regard. 

Teach the boy (an expression almost every recipient loathes at the time but later realizes how blessed he was to have been called that by his father) some skills and introduce him to life through hunting. 

The tubby one did not take to hunting at all. 

He has always preferred books. 

Life changes you, though. 

Through reading, working, and simply growing up, he became interested in bird hunting. Even though the passion is rarely realized these days, the google-eyed one does relish an early morning in the swamp in pursuit of some ducks.

With visions of bonding via hunting and securing some ducks for the freezer, a new phase in my education was envisioned. 

I was sent to two trainers to hone my skills. 

The first fella was some Bubba originally from Lower Louisiana. He talked like that coach from Louisiana who sounded like he was chewing gravel, only with a Justin Wilson accent to the extreme. 

In an “I gar-on-tee,” type of way, that Cajun told the human that I was not going to hunt. 

Undaunted, and minus some change, the Tubs was not deterred in making me a mighty bird dog.

I was sent to another trainer. The new guy was old world. 

Why that gentleman could have taught English at a college in Oxford or Cambridge. He communicated, and in flawless King’s English, that I was gun shy. 

The instinct is there. 

Sadly, any sharp load noise sends me running. 

Guns, fireworks, and thunder are waking nightmares for me. 

After that second flunking of training school, my formal education in hunting ended. 

Being a lady, I kept an accessory in the form of signature orange color. That hue is a part of my color wheel. Only a real lady can pull off orange.

Despite not graduating from a program, I have become a great huntress, only not of what my human intended. 

I stalk insects anywhere and everywhere, seagulls at the beach, and the rabbits and squirrels up the country at my grandmother’s. There is a very large fox squirrel that my whole family is rooting for me to kill. 

Squirrels are just rats in fur coats. 

Building upon instinct is part of a good canine’s mental capacities. 

I have furthered my education in ways far beyond my breed’s original strengths and purposes. 

I can con my family out of almost anything. 

The turn of eye, the curl of lip, and the tilt of head are all coordinated gestures that have an end goal in mind. If push comes to shove, I can pull a trick. 

This bitch is not always a lady. 

I can dance better than any showgirl! 

My human has taught me a selection of standard dog tricks. Sit and down I have down pat. Stay—well, I know what it means. I simply elect not to respond to that one when I do not feel like it.

To go back to the beginning of this article, education is the foundation of life. 

You must build upon that foundation. 

Each and every day, I devise and implement new ways to get what I want out of life. Foodstuffs, fly creatures (as long as no guns are involved), treats, and attention . . . you have to know what you want in life and learn how to obtain it for yourself! 

Education teaches you how to realize your dreams.

 

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell III, “Cart,” is a historian and a curator. Blackwell was born in Selma, Alabama. He obtained an undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston and his graduate degree from the University of Virginia. He authored Of People and Of Place: Portraiture in Alabama (1870-1945): Reconstruction to Modernism for the Alabama Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA). His second book, Of Color and Light: The Life and Art of Artist-Designer Clara Weaver Parrish, is to be published by the University of Alabama Press in the winter of 2025.