A loving farewell to my best friend

Disney, a 10 1/2-year-old black Labrador,
was a great companion.

I lost my best friend recently.
We watched a lot of TV, hung out on our deck, played ball, went for walks together. And she loved it when I rubbed her belly.
The best part? My wife didn’t mind it a bit.
My best friend was Disney, our 10½-year-old black Labrador mix whom we had to put down suddenly a few days before Easter. One morning, Disney and I took a nice walk. Twelve hours later, she had trouble walking. The next day, she couldn’t get up off the bedroom floor.
Just seven months removed from knee ligament surgery (I wrote about her recovery in December), we didn’t want to put our beloved family member through more tests, X-rays or surgery. Maybe the knee surgery and subsequent rehabilitation and recovery put more stress on her body than we thought.
I was devastated. That was by far the most difficult morning of my life. Later that day came the truly hard part — arriving home from work and knowing Disney wouldn’t be racing to greet me with her tail wagging excitedly. I’m not ashamed to admit that for a few days I shed a lot of tears when I approached our front door.
The last image I have is of Disney in my arms as I carried her to the car, then from there to the veterinarian’s office, where she lay with pained eyes on an exam table as we said our goodbyes.
As the shock of her loss wears off as each day passes, I think of all the good times our companion gave us.
Disney was an awesome dog. We got her for $20 from a farm in Douglass (Berks) in August 2001 when she was just a puppy. I repeatedly told my wife it was the best investment we ever made. And yes, Disney was named for the resort which we had visited just a month before she joined us.
Disney wasn’t your typical Labrador; she was actually a pretty laid-back dog. When we tossed a ball to her she’d chase it, but would usually drop it on her return trip. We joked that she was only half of a retriever!
Unlike most Labradors, Disney didn’t like water. We made one visit a few years ago to French Creek State Park with some friends. As our other dog, a yellow Labrador, and our friends’ two Golden Retrievers swam happily in the lake after a tennis ball, Disney would go into the water just enough to get her belly wet.
As she grew older, Disney hated loud noises — especially motorcycles. And she despised thunderstorms. I particularly hated the ones in the middle of the night when Disney would wake up panting and shaking and I’d have to escort her to the basement where she’d settle down and stay until morning.
Our most vivid memories about Disney revolve around food. One Valentine’s Day, my wife gave me a box of chocolate-covered pretzels. I left them on the headboard in the bedroom and we went out that night. Apparently, I didn’t close the box tightly because when we returned, the box was barren — and Disney was the only one home.
On several other occasions we’d arrive home to find an empty bag that once contained bread or rolls on our kitchen floor. We knew Disney was the guilty party.
The best Disney story happened on our wedding night, and my wife and I didn’t find out about it until a few days later.
After taking the wedding gifts, flowers, etc., into the house and getting my stepdaughters situated with a cousin who was going to stay with them for a week, my wife and I left for our airport hotel, from where we would leave the next morning for … Disney World. But in all the commotion of getting everything into the house and put away, several slices of the leftover wedding cake — Orange Creamsicle wedding cake — were left on the kitchen counter.
Well, Disney wouldn’t let this golden opportunity pass.  So she helped herself to a few slices of wedding cake — and had orange icing all over her face. Unfortunately, no one caught it on camera.
These memories and hundreds of others will live on in our hearts, and I hope that we reciprocated Disney’s love. I’m sure she’s been showering angels with all the love and affection that she showed us for more than 10 years.
I just wonder if she ate any of the angels’ Easter candy?

Mike Spohn is The Mercury’s Sunday editor. E-mail him at mspohn@pottsmerc.com or follow him on Twitter @Merc_Mike

Wrestling hold at party turns deadly

Watching pro wrestling turned deadly of a 24-year-old Louisiana man, according to FoxSports.com

According to the report, Stephen A. Arceneaux III was hosting his own "Wrestlemania 28" party when he and a 14-year-old cousin acted out a wrestling hold. Arceneau died after he refused to "tap out" of his younger cousin's "rear naked choke hold" and caused him to stop breathing, police said.

The story goes on:

Arceneaux and his cousin began wrestling on an inflated mattress at the party and the teenager, who weighed just 110 pounds, placed his arm around the 220-pound Arceneaux's neck.

Witnesses said Arcenaux was in the hold for 30 to 40 seconds, but refused to give up or "tap out."

When one of the witnesses saw Arceneaux turning blue, they told the youngster to let go, but by that stage Arceneaux had already stopped breathing, the report said.

Arceneaux's girlfriend tried unsuccessfully to revive him before he was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is continuing.

"It's bizarre," said Sheriff's Office spokesman Capt. Pat Yoes. "We're still investigating it. But when you have violent horseplay like that, it just goes to show you that anything can happen."

It's National Cereal Day

Today is National Cereal Day.

To celebrate, I had a bowl (or 2) of my favorite, Cheerios, which I believe is the favorite cereal of my 2 granddaughters, Arianna and Alayna. Some days I may have a bowl of Honey-Nut Cheerios.

Others I eat on a regular basis: Frosted Flakes, Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, and Rice Krispies.

What's your favorite?

The groundhog was wrong

Kate Upton is the cover model for
this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.

A couple of weeks ago, Punxsatawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter. I beg to differ, and it has nothing to do with the warm winter temperatures and lack of snow we've experienced.

There are 2 reasons for me to be thinking spring.

First, the Phillies loaded a tractor-trailer with equipment on Sunday that was heading to Clearwater, Fla., for spring training. The 5-time National League East champions open camp this Sunday when pitchers and catchers report for their first workout.

And this week, another sure sign of spring bloomed again: the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. Model Kate Upton graces this year's cover.

Another voice silenced

 First it was Richie Ashburn in 1997. Then Harry Kalas in 2009. Now, another voice of my youth has been silenced.

Andy Musser was a Phillies broadcaster for more than
25 years.

Andy Musser, the third member of the Phillies broadcast team that was together for more than 20 years, passed away Jan. 22. Musser didn't get the acclaim that Kalas and Ashburn received from fans, but he was a solid baseball announcer.

He was also very versatile, broadcasting Sixers, Eagles and Big Five basketball games. Before joining the Phillies full-time, Musser also worked for CBS Sports where he did the Super Bowl and the Masters golf tournament.

Here are a few of his most famous Phillies calls.

The legend of Roy Halladay grows

Since being traded to the Phillies in December 2009, Roy Halladay has become a folk hero.

In his first season with the team in 2010, he won 21 games -- including a perfect game against the Marlins -- and won the National League Cy Young Award. And, oh yeah, he threw a no-hitter against Cincinnati in his first post-season start.

This past season, he won 19 games and finished second for the Cy Young Award. His final game was a 1-0 loss to St. Louis in Game 5 of the National League Division Series.

So Halladay's been a larger-than-life figure for Phillies fans. That legend may grow after something that happened before Christmas.

According to the blog Zoo with Roy, Halladay, while on a fishing trip in the Amazon with professional angler Skeet Reese and others, saved a native boy from an anaconda attack.

Also on the trip was Halladay's best friend, St. Louis pitcher Chris Carpenter, who was the winning pitcher in Game 5.

UPDATE: Accounts question claim of chimp's owner

According to an Associated Press story, some accounts from Hollywood are questioning if the chimpanzee that died in Florida on Christmas Eve was indeed Cheetah, who was a sidekick to Tarazan in some movies in the 1930s.

Here is the new story:

A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah, the chimpanzee sidekick in the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s, has died at 80. But other accounts call that claim into question.

Debbie Cobb, outreach director at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary along Florida's Gulf Coast, said Wednesday that her grandparents acquired Cheetah around 1960 from "Tarzan" star Johnny Weissmuller and that the chimp appeared in Tarzan films between 1932 and 1934. During that period, Weissmuller made "Tarzan the Ape Man" and "Tarzan and His Mate."

But Cobb offered no documentation, saying it was destroyed in a 1995 fire.

Also, some Hollywood accounts indicate a chimpanzee by the name of Jiggs or Mr. Jiggs played Cheetah alongside Weissmuller early on and died in 1938.

In addition, an 80-year-old chimpanzee would be extraordinarily old, perhaps the oldest ever known. 

According to many experts and Save the Chimps, another Florida sanctuary, chimpanzees in captivity live to between 40 and 60. Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Fla., has a chimp it says is around 73.

A similar claim about another chimpanzee that supposedly played Weissmuller's second banana was debunked in 2008 in a Washington Post story. Writer R.D. Rosen discovered that the primate, which lived in Palm Springs, Calif., was born around 1960, meaning it wasn't oldest enough to have been in the Tarzan movies of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Cobb said Cheetah died Dec. 24 of kidney failure and was cremated.

"Unfortunately, there was a fire in '95 in which a lot of that documentation burned up," Cobb said. "I'm 51 and I've known him for 51 years. My first remembrance of him coming here was when I was actually 5, and I've known him since then, and he was a full-grown chimp then."

More than one chimpanzee appeared as Cheetah in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and '40s.

Film historian and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osbourne said the Cheetah character "was one of the things people loved about the Tarzan movies because he made people laugh. He was always a regular fun part of the movies."

In his time, the Cheetah character was as popular as Rin Tin Tin or Asta, the dog from the "Thin Man" movies, Osbourne said.

"He was a major star," he said.

At the animal sanctuary, Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh, Cobb said. But he could also be ill-tempered. Cobb said that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would fling feces and other objects.