Postcard season is but a memory

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

-- James Dent

Welcome to September. The year is two-thirds gone, and summer is a memory for most. Some, however, shared those memories with their postcards.

First, congratulations to Ed and Karen Wilcox , of North Augusta, who were at the United States Military Academy at West Point "to see our son, Austen, as he was accepted into the Corps of Cadets ... He is now a plebe."

Jerry and Patty Babb and family and friends were parasailing in the Florida Keys.

Also in Florida were Karmen and Brent Spletzer , of Aiken, who say they had a fun time in Daytona Beach but "have discovered Ponce Inlet has the most beautiful beach with clear, aqua water. We discovered this from our view from the top of Florida's tallest lighthouse."

Pat VanHooser , of Advanced Services, reports that she and Dena Thomas had a "work trip" to Hartford, Conn., to learn about crawl space waterproofing, "but they are wining and dining us, so it feels like a vacation."

Clarence Wellman , of Martinez, sent "greetings from Alaska. The weather is about 60 degrees here and the nights are short. Twenty-plus hours of daylight gives you a lot to see."

Carrie and Dave Welter shared a card from Balsam, N.C.

And finally, Matt Miklas was in New Jersey, where he visited his grandparents. He also sent a card from New York City, where he said he took a boat tour of the Hudson and saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and enjoyed some Cuban food.

TODAY'S STORY: Everett Fernandez shared this one, with a lesson for us all.

It seems back during the height of the Cold War the Americans and Russians realized that if they continued in the usual manner, they were going to blow up the world.

One day they proposed settling the dispute with one dog fight. They'd each have five years to breed the best fighting dog in the world, and whichever side's dog won would be declared Cold War victor.

The Russians set to work, finding the biggest, meanest Doberman and Rottweiler dogs in the world and bred them with the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter. They used steroids and trainers, and after five years came up with the biggest, meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel bars that were 5 inches thick, and nobody could get near it.

When the day came for the fight, the Americans showed up with a strange animal. It was a 9-foot-long dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for the Americans because they knew there was no way that this dog could possibly last 10 seconds with the Russian dog.

When the cages were opened up, the dachshund came out and wrapped itself around the outside of the ring. It had the Russian dog almost completely surrounded. When the Russian dog leaned over to bite the dachshund's neck, the dachshund reached out and consumed the Russian dog in one bite.

There was nothing left at all of the Russian dog, and they shook their heads in stunned disbelief.

"We don't understand how this could have happened," one said. "We had our best people working for years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler dogs in the world and the biggest meanest Siberian wolves."

"That's nothing," an American replied. "We had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a dachshund."

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.