We found Salt Lake City nice enough, and looked forward to a great day of
tailgating and Pac 12 football. We parked the RV together with
a few other CU boosters who had driven down for the game, but mostly
surrounded by Ute fans. We got there around 9 a.m. and
broke out the beer and brats, and stoked up the barbecue. I'd brought
my mutt Rusty, he was a 9-year-old Golden Retriever, a bit
gimpy from arthritis but friendly as all heck whose favorite thing in
the whole world was to go to football tailgaters. I'd dragged that
dog all over the country - to Texas A&M and Nebraska in '04; to K-State
in '05 and never had any bad experience with Rusty - he
was the type of dog that would melt even the hardest Husker, who'd he
greet with his favorite whiff frisbee in mouth.
Anyways, we were having a pretty good time at the tailgater, talking
it up with other Buff fans and even breaking out some cold
and icy ones for a few Ute fans who stopped by to chat and talk
about the big game.
It was mostly friendly stuff, except for one group of Ute fans in an
old yellow school bus who were directly to the right of my RV. From the
time they got there, I sensed there was trouble. There was six
or seven of them, two of them apparently female. They were pretty
loud and obnoxious from the beginning, blaring out what
sounded like the Osmonds or worse. The seemed to have showed up
drunk, and were drinking hard liquor, straight from the
bottle. Soon after they got there, Rusty wandered on over and the
biggest and meanest looking of the bunch (who they called
Tiny), with a big Ute logo tatooed his forehead, starts chasing
him off yelling "GET ON OUT HERE YA Gawdang Buffalo
DOG!!!! Except he didn't say "dang". He apparently didn't like the
fact that Rusty was wearing his favorite Buffalo doggie sweater.
Anyways, I just gathered up Rusty and we stayed to ourselves with
other Buff fans trying to keep as far from trouble as we could.
Pretty soon it was time to go to the game, and I did what I always do
with Rusty, I tied his tether to the RV, leaving him a bowl of
water and some food. I've regretted that decision a thousand times
since then, even though at the time I'd thought nothing of it.
The trouble makers in the school bus by then were ignoring us, having
been joined by other friends, and obviously intoxicated in
the extreme.
Of course we enjoyed the game, what with a Buff win and all, and
found Rice-Eccles to be an impressive stadium, even though the Ute
fans were as placid as Buff fans usually are. As we walked from the
stadium after the game and approached the RV I could see
right away that something was wrong. The Buffalo awning attached to
the RV and covering the picnic table had been knocked
over. I ran up to the RV calling Rusty’s name and to my horror saw
that Rusty wasn’t there. The only thing there was his leash
and empty collar.
I looked frantically around for old Rusty, calling his name and
asking anyone who would listen if they’d seen an old Golden
Retriever with a Buffalo sweater. No one had. I was nearly in tears
when I heard laughter and barking behind me. I turned around to
again face the Utes on the bus, who by then numbered 10-12 or so.
They were laughing, hollering and barking. I gathered my
courage and approached the group. Where’s my dog?? I demanded. All I
got back was laughter and barking, and the big ugly one
just took a big bite out the huge Turkey leg he had just grabbed off
the barbeque, dripping sauce all over his dirty Alex Smith
jersey. “We ain’t seen no damn dog,” someone said, provoking more
laughter and barking from the group. I was angry as hell,
looking at each of them eye to eye, trying to see in their faces what
they might have done with my Rusty.
“Hey mister,” one of them finally said, “you hungry?” “Want something
to eat?” I turned to look at the Ute fan minding the grill.
“We were doggone hungry, so we cooked something up!” The whole group
burst into howling laughter at that point, more than one
spitting up food or liquor, bowled over and slapping each other on
their backs. It was only then I realized where my Rusty had
gone. That wasn’t no turkey leg that Tiny was eating.
“You ate Rusty,” I said to the Ute fans.
Uttering that awful truth only sent the Utes into further laughter,
and I did the only thing I could do. I turned around and walked
back to the RV. I told the wife that Rusty was gone and there wasn’t
any point in looking for him. She could see I was upset and
started to protest but then looked in my eyes and saw that it was
true and that was that.