Dog Catching Days of Summer

A dirty funk track by The Mighty Dogcatchers. Is dog catching still a profession for enterprising youth on their summer vacations? I wish me and a friend or two had had the entrepreneurial spirit and guts to do it when I was younger. I first became aware of it from William Wharton's excellent novel, Birdy. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend doing so, and I have a copy that any of y'all can borrow at my place.

Birdy tells the story of two boys, Al and Birdy, growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia just prior to WWII. Al, an Italian-American kid obsessed with lifting weights and chasing girls, finds an interest in Birdy, an odd boy who is enamored with mechanical engineering and raising birds. They get in all sorts of adventures as kids, including one summer where they work as dog catchers. The novel is actually set around 1945 or so, after Al and Birdy have been to war. Birdy has been committed to a mental hospital because he has become delusional and begun acting and speaking only like a bird. Al is brought in to try and bring him back to reality, which he attempts by recalling their boyhood adventures to Birdy.

It's also the novel that taught me that you can use "bird" as slang for your dick. I was quite satisfied when I started watching Trailer Park Boys and realized that Bubbles uses the same term to refer to dongs.