By Sally Cook<\/strong><\/p>\n Gerald\u2019s Talking Dog loves cherries. That\u2019s all he ever talks about, but that wasn\u2019t always true. He used to ride with his paws on the dashboard chattering about everything he saw. And he was so opinionated! Some days Gerald wished he\u2019d never picked up the stray Basset Hound. <\/p>\n The dog\u2019s cherry fixation started the summer Gerald moved into his family\u2019s run-down cottage on Platte Lake. They went to look at the place in July, and on the way north, Gerald bought a box of washed sweet cherries. It\u2019s bad when a dog stares at you while you\u2019re eating. Worse if it begs, \u201cC\u2019mon, gimme,\u201d over and over, for more than a hundred miles.<\/p>\n Now cherry season was long past. It was November. Gerald found a space heater in a closet and spent most of his time near it, even though the lights dimmed when he plugged it in. The quiet was killing him. When the dog asked, \u201cWhen will cherries be ripe, huh?\u201d one too many times, Gerald pulled a dusty encyclopedia off the shelf, opened it to the entry for cherries, and plopped it on the floor. It turned out the dog could read too, and after that Gerald\u2019s talking dog had even more to say.<\/p>\n At the grocery store, after filling his cart with comfort food like Pop-Tarts and Nutella, Gerald picked up a copy of the local newspaper. There was going to be a Pub Trivia contest, and the topic would be cherries, in honor of the pub\u2019s Belgian Rye Dubbel, fermented with sweet and tart cherries. God knows, he thought, I\u2019ve heard enough about the accursed fruit to call myself an expert.<\/p>\n Gerald didn\u2019t have a team, so he figured he\u2019d sit at the bar, play alone, and enjoy a couple of drinks. The dog insisted on coming along. He\u2019d wear the orange vest Gerald got him for hunting season, and pretend to be a service dog. He swore he wouldn\u2019t cause any trouble. The pub was packed, and the ale warmed Gerald in a way the space heater didn\u2019t. The quiz was going OK too. He knew there were more than 1000 different varieties of cherry trees and that the Pilgrims brought cherries to North America in the 1600\u2019s. <\/p>\n Towards the end of the night, he was in second place with only two bonus questions left. He remembered the average tree produces about 7000 cherries in a good year, but what was the record distance for spitting a cherry pit? He was stumped! He dropped his pen, and bending to pick it up, he muttered the question. The dog opened one eye and said, \u201cHalves.\u201d Gerald was afraid he\u2019d gone back to sleep until the dog snickered and whispered, \u201c93 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n Gerald won Trivia and knew where he\u2019d be spending Wednesday nights. Best of all, the prize was a growler full of the new Cherry Ale. Half was better than nothing, and the dog\u2019s share should keep him quiet for a long, long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gerald\u2019s Talking Dog loves cherries. That\u2019s all he ever talks about, but that wasn\u2019t always true. He used to ride with his paws on the dashboard chattering about everything he saw. And he was so opinionated! Some days Gerald wished he\u2019d never picked up the stray Basset Hound. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[171],"tags":[188],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/geralds-talking-dog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3TDCr-xT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2108,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions\/2108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}