Matthew Keenan

With the countless implications of the heat wave, there is really only one thing I really care about. Our dog Bernie.

A diminished corn crop, dead fish, dried up ponds, polar bears floating away on ice cubes, climate change —all take a back seat to Queen Bernie. Any risk to her health, emotional state, well being? I’m all over it. Talking to her in the morning before work, and when I get home? Check. Making a quick call in the middle of the day to my wife to make sure she is comfortable? Check. Scratching her belly and giving her a chin massage when I get home from work? Check. Refilling her water? Check.

With the heat this bad there are unquestionably a few places you want to avoid. Parking lot L at Royals stadium, for instance, hasn’t seen a car since the All Star Game. And given the team’s latest tank job it’s not likely it will see shade until football season.

Another place that to avoid: the brown metal air vent in our living room. I call it Vent No. 2. With our AC on overdrive, normally it would be chilly to the touch except there is something resting on top of it. Bernie. From morning to early evening she moves not an inch.

I read a website about how dogs cool down: “The only way a dog can cool itself is through panting and sweating through its foot pads. If the air is hotter than the body, the dog cannot cool down. Walking on hot pavement is like putting the heater on.” Sounds dreadful. That reality is a far cry from Bernie’s foot pads. They get the canine equivalent of ice bath.

Bernie’s been schooled in the art of cooling down. This is her 10th summer and eighth in this house. And she has mastered the technique of vent-to-mouth resuscitation. She’s refined it from her early years sticking her head out of the window whenever I drive to pick someone up. Vent No. 2 sits directly above the air condition unit in the basement and blows with a force of Hurricane Hugo. Until it hits Bernie, of course.

Her body is like a throw rug with four paws. She rests strategically on it; the air goes directly into her nose, circulates through her body and then powers her tail, which wags oh-so slightly when you declare “you are a good dog, Bernie.”

What little air escapes around the edges of her body must travel through her coat and is subjected to heat transfer principles that the folks at MIT couldn’t appreciate. Bernie knows cold air. She’s got no choice — Wheatens don’t shed and they don’t droop heir tongue to cool down. It’s bad form for their breed. Neither does she whine or complain, which means she is not related to anyone else in the family.

Vent No. 2 isn’t just chilly. It’s strategic. Like a dugout seat to all the action in the house. She can see the outdoor grill in the event I decide to fire up a BBQ. She can see the TV, which means she hears the same forecast everyday and the same ‘advice’ imparted to viewers. Suggestions that no one needs to tell us like “drink lots of fluids” and “don’t leave your dog in the car.” Bernie can watch my wife play Words with Friends while Lori keeps dialing the thermostat down.

We have a cat but she knows nothing about the heat wave since she hasn’t seen the sun in 10 years.

In cooler months, Bernie will head for the door anytime requested. Not now. Too old and too experienced to be tricked into going outside unless nature is calling or hamburgers are on the grill.

I read where the symptoms of heat stroke in dogs are: “restlessness, excessive panting, excessive drooling, foaming at the mouth, labored breathing, signs of anxiety.”

The symptoms of a great dog adapting just fine to this heat wave? Check Vent No. 2.

It’s camping season, and Cub and Boy Scouts everywhere are heading to the outdoors. But against this Saturday Evening Post image you have a subplot that Norman Rockwell’s canvas would never touch — beginning with the adult leaders.

There are two groups. You have the scouting pros — uniforms that appear West Point-issued, plastered with patches and beads dangling from the belt. A kaleidoscope of colors, icons, images, with lots of red, white and blue. This presentation, combined with additional features (e.g. bad hair, conversion vans, sweat pits) can prompt an uneasy feeling in some moms.

First impressions, however, can be misleading, because one of the patches likely says “trained” and another says Wood Badge — that means your son’s leader has a clue about responding to unexpected emergencies. If you are a helicopter mother, after all, you want a leader who is skilled inCPR, can separate a wall from a funnel cloud, and knows that a tourniquet should not be tied above the shoulders.

Admittedly, some of these leaders need to spend less time at Roundtable and more time at Lifetime Fitness. Still, he’s not your son’s yoga leader, so get over it. Drop off Johnny —you can still make your Pilates class.

And then you have the new school dads. Lightweights who think roughing it means a hotel without a concierge level. These softies would drag along a Laz-y-boy recliner if it would fit in their Lexus. Dads who think the Scout motto “do a good turn” relates to corkscrew techniques. These guys understand Baden Powell is a signature clothing line at Nordstrom’s. These dads have kids in Cub Scouts, a.k.a. ‘Scouting light.’

Boys love campouts and hate the meetings. In pack meetings, the boys run wild and eventually end up in a women’s restroom staring at the Kotex machine.

Picking the campout date means dodging the religious and school holidays, baseball tournaments,RV and Boat Show, dance recitals, BBQ competitions, and finally settling on a Friday night. Everyone commits. The expected number of Scouts and dads: 75.

And then the lone ranger arrives: severe weather! When I was Cubmaster in Leawood this would freak the softies. By Friday morning, the e-mails would roll in: “Johnny’s not feeling well.” “I need to start an addition on the house.” “I pulled a muscle getting out of bed.” “Look, we are going to come out later. Like next month.” “The dog ate the directions.” “I want to come but my wife says it’s too cold out.” “We’ll make the next one.”

By midafternoon the cancellations continue. The ‘confirmed’ list goes from 75 to 12 in about eight hours. I would never cancel the campout. Kids don’t give a darn about cold fronts — what they care about is bringing a pocket knife to make a spear and then playing in the fire. So around 5, I’d drive to the church parking lot with the Keenan boys in tow amid wind gusts and dark clouds. Eventually two, maybe three cars of other dads and Scouts pull in. Guys, like me, with lots of patches. We drive out, set up camp and watch weather patterns worthy of the Weather Channel. Saturday morning we return home, drop all the gear in the entryway and my sons declare to their mom, “It was awesome!”

A month later it’s time for the May campout: “We’ve got a fast-moving cold front, folks!”

My mom graduated from KU with a degree in music education. Her major was piano and she imparted her love of music to her five children. And when dad bought her a baby grand, he placed it in our living room, adjacent to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking our picturesque backyard. Many days I would come home from St. Pat’s to hear her playing away on the Yamaha. She was active in our town’s Parnassus club, and she and dad took frequent trips to Century IIauditorium in Wichita to see touring artists and musicals.

I took piano and voice lessons. We all did. In 1971 my aspirations for a recording contract suffered a setback when I sang a duet in the junior high concert — the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There.” I was there. The lyrics, on the other hand, went missing. I was devastated. My brothers? Lottery winners are less gleeful.

The music world was not immune to the cultural upheaval in the late ‘60s. I remember my older sister gaining a fondness for Iron Butterfly’s “In-da-gadda-da-vida.” We understood the title to be ‘In the Garden of Eden.’ Normally Larry wasn’t easily ruffled; Adam and Eve, however, were off limits.

Along the way, there were threads of calm, comfort and normalcy. And in 1968, it came in the form of a song. I recall very distinctly hearing it for the first time in the backseat of my parents Plymouth station wagon. It was “Wichita Lineman” by Glen Campbell. Described as the first existential song of its kind, it peaked on the pop, adult contemporary and country chart at the same time. Forty-two years later it remains a critical and popular choice — ranked as one of top pop songs of all time. Even today when I hear the song, it’s like a time machine.

A song about Wichita — two hours to the southeast of our town — elevated Campbell’s status considerably in our family. For us, Wichita was New York, Chicago and L.A. rolled into one. Wichita had Towne East Mall, was the home to Pizza Hut and another business with an unlimited ad budget — Rusty Eck Motors. Wichita is where Larry and Mona honeymooned. And so, naturally, Glen Campbell was accrediting our view of the world.

Campbell’s career went on to achieve iconic proportions as one of the top-selling artists and entertainers of all time.

Mom passed away in 2002, but her legacy continues as most of her grandchildren still play the piano. Just before this Christmas I saw Glen Campbell perform on late-night television. His voice, his guitar and the song … I froze, listened, watched. He played two songs from his CD “Ghost on the Canvas” and the melodies stuck in my head.

The next day I left home on a mission.The Best Buy display rack of best sellers had the biggest collection of trash anyone could assemble. Other than Adele, none could play an instrument or even sing. I was going to find that CD no matter how long it took, and my determination was rewarded.

I put the CD in my car and listened and haven’t stopped. My third son heard it and redeemed himself. “I like it. It sounds like Johnny Cash.” Since then every family member has become a fan. In December, USA Today music critics picked it as a Top 5 album of the year. Coming on the heels of his farewell tour as he battles Alzheimer’s, one could add this to Campbell’s repertoire: courage.

On Sunday, I watched the Grammys. When Campbell came out and sang “Rhinestone Cowboy” my thoughts shifted to Mom and the baby grand. I cried.

Matt Keenan