a carpenter dog

[George Thompson]

I was in a potter's shop recently.  A very small dog was running about, which I at first supposed belonged to the shop.  When I realized that it had come in with another customer, I thought "I hope it isn't a carpenter dog".  Then I thought that I hadn't thought of carpenter dogs for 30 or 40 years.  This was my mother's favorite joke.  A carpenter dog (sometimes "handyman dog") was one that does little jobs about the house.

My father's favorite joke was to describe any tumult and confusion by alluding to "the mad scene from Woolsworth's lunch counter".

We were a very mirthful family.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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