My old dog is tired tonight. She sleeps a lot more than she used to. Well, partially true. She slept a lot as a puppy because she expended so much energy. There was the middle portion of her life that she burned like a shooting star. We hunted the length and breadth of the nation together in those years, what some Old Scribes would call Halcyon Years. I don’t think either of us slept the recommended amount then; we were simply having too much fun to bother.

Gordon Setter Maggie at six months of age had already surpassed the best of a long line of bird dogs that I had been privileged to share time with. She has simply taken my breath away more times than I can count with her skill, athleticism, and beauty. I would never be as shallow as to say that I “owned” these dogs — it was always a partnership, and the dogs were always far more talented than me.

An esteemed writer once described this relationship as “Given only the Honored.”

Indeed, it has been, and “honor” is where I am going with this.

I was privileged in my early years to attend a military school that instilled the words “Honor, Truth, Duty” to all who attended. My longtime friend Mark Alexander was a classmate.

Honor, whether used as a noun or a verb, has an impressive number of definitions in Webster’s Dictionary. For our purposes, let’s look at America today and recognize that honor and privilege are synonyms and those of us that reside in this great nation are indeed the most blessed of recipients.

“First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen” remarked Henry Lee in his funeral oration for George Washington. If revisionist history ever decries Washington or diminishes his leadership in establishing our Federal Republic, my concern for our future will deepen. And my concern is indeed deep. George Washington’s greatest enemy, King George III, upon hearing that Washington resigned his command following the Revolutionary War and returned to civilian life, was said to have remarked, “That makes him the greatest man in the world.”

The headmaster at our military school frequently used the phrase “cheap and shoddy” in response to the diminished embrace of honor by Americans. Adolescent boys of course turned this phrase of his into “sheep in Soddy” as a reference to Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, at the time an agricultural area near our school. But we all knew what he meant. It meant to rise above. It meant to always strive to be better. It meant to have honor. To tell the truth. To rise to our duty.

And where are we today?

To say we are a divided nation would be a massive understatement. Politics has always been a contentious affair beginning with the Federalists and Anti-Federalists at the dawn of our Republic, but to be fair, neither side of the debate was being paid for their opinion at the time. I think it can be reasonably argued that they were true public servants and mostly men of honor. Indeed, nearly four decades passed before senators and representatives were paid an annual salary.

Are most politicians today honorable in the truest sense of the word? Some are, but how many are true men and women of honor and true public servants? Can we even get the genie back in the bottle now that so much money is involved? You don’t have to be a forensic accountant to note beginning and ending bank accounts with some of our representatives that are far above what annual salaries would account for.

So why open my observations with a description of a sleeping dog laying by my side? Because she has earned that right. From the first weeks of our association, she has performed in every aspect of her life with the utmost integrity and skill and asked for little in return. If a dog can be said to have honor, she certainly has it.

There is a lesson there.

If I could get her to run for office I would. You would love her and trust her as well.