Barking Dog USA

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Apollo moon missions occurred.  At that time the navigation equipment was not sophisticated, with a sextant being carried as a backup.  Early on in the missions the astronauts learned that if they opened the window of the space capsule and listened as they passed the coast of California, they would hear the barking dogs of Ramona.  If at that moment they pushed the re-entry button in the capsule to fire the retro-rockets, they would land exactly in the same place in the Pacific every time.  Ramona’s barking dogs had proved useful, beyond keeping we residents up all night.

Long before men dreamed of flying to the moon, indigenous Indians would make the trek from Borrego to the coast in the spring and back again in the fall.  They too used the racket from Ramona’s barking dogs to their advantage, following the racket, and keeping the trek on the same path for generations.  Fortunately for the Indians, Ramona’s residents even back then kept multitudes of dogs in their yards, and let them bark 24-7.

Eventually however, the Indians became tired of the racket and started to complain, so some stupid white men drove the Indians onto reservations, because they liked the barking dogs better than the Indians.  This series of events and many more too numerous to write about here bring us to today, where nothing has changed.  I am convinced that people move to Ramona so that they can own several dogs, ignore them mostly and let them bark all night long.

This is why I tried unsuccessfully as Honorary Mayor to rename the town to fit with its history and current culture.  Sadly my effort failed and today our town is still named Ramona, after a play about an Indian that is staged in Hemet, not here. Still I am not sorry that I tried, a valiant effort I must say.