Mornings With Barney by Dick Wolfsie (e book reader .TXT) 📕

I was good at finding a hook to hang a show on. Potential guests were not. They knew that they wanted to get on TV but didn’t grasp the visual nature of the medium. “Can’t we just talk about our event?” they would ask. The answer was no. I needed more than that.

“Do all the youngsters ever get together?” I asked the president of the Down Syndrome Support group, still in search of a show concept. “Well, next week, we’re making a calendar to raise money and we have to meet with the photographer and all the families.”

Whoa! There it was. Problem solved. We’d do a photo shoot with these adorable children. We’d observe the artistic process as it unfolded with the subjects and the photographer.

Barney and I arrived at 4:45 AM I don’t think the photographer had ever been up that early in her life, but she knew what a superb opportunity this was to publicize a unique group of children, as well as her craft.

We did the first segment with the photographer, talking about the challenge she faced in creating a dozen different shots that would send a positive message about these kids. When the children arrived a little later, they were antsy. I looked at the photographer’s face. She knew this was going to be a very, very long morning and she had to “perform” on live TV.

At one point, the photographer wanted all ten children in one shot, preferably sitting on the daybed in her studio. The parents put their toddlers in place, but this was kind of like herding cats, as each child tried to scramble away, often grasping and crying for Mom and Dad. The chaos added to the youngsters’ anxieties and I could see some genuine fear in their precious faces. I worried about the idea of using the kids for pure entertainment purposes. I certainly didn’t want anyone to think I was exploiting the children.

Enter Barney. He had been sitting next to me, watching the chaotic activity. Suddenly he sprang onto the bed and situated himself between this mass of humanity that was spread out across the mattress. The kids squealed and began, well, pawing at Barney. The wrapped their arms around him and lavished him with kisses. In their exuberance, several children literally fell on top of him as they jockeyed for position to pet him. He never batted an adorable brown eye. Instead, he just basked in their attention, attention that almost bordered on abuse. It mattered not. This was classic Barney. Somehow, some way, he knew these kids required a different posture on his part. And later when I saw the photos that were snapped at that instant, it confirmed what an extraordinary moment it was.

Just as extraordinary was the morning Barney and I spent with Emily Hunt, one of the bravest little girls I have ever met. She had been thrown from a ride at an amusement park in northern Indiana and was paralyzed from the waist down. In addition, the accident had killed Emily’s fifty-seven-year-old grandmother. A fun family outing had turned tragic for the Hunt family. The case had a devastating effect on the family but resulted in her dad’s commitment to not only Emily’s future but the plight of all those suffering from spinal cord injuries.

Emily attends school on a regular basis. She still holds on to her dream of one day becoming a professional dancer. Her courageous spirit and determination have been an inspiration to many in Indianapolis, the state, and the nation.

I wanted to help publicize the foundation that her father, Mike, had set up to fund research in this kind of paralysis. Doing the show required that Mike, like all guests, rise bright and early to appear on camera. He was pessimistic about Emily’s participation because at that time (she was only six) bathing and dressing, as well as connecting the necessary breathing apparatus, was time consuming and would have meant getting her up literally in the middle of the night.

Emily was not a morning person, I was warned, but I knew that her presence on the show would impact the viewers emotionally and that this would lead to increased attendance at the annual fund-raising walk around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

To make it easier on Emily, Mike allowed us to bring the camera into her room and talk to her while she was still in bed. The bed was very high off the ground, a necessary adjustment so that caregivers could more easily dress her and pick her up to move her to the wheelchair.

I walked into the room, Barney trailing behind me. Emily produced the expected scowl. I felt horribly guilty about the intrusion, although my motives were pure, as Mike knew. What could I do to cheer her up? What, indeed? Barney took a flying leap onto the bed, possibly a record for a vertical jump by a beagle, beating the record set with Sandy Allen’s bed by a hair. He rolled over on his back, incredibly positioning himself right alongside Emily. Sadly, she could not scratch him, but her smile lit up the room.

Any dog could boost a little girl’s spirit, but this was different. Barney was not his usual hyperactive self. He had responded to her situation by kicking it down a notch. It seemed they just looked into each other’s eyes for the longest time. How much of this was in my imagination, I don’t know, but I can’t recall another situation that touched me more.

Maybe your dog would have done that very same thing. But Barney did it in front of 100,000 people, no doubt pumping up the fund-raising for Mike Hunt’s foundation for people with spinal cord injuries.

I felt very good about my job that day. Any time I had the opportunity to use my unique role to help others was a plus. Sure, I