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“The Dog Star rose with the sun about the same time the hot, sticky, sultry days of summer came on us; but old Noah had more to do with Dog Days than a star in the sky.”

Forget about Friday 13th or Halloween. According to the wisdom of Uncle Ovie, July 26 is the first day of Dog Days and the beginning of the Forty Days of Misery.

So, we still have a way to go.

When I was growing up, Mama did her best to keep me from itching and scratching, The flat gnats would come in droves so she put kerosene around my eyes to keep them away. Mosquitoes would eat me up even in long sleeves and a sun bonnet.

My first remembrance of Dog Days was the year I got the ground itch after Mama told me not to go outside in the morning dew.

Dog Days were misery. Snakes would go blind and couldn’t see. So, they would strike at the first thing that went by. But, you didn’t know if you were the first thing or the next thing.

Fish got lockjaw and wouldn’t bite. Birds wouldn’t sing. Lightning would come down in bolts without a cloud in the sky. The creek would flow backward and the wind would blow upward. The chickens would crow and the roosters would lay eggs.

Nothing went right during Dog Days.

But what Uncle Ovie said that puzzled me the most was that the pestilence of Dog Days went back to Noah’s time when the Lord sent 40 days of rain and destroyed the world.

After the flood was over, the Lord promised He would never again destroy the world by a flood and He sealed that promise with a rainbow in the sky.

How dogs got mixed up with Noah and the flood and the rainbow in the sky, Uncle Ovie figured was like this.

During Dog Days, dogs have fits and go mad and a mad dog is scared to death of water, as scared of water as the people were back in Noah’s time when the flood waters kept getting high and higher.