Editor’s note: This week’s column is part 1 of 2. "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking" A few years ago in the middle of January, Gery, my mother, and I were traveling back and forth between town and our house, when one day we spotted a very skinny dog at the end of a driveway of a house that had a for sale sign posted. The dog was gnawing on the half carcass of a deer that someone threw on the side of the road.