The Legend of Griffin: A Man, a White German Shepherd & the Adventure of a Lifetime
Written and Narrated By: Joe Patterson
Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
Uhm? Actually? This is The Legend of Joe…
And it didn’t take me long, in this memoir of “A Man, a White German Shepherd & the Adventure of a Lifetime”, to realize that the “White German Shepherd” is barely in this.
The Legend of Griffin (Joe) shows what all hell breaks loose when somebody’s had a fairly decent childhood: Stuff that hits you later (In this case, Joe’s late teens) in life, throws ya for a loop and winds up being DEVastating as you have no practice with trauma. And in this case (also), what drives Joe is to heal memories of when his parents split up right before he was heading for college.
I mean, see? THAT’S what is scarring your soul? Try abuse; neglect; humiliation early in childhood; NOT mom and dad called it quits just when I was becoming a young man.
ANYway, Joe decides he wants to seek answers from trekking to a cabin enjoyed when he and his siblings were young, back when mom and dad were okay in their marriage… but perhaps they weren’t? Joe WILL seek answers; he WILL hike through the Black Hills; he WILL do this when it’s freezing (And by the way? Joe’s outerwear gets more story time than Griffin does… just saying…)!
He fails miserably, and this and the old ghosts of his tormented past haunt him for a year. Then he decides to try again (And by the way once again? The dude never even asks for directions to the place: SOOOO like a man!!!), dragging staunch supporter Griffin with him. During THIS ill-fated trip, Joe gets very, very sick, and we’re treated to suuuuuuch a long time of him struggling to put one foot in front of the other; of him falling to his knees and damaging bone and tissue; of him vomiting his guts up. This comes after suuuuuuch a long time of him describing an ankle injury, of the constant recurrence of the injury; of the pain; of his inability to put one foot in front of the other so that he might blast the life outta birds and elk (Okay okay okay—hunting is all about communing with nature… tho’ he does so love to blast the life outta birds and elk). The man describes in greeeeat detail each and every bruise, each bit of broken skin, his big ol’ knock to the head—Dude! Write about something else: Saaaay, how about Griffin?!?
Every now and again, he mentions that he was with his dog, and he does indeed manage to get himself back home. Then Joe decides that he and Griffin (Yay! The dog gets a mention!) will hike to raise the spirits of a young boy/man battling cancer. He does, thankfully, finally realize that his own problems are as NOTHING compared to struggling with cancer and hardcore treatments for years.
Seriously, I don’t see why Griffin is such a big deal as he gets very little acknowledgment, there are very few stories of escapades that might endear him to us in a special and loving way, and through the Adventure of a Lifetime, which I’m assuming was Joe’s Vomit Hike wherein he laid old ghosts to rest, Griffin barely gets more than a: If he hadn’t stirred and woken me up, I might’ve stayed asleep forever. Whoopdeedoo.
Poor Griffin.
If you want a Listen about a reeeeally scarred man doing good with his dog, try Max the Miracle Dog. And if you want a Listen about another scarred soul, a dog that became his life, and the beauty of nature and of hiking mountains to do good, try Following Atticus.
But if you’re into listening to a guy moan about his parents’ divorce, describe every injury, discuss in detail what it’s like to hurl orange Gatorade?
Then THIS, dear Accomplice, is your book!
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