We’d shown off our two dogs for visitors before by demonstrating our dogs’ prowess at playing the Go Find It game and their understanding of sign language. We’d even shown our dogs’ love for sliced cheese, which is a joy to behold with their tails wagging furiously as they jostle each other like Laurel and Hardy trying to get through the doorway first. But never before had we put their love of sliced cheese to the ultimate test, let alone in front of witnesses.

The dogs had already gone up to bed, apparently tired of hearing us laugh and carry on over the card game we were playing. There were only four of us but you’d think there was a house full as much noise as we were making.

Once the dogs go to bed, they don’t come back down until morning so for us, this was the ultimate test. My husband wanted to demonstrate how a cheese wrapper could bring the dogs running, even from several rooms away.

The dogs were probably sleeping soundly and I just knew the trick would be a total flop. I figured they were holed up in the office which was the “quiet room” in the house, shielded from many of the downstairs sounds.

I had zero faith that the cheese test would work. No way would the dogs hear the cheese wrapper and even if they did, they were in sleep mode and wouldn’t care enough to come down and investigate. When company comes, they know that food doesn’t involve them.

The moment of truth arrived. He brought out a piece of sliced cheese, removed it from the wrapper, and then crinkled the wrapper. While it’s a distinctive sound, it’s not a very loud sound and I shook my head knowing our guests would go off telling stories of our silliness with this failed dog trick.

Immediately, the sound of two dogs shaking off sleep erupted from upstairs. Every year we add a new rabies tag to the dogs’ collars so when they shake, it’s like Christmastime jingle bells. Both dogs had heard the muffled sound of the cheese wrapper being crinkled and came bounding down the stairs with eyes aglow at the prospect of their favorite treat.

No dog whistle could have been more effective. My husband had successfully demonstrated that our dogs were so in tune to the sound of a cheese wrapper crinkling, that they’d coming running no matter how far away or how sound asleep they were.

The party trick was a hit! Our guests were duly amazed. Undoubtedly they went home laughing at our silliness with the successful dog trick.

Last year I published my own personal story of alien abduction from early childhood into adulthood. When you come forward as a UFO abductee, you become a magnet for UFO believers and UFO skeptics, each with their own agenda.

Alien abductees contact you knowing that you’ll understand. UFO skeptics target you in the hopes of finding a way to use your story to prove that UFOs are a hoax. UFO researchers clamor for details hoping that your tale of UFO abduction will support their personal theories, and apparently, many have theories to prove. UFO authors attempt to hitch a ride on your coattails. Even the government keeps a watchful eye to make sure that you aren’t a danger.

Everyone’s got an agenda and they want you to be their pawn. What happens when the pawn refuses to play chess? They may try to discredit you, or they might go off in a huff. I had my first public run in the other day and it ended with him suggesting that I wear a tin foil hat.

You’re probably assuming he was a skeptic or someone whose goal was to discredit me, but nope, he was a true believer. The trouble was, I’d done a bit of research and knew that he had an agenda that I did not care to support, so I extricated myself as gently as I could.

When you don’t give someone what they want, they generally don’t smile and shake your hand in friendship. He accused me of pretending to be an alien abductee, suggested that I wear a tin foil hat, and then peddled his UFO books to me and anyone else reading our public conversation.

My response was to add a tin foil hat to an old photo and post it publicly in a humorous jest. I figure my fans will understand. But the whole thing got me thinking, who came up with the notion of wearing a tin foil hat in the first place?

Wikipedia puts its origin in a 1927 fictional story called The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley, which suggested that “caps of metal foil” would block mental telepathy. From there it expanded to include UFOs, mind control, hearing voices, electromagnetic radiation, and even government agencies spying on you.

Apparently there’s a grain of truth to the tin foil hat theory. In 2005, a group of MIT students decided to conduct a test. They created three tin foil hats of different designs which they called, The Classical, The Fez, and The Centurion. The results were unexpected.

The tin foil hats did offer shielding from some radio waves, but actually boosted others. Radio frequencies used specifically for mobile communications, GPS tracking, broadcast satellites, space-to-earth satellites, space-to-space satellites, and aeronautical radionavigation signals were amplified by the tin foil hats.

Of course, this set off a whole new conspiracy theory suggesting that the government wanted people to take off their tin foil hats, not that I can imagine actually wearing one. I figure if anyone is attempting to control my mind, if they haven’t succeeded by now they sure as hell aren’t going to.

If you’d like to read my account of repeated UFO alien abduction, it’s available in paperback, Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.

If you’re a fan of The Andy Griffith Show, you’ve GOT to get the theme song! I heard it on the radio once, bless that disc jockey for having a wild hair and playing an unexpected song, because I totally fell in love with Andy’s fishing hole song in its full glory.

The Fishin’ Hole song is the theme song for The Andy Griffith Show, and the song has WORDS, not just a whistling finger snapping tune. Even better, Andy Griffith himself sings the song.

Andy had a musical background. Prior to The Andy Griffith Show, he appeared in a 1959 Broadway musical called Destry Rides Again and has been featured on 20 different record albums, some of whose songs you can get as an MP3 like The Fishin’ Hole song.

Andy Griffith’s music history went far beyond a couple of songs on a TV show. Andy Griffith started his college studies with the goal of becoming a Moravian preacher, but soon changed his major to music and received a Bachelor of Music degree. He joined a musical fraternity, and had singing roles in several college operettas. After college he taught Music and Drama for several years. In 1960, Andy Griffith was nominated as Distinguished Musical Actor for the Tony Awards, though he lost to Jackie Gleason.

We all know and love Andy Griffith for his many TV roles including The Andy Griffith Show where he captured the hearts of his fans along with co-star Don Knotts. They had actually worked together prior to The Andy Griffith Show in the 1958 movie No Time for Sargeants which was the inspiration for TV sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Another precursor to The Andy Griffith Show was an appearance on the TV show Make Room for Daddy where Andy played a county sheriff/justice of the peace.

You just never know how the pieces will come together in your life, and for Andy the early pieces set the stage for the all-time favorite television series that still captures our hearts decades after they stopped producing episodes.

The Andy Griffith Show ran from 1960-1968, which ended 45 years ago this year, and yet for many of us Andy feels like he’s just around the corner, sitting on a front porch picking at his guitar singing The Fishin’ Hole song.

Gathered together on the front porch are his son Opie, his Aunt Bee and her best friend Clara, deputy Barney Fife and girlfriend Thelma Lou, Goober and Gomer Pyle, Floyd the barber and Howard the county clerk, and Andy’s girlfriend Helen Crump.

Join Andy’s friends and family with their feet tapping and finger’s snapping as they listen to The Fishin’ Hole song as sung by Andy Griffith himself. And if the love of Andy isn’t enough for you to buy Andy’s fishin’ hole song, don’t forget it would make a great gift for a fisherman!