Tribute to Mickey and his dog, Spike

If you've had any of my journalistic writing classes at Winthrop, you know that one of the topics that I teach my students they can write about--to touch a universal psychic chord in readers--is dogs.

Also on my list of topics that readers devour are sex, money, health and fitness, religion and spirituality (where do we go when we die?) and UFOs.

But dogs, bless their paws and slobberknocking jaws, are right up there near the top.

So a front page story by columnist Andrew Dys in today's Rock Hill Herald immediately caught my interest this morning. Accompanying the story (and with this blog post) is a photo of a man and his mutt.

The story and photo focused on Mickey Mangrum of Chester, S.C., and his ever-faithful and beloved bulldog, Spike.

Seems the two were inseparable--in life and in death.

When Mickey recently died, his obituary in The Herald mentioned the usual persons as his survivors: his wife and other members of his family.

Listed also among Mr. Mangrum's survivors: Spike

I can see this and really "get" why a dog could be woven into the last printed record of a human being's life.

Here's to Mr. Mickey Mangrum and his dog, Spike, with him everywhere in life and with him now in print and on the Internet till the end--and beyond the end.

Long live men and women and their dogs.

Here's Andrew Dys' story in today's Herald:


CHESTER -- His name was Michael, but nobody ever called him Michael. Always “Mickey,” Mickey Mangrum, from the time he was a kid at Rock Hill High in the early 1970s.

Or “Mag” as an adult, short for Magnum, P.I. because some said he looked like Tom Selleck, who played the hunky private investigator in the 1980s T.V. show of the same name.

And he almost always had a dog with him. In the truck, in the hunting stand, at his deer processing plant and his own hunt club on his Chester County property that both were called M&M – from his initials.
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And throughout the last year of his 53 years of life – a life that ended at 7 a.m. Sunday – an American Bulldog named Spike was right there with his big dog head trying to nestle in Mickey's lap.

Or in the line at the bank drive-through window where the lady teller was so used to the duo with Spike in the passenger seat she would ask, “Does Spike need any money?”

Mickey's cancer started in the pancreas, then liver. The doctors gave, tops, six months.

Mickey, tough, lasted almost eight weeks.

In Mickey Mangrum's obituary in Tuesday's Herald, listed right there after his wife and two brothers and sister, was his dog.

“His favorite dog, Spike,” is how Vickie Mangrum had it worded. This is a woman who knew her husband loved his dog.

“It was my idea,” said Vickie. “They went everywhere together the past year.”

Mickey actually bought the dog as a pup last year, a purebred from down at Georgetown, for Vickie.

“I gave him the name Spike, but he was a man's dog right from the get-go,” Vickie said. “Mickey took a nap in the shop; Spike took a nap next to him.”

Mickey was a workaholic welder in his earlier years right up until he got sick. A husky guy, who traveled all over the country for work.

“Worked every day he could,” said his brother, Bobby. “Our daddy died when Mickey was 10.”

Mickey married once before, but later divorced. But he never forgot Vickie.

This is a guy who, about five years ago, found out about an old flame from Rock Hill High who was working at a restaurant/pub called Sundown at Surfside Beach, drove down there immediately and arrived at 9 a.m. Mickey sat down at the bar and ordered a Jim Beam and Mountain Dew – only because the joint didn't have Sun Drop, his favorite mixer.

He drained half the glass and broadcast to Ginger the bartender and the entire crowd: “I'm here to reclaim my high school sweetheart.”

Vickie Cox came out from the back where she was making chicken salad at the end of working the third shift and saw the man who asked her to marry him 30 years earlier. She had declined then, “because too many girls were chasing him.”

“He smiled that big smile, and I was in love all over again,” recalled Vickie Cox Mangrum. They went immediately to the same spot at the beach where they had a picture made 30 years before during their first courtship and had a new picture made. They were married in a flash.

She came home to Mickey and she came home to the dogs because Mickey and dogs were inseparable. “April, May and June, I named three of them right off,” Vickie said.

But cancer hit Mickey in a rush.

“Just like what Patrick Swayze has,” said Vickie. “I never left his side.”

Neither did Mickey's friends.

Those friends threw a huge benefit for him at the house, with a big tent, a pig roast and buckets of oysters, hash, chili beans and more than a few cases of ice cold beer. Natural Light, cans.

“That was a party, I can tell you,” said Mickey's best buddy all his life, Mike Moore. “Must have been 200 people here.”

Spike sure hung in there with Mickey the whole time after Mickey took sick. Spike knew something was amiss. He would wander around. When Mickey lay on the couch, Spike would come in and put his head right on Mickey's lap.

Tuesday, Spike wandered around outside and Vickie said, “He's lost without Mickey.”

Mickey Mangrum's funeral will be on Thursday.

The Rev. Rick Sturgis, a lifelong friend and spiritual comfort at the end of Mickey's life, who wears overalls every day of his work life at Farmer's Exchange, will officiate – and wear overalls.

Vickie invited the same banjo-picking band that played their wedding to play a few tunes at the graveside for family and friends.

And for Spike.