Soundtrack to my life: my little runaway?

Was visiting the Wellesley Booksmith the other day and my pal Lorna, musing over my awesome looks and personality, wondered if I had a song that encapsulated my life.

Mom thought. "Perhaps an ode would be more appropriate—something weightier than a popular song," she said.

Today she had second thoughts. Perhaps I'm not as professorial as she thought, but hey, a guy's gotta have fun, right? I was taking my morning constitutional around Lake Waban, where off leash dogs (not so legally) abound. One fetching pup (in appearance, not habit) took off toward the water. I did the same, wrenching my leash out of dad's grasp. Mom, natch, found me on a path we hadn't tried before, behind the old tennis courts, and snagged me.

First she sang the Del Shannon hit, but it didn't quite fit. She knew quite well why I ran away. Then, being the bookish and very mom-ish sort, intoned the lines from Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny: "If you run away, I will run after you. For you are my little bunny." Which is, when you think about it, kind of an ode.