"Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

This dramatic exclamation ends the second chapter of “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the best Sherlock Holmes mystery ever from the pen of A. Conan Doyle. It was first published serially in a magazine in 1901. The best movie version stars Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson in 1939.  A really big dog also stars, but its name is unknown to this writer.

That movie was scary. I know, for I was eight, and it really scared me. I went to see it with my parents one night at the new Delman theater at 15th and Lewis in Tulsa, about four blocks from where we lived There was a lot of talk to start the movie, which I didn’t understand much, then some scary stuff, then more talk followed by really scary stuff and ending in more incomprehensible adult talk that didn’t make me any less scared..

Back home it was immediately “past your bed time and you are a big boy.” The lights were turned firmly and completely out. From the darkness a huge shapeless thing growled and bayed at me. I was brave though and didn’t whimper and sob quite all night.

Dogs had long been a problem. When much younger I had become scared of Tuffy, a territorial, nasty tempered chow who guarded his property morning and afternoon against a gaggle of us kids headed, respectively, for Barnard elementary school and home again. If there were several of us, Tuffy would usually just growl and bare his teeth from the high ground of his lawn. Going it alone, however, meant crossing the street well before you got to his domain. If you knew what was good for you.

This went on through kindergarten and well into second grade. Then one day I got a card in the mail. It was an invitation to a funeral. Tuffy was dead!  His grieving owners had invited all us “Tiny Friends of Tuffy” to say goodbye. We all went because there was cookies and ice cream and we got to make sure Tuffy was really, most sincerely, dead.

But, dead or not, it was Tuffy who lurked, half forgotten, behind my fright at the film. At first I was even reluctant to attend the Delman for any reason, but, as a confirmed movie fan already, I couldn’t stay away. For 1939 was arguably the best cinematic year ever, even for a kid, what with “The Wizard of OZ,” “Stage Coach,” “Gunga Din” and “Beau Geste” among others. (For adults there was “Gone With The Wind,” “Dark Victory,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Ninotchka,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Rules of the Game.”)

So, clutching my dime (movie) and nickel (popcorn) I often walked the four blocks to the air conditioned Delman on hot Saturday afternoons. I habitually walked along the north side of 15th street to admire the string of ornate mansions built there during the first oil boom. One especially was a sprawling red brick two story estate, built on spacious grounds and surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence sectioned by massive brick pillars that matched the house.

It was rumored that a guard dog patrolled the grounds, but the big gate was always locked and I never saw him. Until, of course, after “Hound of . . .” One day I came to the gate and it was standing wide open. I paused to get a better look. A coal black great dane, big as a pony, with a head larger than mine trotted into chilling view not 20 feet of open empty space away. I froze. He paused and looked at me. I suspended breathing. Several hours passed in the next few seconds.

Then he turned and trotted along inside the fence. I took off running, while he easily loped along keeping up with my eight year old personal best. He stopped where the fence cornered left and I ran across the street against all orders and oblivious to any traffic. Heart racing, I sprinted to the Delman and safety. I have no idea what the movie was.

Back home I told my Dad about my Baskerville moment. He advised walking on the other size of the street and I gladly did. Some time later – months, maybe a year or two – I told my story to somebody else whose adult name and face are gone, but whose words linger clearly in memory.

“Oh, that dog. He died. When you saw him he was over 20 years old, toothless and nearly blind. That’s why they usually kept him behind a locked gate. For his own safety. But he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, hurt a soul. Still, he really was big.”

After that I stopped being scared. After all, the last scary dog was dead.