When I was younger my family attended a Methodist Church in Tennessee. Twice a year, all of the middle school kids who were members would be rounded up and packed off to a weekend retreat at some woodsy locale in the mountains. I think we were supposed to bond in Fellowship, or find God in Nature, or something like that. The youth minister would lead the show, and they always sent along a young married couple to act as chaperones and to give us role models for our nascent aspirations.

On one of these retreats, when I was probably in the eighth grade, one of my classmates was there who was a little more advanced than the rest of us because he had a steady girlfriend. And at some point, he came up to the male chaperone and asked, “When do you know that it’s time to get married?” He’s fourteen years old and he’s already thinking about getting married. Like I said, he was a little more advanced than the rest of us.

And the chaperone said, “I don’t know about the when. But the person you marry should be your best friend.” And I’ve always remembered that. It’s the only meaningful thing that I ever got from one of those retreats. But it was a good one, a good thing to remember. And many years later, I was lucky enough to fall in love with, and marry, my best friend.

“Can I Pet Your Dog?” by Bear Punchers, is from their new fifteen-track album, Not All Dogs Are Depressed. Bear Punchers is, I think, Jack Jackson (guitar, vocals) and Kiki Sanchez (percussion, kazoo, backing vocals). The credits for a previous release note that Kiki “mostly laid on the couch.” The band self-describes as “an acoustic folk-punk duo from Virginia who take no prisoners.” Their new album is, they tell us, “dedicated to our friends who hump us.” I hope that, like me, they were lucky enough to marry their friends and aren’t living in sin.

You can support deserving independent musicians like Bear Punchers by visiting their Bandcamp page, listening to their songs, and downloading your favorite tracks. They have thirteen albums and EP’s on Bandcamp, dating back to 2014, so surely you can find something you like (and don’t call me Shirley). This is where I usually say, “And be sure to follow – – – – on Facebook and Twitter.” But I couldn’t find Bear Punchers anywhere. They have an Instagram account with no posts and one follower (me). So it goes.

“Poo-tee-weet?”