Tamara Dietrich

February 8, 2009

If you saw Timothy Albert White hanging around this neck of James City County (Williamsburg, VA), you might not have noticed him.

But you'd have noticed his dog. People always did.

Ghost, a white husky, was White's constant traveling companion, from the Citgo gas station to the Dumpster area behind the Dollar Tree. From the Animal Clinic of Williamsburg to the copse of trees wedged between Magruder Elementary and a deserted commercial building along Merrimac Trail.

White called that trashed patch of woods "The Bush." And that was his home after he was evicted from the house where he lived, then rousted from the Dumpster area last summer.

After he lost his odd jobs at two local hotels.

After alcohol grabbed his rudder, and White, 52, lurched into homelessness.

But you might not have noticed that, either.

"He was well-dressed," says his friend Cindy Hitchens, "so you would have not known."

Hitchens met White last spring at a local Long John Silver's, where he was getting water for Ghost.

White was smart and hard-headed, a little abrasive at times, Hitchens said. But she became his friend and Ghost's guardian, paying for all his veterinary care.

"He really loved Ghost," she recalls.

From all accounts, Ghost loved him right back.

Whenever his owner ventured too near Merrimack's rushing traffic, his judgment "impaired," Hitchens says, Ghost would keep him safe, pulling him back, if need be.

And when White tethered him to the bench outside the Citgo while he shopped at a nearby supermarket, says clerk Karin Koberstein, Ghost would soon get anxious for his return, staring toward the store.

"I'd be, 'Don't worry, he's coming back for ya,' " Koberstein says. "That dog loved him, and he loved that dog."

Friends and strangers alike made sure Ghost never wanted for food, dropping off bags and cans for him at the gas station.

"He said, 'They're treating my dog better than me,' " Hitchens recalls. "I said, 'It's your choice. He's just at the other end of your leash.' "

People would offer to buy Ghost or take him in, says Citgo owner Dutch Minick, but White always refused: "It was his only companion."

Minick had no problem letting White settle on the bench outside his store, so long as he didn't tip any liquor bottles or ask customers for money. Sometimes he threw White some work. And if the temperatures dipped, he'd bring White and Ghost inside to warm up.

"For a homeless guy, he was happy all the time," Minick says. "Always smiling."