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The last of “C. E. O. CAT”
By fred | January 15, 2009
It has been an extremely long couple of weeks, so I haven’t been able to properly attend my BLOG.
My primary doctor, Dr. Doug Wynne, a good buddy that has kept me going for over sixteen years since I moved to the great northwest. One time he said “Fred when the heart doctors get their hooks in you it is for life.” Truer words were never said. They have you constantly going in for tests for this and that. A week ago there was two days of tests, wasted about three hours or more each day. Stress tests, radioactive stuff they insert in your veins to watch your blood flow. Just yesterday they called and said that the blood was flowing just fine. I got to thinking, if it wasn’t I would not likely be here– so why call?
My heart surgeon, Dr. Begin on a recent visit said he wanted me to go to a sleep center and take tests, said he did not think I had enough energy. I told him “Doc, I am going on 80 years of age, how much pep do you want? Still he insisted. So after a night of pure hell at the sleep center. Why hell? Try and sleep with 38 wires attached to various parts of your body for one thing. Eight in your hair attached by glue, two in your nose, the rest dispursed all over your body. Then just when you think you may get to sleep a nurse comes in and wakes you up, says a wire in not attached properly or got pulled out. I guess I did sleep for a few hours from sheer exhaustion.
They, the sleep center folks called this morning, wanted to make my back up appointment earlier, in polite words said I was a mess the Doctor wanted to see me as soon as possible.
I will, of course, relate the outcome of their changes in my life when they happen. Sometimes you wonder if the cure is worst than the actual problem. However, in these trying times, it may be that the doctor needs my business, if that is the case I will reluctantly continue to follow their instructions no matter I think they are nuts half the time.
This afternoon will be another trying time in the Nielsen family’s history. Nina Nielsen, our one and only beloved black, part Siamese cat, must go to the Vet for her yearly physical. Nina is about four years of age. She is in prime condition as far as I can see. I have mention her before, how she is in complete control of her world, which includes my bride of 59 years Sally, my invalid son Rick, and myself. I am sure if Nina had a choice Nina would veto the Vet stuff, however this is the one part of her life that we control, like it or not.
She is good about the trip to the Vet, Dr. Barron, a lady Vet. She is taken in a cage, now that alone is an insult to her dignity, she goes to the back of the cage and pouts, sometimes letting out a few hisses or whatever is swear words in cat language. On the way back she never says a thing. Once we are home and she is brought into the house, she immediately goes to see Sally and tell her of all the bad stuff her husband and son did to her. Rick and I are not on her buddy list for a few hours after this trip. Such is life – the trials we must all go through – even Nina.
The following is the last of C.E.O. CAT, hey, I told you at the beginning that it was an unfinished book. In future sendings we will go back to EVERYBODY’S DANISH, as we have quite a ways there to go.
Seems so many of you have sent me notes that you get a big bang out of my stories, too damn bad you guys are not publishers then I would be rich. So– after EVERYBODY’S DANISH I will send you off on books I wrote about my high school life, another about my army life, part true, part fiction.
Guys and gals that I went to school with – that have known me for a billion years will know which is which, the rest of you will have to guess.
The last of C.E.O. CAT.
Love ya, Your Uncle Fred
Chapter Five – My childhood companion – ‘Kitty’
I wasn’t lying when I said that furry friends have shared my life. There are old family photos where, as a child of age one up, pictures are taken with family cats and dogs in the pictures. You will have to forgive me but my memory of those early days of my life is dim, far too dim to write about with any degree of accuracy. I do however remember at the age of eight ‘Kitty’ entering our lives. I will grant you that ‘kitty’ is not a very original name, however Mom, Dad and Grandma called him ‘Kitty’ and ‘Kitty’ he became.
I remember once when he was older and was taken to a Vet for some minor problem that Mom had to write his name on a form. I looked over her shoulder and she wrote, ‘Kitty Nielsen’ on the form. Mom was not making any attempt at humor; Kitty was as much a member of the family as I was. I was her son and Kitty was her cat, both shared her home and therefore should share the family name, just the way things were at the Nielsen homestead.
My Father and Mother were the owners of a Scandinavian food store and small wholesale business. Recently they had a Danish contractor, a family friend build a store on the front lawn of our three bedroom rambling single story Spanish style home on 24th Street across from the Danish Auditorium in Los Angeles. Dad and Mom were tired of renting a store building, if they built a store on the front lawn they would have to pay for construction but no rent as we owned the house.
The store took up most of the front except for the driveway on one side going all the way down the side of the house to the garages at the extreme rear of the property. On the other side adjoining the store and about twenty feet along the side of the house was the store kitchen with a back door to the small strip of lawn and planter area along that side of the house. There was tiny couple of feet wide area along that side of the kitchen and store which I assume had to be maintained to keep the building from the exact property line – probably according to some city code.
In the far back of the property where two garages had originally been built, Dad had them extended to make a warehouse for our tiny Scandinavian wholesale business. At a surplus sale he purchased a large old Navy walk-in refrigerator and had that placed in front of the garages. For additional storage Dad and Mom had a cellar built under the front part of the house so we could go from the store to the cellar in a few seconds to restock shelves.
To say we lived in the middle of our business was putting it mildly. My folks had also extended the back of the house to include another room which served as a guest room periodically when needed. The inside bedrooms were Mom and Dad’s in front, mine in the middle and Mom’s mother Marie, my Grandmother in the back bedroom.
The back yard was tiny, practically non existent, there was one tree right outside the back door, a large, very productive apricot tree only a few feet from the back window of Grandma’s bedroom. Apricot jam making was a yearly event of Grandma Marie. This is the environment that ‘Kitty’ entered when he chose to join the family.
There is one minor point I have to make and that was my relationship as a young boy with Grandma. She and I were not on the friendliest of terms. Grandma had some decidedly old fashioned ideas about how a young boy should be raised and often clashed with Mom in that regard. Although it hasn’t anything particularly to do with this tale of our family cats let me relate to you of one instance, a major one at the time.
Dirty cord pants were the fashion with kids, those and dirty Levi’s. If the cords and Levi’s were dirty enough to stand up by themselves then you were in the height of fashion – dirty cords with a sparkling white T-shirt and sparking white socks with highly polished cordovan thick soled shoes with medal heels that would click at every step that was the fashion of a real dude in the 1940’s. The fashion lasted from when I was an eight to all of my high school years. Grandma did not disagree about the clean sparkling white T-shirt and socks, it was the dirty Cords and Levi’s that she resented.
Danes as a race of people are extremely clean – the tiniest bit of dirt on anything must be cleaned immediately. Looking back Grandma was only reacting to her upbringing and deeply resented anything dirty in our house and especially her grandson’s dirty pants. I think she felt it was a reflection on herself -having to run the house because Mom had to work in the store all day. We had battle after battle over this issue. I would try to hide my pants in the clothes closet, under the bed, even under Mom and Dad’s bed but she would always find them and wash them until they were sparkling clean. Of course, then I was out of fashion with the rest of my friends, a no no for a young boy. One day I came home from school after a particularly bitter battle the day before and she had burned my pants in our incinerator. (In those days each family burned their own trash in what was called ‘incinerator.’)
That evening I appealed to Dad at dinner, he listened to my argument carefully, then looked at Grandma and said, “Leave him alone Marie, Freddy is always very clean the pants are just a kid thing, leave him alone.” I remember Grandma getting up from the kitchen table, not saying anything she walked into her bedroom and slammed the door and was not seen for the balance of the evening. It was very cool around the house for days. The outcome was that she never tried to clean my pants again unless they were in the laundry basket.
What has Kitty to do with all this? Not a heck of a lot except we probably would never have spoken to each other again if it wasn’t for Kitty, he was the one common link that did more to unite us than any other factor, laughing at his antics, his demands for snacks or dinners, his rubbing and purring to get attention. Without our common love of Kitty it could have been a feud that lasted months, Grandma was a very stubborn lady and as a kid I also was in no mood to compromise.
All I can say is Kitty arrived – I can’t say he was anything to write home about, he was just a rangy thin gray cat, seemed fairly common to me. One day he was there the day before he wasn’t. It had to be another of those cases where people just raise a cat for a few months then drive him or her someplace and drop them off figuring they will have to fend for themselves, Kitty had certainly been treated with love by humans as he was as friendly as a cat can be. Rubbing your legs and purring so loud you almost needed ear muffs to drown it out.
A number of our family animals arrived at our doorstep this way, they at least were cats that lucked out – they found a good home. A person that would do such a thing, drop a animal they raised and then leave it far from it’s home on purpose does not have my respect as a human being, I truly feel sorry for someone that cold, that cruel, that uncaring.
It was obvious that Kitty was hungry, and he certainly was attracted to our home and store kitchen by the delightful smells coming from that area. One big favorite of our Danish clientele was a pork live pate’ called ‘Liverpostik’ (my spelling may be incorrect), the Danes loved it, so did Kitty it turns out. It became impossible for Mom to work with the cries of this half grown cat that had stationed himself outside the back kitchen door, so she sliced off a hunk of liver pate’ and put it on a saucer and as soon as it was cool she placed it on the back steps of the store kitchen. She did it reluctantly as she really did not feel that we should have a cat then, we were all so busy, Dad with the wholesale route during the day, her waiting on customers and working in the store kitchen. Grandma had to do all the cooking for the family meals. Even I was roped in to help in the store kitchen many days. We were just too busy for a pet.
Kitty spent one night outside unattended. I remember Mom being so worried about the hungry cat, hoping that it would be O. K. and find itself a good home. The decision wasn’t really Mom’s to make, Kitty figured he had found a good home already why look further and he didn’t. The next morning he was at his spot at the back door of the kitchen waiting for Mom to open shop at 8 A. M.
That night a family conference took place. I remember Dad saying that maybe it would be a good idea to have a cat around to make sure our food storage areas did not get any mice or rats. Thinking back in all the years we had our business, never did we have a mouse or rat problem, never did they harm any of our stored food, Kitty has to be responsible for that. He did his job.
It was decided that we would keep him with one stipulation – he was going to be a ‘outside’ cat. We fixed a box with a warm blanket on a lower shelf in the back garage and Mom picked him up very gently, carried him into the garage and set him in the box so he would know where he was to sleep. I doubt if he ever set foot in that box again.
That evening it was quite chilly. Los Angeles can get chilly in the winter. We were at the kitchen table and Mom mentioned that it was cold outside and was wondering how Kitty was doing. Grandma said, “Yes it is, that’s why I let Kitty in the house. He is in Fred’s bedroom sleeping on his bed.” So much for being an outside cat, Kitty went out when he wanted, he just stood at the door and gave a short cry and the door was opened, a scratch or cry and the door was opened to come back in. Kitty was already taking his C.E.O. duties seriously, giving instructions, without us even realizing it.
Kitty just adopted us, we never asked him to stay, never forced him to stay, it was his decision. The only time I ever remember him being really ticked off at Mom was a few months later. She decided that it was time for kitty to have his ‘operation.’ She did not want a cat that would be spraying in or outside the house so he had to go and get ‘fixed.’ She got a lot of dirty looks for a couple of days after that but Kitty finally gave in. Mom knew the way to a kitty’s heart was an extra portion of liver pate’ with maybe a slice of roast beef thrown in.
I have often thought of folks talking about the diet they feed their cats. Expensive cans of cat food, often costing almost a dollar for just a few ounces – Kitty lived for 18 years, never do I remember him eating food from a can of cat food, I doubt if he would have eaten it if it was given him. He ate what we ate, if we had fish for dinner so did he, if we had roast beef so did he, if we had chicken so did he. Kitty also like to be a little heavy on the gravy, if there was not enough gravy on the meat he would give you a look, “Hey don’t be such a cheap skate, add another spoonful.” He was not big on vegetates unless they were covered with gravy, mashed potatoes and gravy heavy on the meat course and he would clean the plate up so it really never needed to be washed, it was gleaming clean. This was not some cat that was a finicky eater, if it was on the plate it was there to be eaten.
Kitty grew and grew and grew he ended up as enormous by cat standards to eighteen pounds three times the weight of many small cats when they reach fully maturity. A huge long rangy sleek gray animal that was the pride of our family and he knew it. How did he get so big? Kitty knew all the angles. After breakfast inside the house provided by Grandma, bacon and eggs or Danish sausage he would want to go outside. If the pangs of hunger hit him an hour or two later he would scratch on the back door of the store kitchen to get Mom’s attention. She would hand him out whatever was cooking then. A number of items that were big on Kitty’s list of love to eat snacks were Danish specialties. Dad figured he was a real Danish cat. When there was nothing special cooking in the kitchen Dad would often hand him a slice of Danish cheese which Kitty consumed with gusto. Favorites of his were Danish headcheese made of cooked pork shoulders, liver pate’ was another, Swedish potato sausage or Danish Medisopolse sausage were other favorites. He was not a fan of pickled herring but then we all have our likes and dislikes. Kitty did like Carlsberg Danish beer, pour some in a dish and it was gone in a flash, a few times with company, when displaying his drinking abilities he actually became tipsy.
One day a year or so later Mom and Grandma compared notes. Kitty ate seven times that day, not all meals but some heavy duty snacks. The problem was that both Mom and Grandma did not have the time to compare notes. If Kitty looked hungry they fed him, if they had the time to check with each other he would have not faired so well. He parlayed Mom and Grandma his entire life, or as long as we had the store and lived on 24th Street.
The relationship of Kitty to my father was interesting – it certainly was one of mutual respect. My Dad, born in Denmark came to the United States working his way on a sailing freighter shortly before the first world war, Kitty arrived at our home/business in the late 1930′s. Dad, Andrew Nielsen (Andy to all his friends that numbered in the hundred’s), was then not quite fifty years of age. Dad was almost six feet tall, stocky and strong as a bull like many other Danes he was slow to anger but tough as hell if you got him ticked off.
O.K., he was my father, still I have to say there is no man on the face of this earth I have ever respected more. Why? Just because he deserved it – Dad was extremely mild tempered, he went out of his way to help others, was outgoing and made friends easily. The reason he was successful in any business he started, people just wanted Dad around so if buying from him or visiting him in the store was what it took, they came. To say that Kitty respected Dad is to put it mildly, it was almost as if he knew that it was ‘Andy’ that made the final decision that he would stay and be a certified member of our family.
Dad seldom had time for Kitty, he was always so busy working. When Kitty was on his chair or was looking for a snack at the back door of the store kitchen he talked to Kitty like he was another person, none of the baby talk some use with animals. Dad talked to Kitty man to man. If at the store kitchen door he may say, “Calm down Kitty I’ll get you some cheese that will have to hold you.” A few seconds later a plate with a slice of Danish cheese would be handed out.
If he was on Dad’s kitchen chair at dinner time, Dad may say, “Find yourself another chair it’s dinner time,” and so it went. Nothing but straight forward conversations between them – Kitty with his ‘Meow’ and Dad talking straight.
I have to think that this respect between them is why Kitty after one early incident never scratched our furniture, our rugs or anything inside the house. The trunk of our old apricot tree got a working over daily to keep Kitty’s claws in fighting trim and there was one favorite fence post between our drive way and Marvin’s house that was a favorite but that was the extent of it.
What was the front porch of the house before Dad had the store built in front was still the front entrance to our house, a short hall then a large front room with Mom’s old upright piano, large sofa, easy chairs, coffee table filled the room. One evening Mom and I were sitting in our large family/dinning room right next to the ‘front’ room, waiting for Dad to close the store at the 6 P. M. That was losing time so we could all have dinner together. Our new family member, Kitty, at that time decided to sharpen his claws on the sofa just as Dad walked in the door. Kitty’s mild mannered friend, my Father, saw what was going on and in probably the strongest words he ever used with Kitty said, “Stop that Kitty, don’t you ever scratch my furniture again!”
Kitty was stretched out full length with his hind legs on the floor and his front paws reaching out to get a good grip. You could see him stop what he was doing immediately. His head turned and looked at Dad. There was no battle of wills here – it was quite obvious that he figured Dad was boss. He immediately released his hold on the sofa and retreated to the back part of the house. From then on he seldom entered the dinning area, front room or Dad and Mom’s front bedroom. He seemed to be satisfied with our big family kitchen where the family ate, my bedroom, Grandma’s bedroom the back guest bedroom and the outside area. He seemed to think the rest was off limits, especially the sofa, easy chairs and such.
Kitty was just not comfortable in the front of the house after that, he may have associated it with his beloved Dad being anger at him and had no intention of having that directed at him again. I have never, before or since, seen this happen with a cat, usually your cat is going to reject your plea to not use your furniture as a scratching board and a battle of wills will begin. Kitty just respected Dad too much and never scratched a piece of furniture in our home again.
Kitty slept with me every night. In the winter time he would jump on the bottom of the bed and walk to where my head was, usually buried in my pillow and then stick his nose under the covers lifting them enough with his nose so he could start crawling down to the bottom of the bed where my feet were. He would sleep all night between my feet, some times I would rub his head with a toe and listen to him purr enough to almost make the covers quiver. If I happened to hit is head with my foot when turning over he would complain a bit, but that was his spot on the cool winter nights. You would think it would be difficult to breath down there, never seemed to bother him. In the spring and summer months or any warm night he was at the same spot only this time on top of the covers.
Kitty was always following us guys around. Marvin Voss was my age and lived next door, Billy Rice lived with his Grandma behind our house, Billy was a year younger, a lifetime as far as us kids were concerned but we let him tag along. Billy was just a little kid to Marvin and me. Still he was game for anything and how many games are fun with just two guys?
Marbles was a big part of our life then. A ring was drawn in the dirt and the game would begin. If you could knock another guys marbles out of the ring you got to keep those marbles, this was serious business. A guy was a hot shot if he had more marbles than his buddies. I figured I was pretty darn good at marbles and certainly did not need any help from anyone especially Kitty.
For some reason Kitty was fascinated by our marble games, he always wanted to play, except his rules of gamesmanship were different than ours. He would often jump in and ruin a shot by whacking a marble in play. Time after time I would draw a bead on a favorite aggie of Marvin’s or Billy’s, have my shot all lined up, once the marble left my hand Kitty must have felt it was fair play and he would dive after it. Since he did this mainly when I was the shooter, Marvin and Billy figured it was great, they were all for establishing special rules to penalize me if he interceded in a game. Many is the time, I locked Kitty in my room so he could not play marbles with the gang.
There are several games that Kitty would not enter, cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians that we played with our rubber guns or squirt guns. During those days he would climb up our apricot tree and sit on a limb peeking between the leafs at those nuts hitting each other with rubber bands or squirting each other until we were soaking wet.
One day Marvin saw Kitty on the limb and shot him in the face with his squirt gun. The look he got, kitty climbed higher in the tree shaking himself, mad as a hornet. It took Marvin almost two months to make up. Kitty would not come near him, Marvin had to patiently sit and talk to him and offer treats. Marvin said he could not believe that a cat could hold a grudge that long. Marvin, Billy nor I never again transgressed on Kitty’s dignity, it just was not done.
Kitty’s domain was our house, our back yard and Marvin’s back yard he would seldom come to the front of the store or too near the street as customers entering and leaving were all strangers to him and therefore suspect. 24th street was also a ‘street car’ street. When the noisy old street car came rumbling down the street on those steel tracks every twenty minutes you could hardly hear yourself think. Kitty was used to the street car noise but decided that he would give it a lot of leeway anyway, with the street car and the store customer traffic – he decided he would rather watch than take part in all the activity.
He loved to sit and doze in the shade of the front porch of our house, which was the driveway side and driveway back entrance to our store. He would often peek out around the corner of the back of the store, keeping track of us guys sitting on Marvin’s front porch next door and watching the goings on. If he was disturbed by anything he would fly down the driveway and climb the apricot tree for safety. Where he got in trouble one day is doing more dozing than watching.
There was a dog in the neighbor, a big, I said, very big dog. I have no idea what his real name was, we used to call him ‘Spike’ because he wore a heavy leather collar with tiny spikes sticking out. A wild guess is that Spike was somewhere around eighty or ninety pounds, a mixed breed still he was a beautiful animal with thick black fur that made him look even bigger, he walked down middle of the sidewalk as if he owned the world. He lived almost two blocks up the street and his owner let him out each afternoon for a constitutional, he would walk down our side of the street acting like he was lord of the manor. If you wanted to pet him you had to go to him, calling him to you was not something he would consent to do, if called he may stop for a few minutes to accept your adoration. Cater to a bunch of little kids, no way Spike would do that, it was too far beneath his dignity.
Sometime Spike would glance over, see Kitty and growl, a couple of times he half heartily tried to chase Kitty, but Kitty was to fast and alert for him. Spike was just showing off, who was boss.
One day the situation became deadly. I have no idea what Kitty was doing – it sure was not paying attention to Spike. Maybe he had overdone the eating, a few too many snacks in the last few hours and became drowsy and not as alert as usual.
Marvin, Billy and I were sitting on the front porch of his house trying to think up what we should play next when we saw Spike stop and head for Kitty’s sleeping spot behind the store. Spike was not fooling around this time by the time Kitty was alerted to the situation Spike was almost on him. Off they went down the driveway and around the back. Spike was so close Kitty had no chance to make it to the apricot tree so he just kept running around the house and down the side with the store kitchen.
Marvin had seen what was going on first and yelled, “Spike is gonna kill Kitty!” When we all took in what was happening we started running after them. We were in hot pursuit, screaming at Spike to stop. It must have been quite a sight. A gray streak of a cat in the lead, a huge black dog just a few feet behind and far back three kids screaming at the top of their lungs trying to stop what we figured was the death of our buddy. I really figure this was the end for Kitty. Scared, I was as scared as a kid could get.
It was obvious that Kitty was tiring the second time they circled the house and store, it was also obvious the long distance track was not something that Kitty was good at. Spike on the other hand must have figured he had it made, the few feet that Kitty had at the start seemed to be only inches now. With Spikes big mouth, one bite and that would be the end of Kitty.
I figured it was over when we turned down the store kitchen side of the house, I almost didn’t want to look figuring it would be just too horrible. What we saw was a different situation entirely. Kitty had stopped and turned, what we saw was a warrior, eighteen pounds of high arched back, spitting fury, a very ‘pissed’ off cat to say the least. Kitty had had enough of this crap, fun is fun but if you want a fight you are gonna get it. Now our friend Spike may have been big, he may have figured he was a stud but he sure as heck was not stupid. He came to a screeching halt. This was not the way it was supposed to work out. Kitty jumped three feet in the air leaping over Spike’s head and landing on his back with his head near Spike’s tail. Kitty was tearing away at Spikes back, the fur was flying all over the place. Spike turned and headed back around the house and down the driveway then cut across Marvin’s lawn and headed down the street for home. Kitty was still on his back tearing fur out until they were almost to the corner of the block about eight houses down the street where he jumped off.
In seconds Spike was just a tiny dot far away and still running for his life. Kitty was slowly marching home, the fur on his back was still a little ruffled, you could tell that he was still highly upset that this event had to disturb his day. Did he get a hero’s welcome? When he finally consented to be picked up I carried him into the store and told Mom all about it, she said she heard some rumpus but was waiting on customers so she couldn’t check it out.
Kitty got a good going over, he seemed to be fine, he had some blood on his paws and claws but it didn’t look like it was his. After his check up Mom decided that a snack of liver pate’ was in order, Kitty fully agreed.
There were black dog hair clumps all over the yard and front yards of houses down the street. For kicks we decided to try and find all we could, we found enough to almost fill a one pound coffee can if you didn’t pound it down too hard. Kitty had done a lot of rearranging of Spike’s fur. We were thinking of creating a medal but never got around to it. I was awful proud of Kitty and probably made a pest of myself telling Dad, all my aunts and uncles and cousins about his feat of heroism. Hey, don’t knock it, eighteen pounds against a ninety pound dog and winning – that is a lot of fighting cat. Of course Kitty accepted all the adoration as his due.
Funny after that battle Kitty would often come to the edge of the store when we were at Marvin’s the better to keep his eye on us and watch the activity of customers entering the store. Seemed like it would be a farther run to the safety of the apricot tree but Kitty seemed to feel secure so why worry?
Days later we were again sitting on Marvin’s porch and we saw Spike coming down our side of the block, his tail tall, lord of the world just like always. We were concerned, but we could see that Kitty wasn’t going to move, he just sat where he was with his eye glued on Spike.
Spike was two houses down when he spotted Kitty. His tail dropped, he slowly casually walked across the street and continued his walk on the other side of the street with his eyes glued on Kitty every step until he was safely down the street. We saw Spike daily but never again did he walk in front of Marvin’s house or our store. Never did he dare to make an offensive move to attack Kitty, never did he growl or bark at Kitty, it was clear that Spike acknowledged who was boss of the neighborhood.
As far as we can figure Kitty lived for about eighteen years. He was still alive and well when Sally and I married and left the family. He knew all my friends from childhood on through high school and my army tour of duty. Eventually Dad, Mom and Grandma moved to the San Fernando Valley where Grandma Marie and he passed away of old age, Grandma in her late eighties and Kitty well over eighteen years of age.
I guess I could do this entire book just about Kitty. One of his favorite spots inside the house was the top of Grandma Marie’s birdcage. She had seven or eight canaries in a large square wire cage. The birdcage was in front of her window looking out the back with the apricot tree a few feet outside. Grandma put a pillow on the top of the cage and kitty spent many hours sleeping away with the canaries singing under him. Never did he, in any way, attempt to intimate them or harm them. Kitty knew they were family too – live and let live was his motto.
He did have one bad habit – actually Dad got a big kick out of it. Whenever Kitty caught a mouse he would bring it to show one of us. Eat it? Are you kidding I will bet the idea never crossed his mind, catching a mouse was fun, his job, so he had to show at least one of us in the family that he was working. Usually it was my job to pick up the dead mouse with a piece of toilet paper and flush it down the toilet, not my idea of fun.
It was about sixty-six years ago Kitty fought his heroic battle with Spike – I remember it so vividly as if it was yesterday. Kitty’s picture is in our family photo albums, it is hard to turn the pages of those albums without thinking about him and all that are gone now – without a tear or two. So much love in a bundle of fur, devotion to his family, can you ask for anymore of your family pet? Kitty was family such a big part of my youth, he taught me so much. He taught me that animals have feelings, they can love, that they can fight for what is right if they have to, he gave love and was loved. Kitty will be in my memories forever.
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