OK, OK, I know, I know. Any readers with a short term memory superior to my own (just about everybody) will recall that I said last Tuesday that today I'd catch up on condolences, kudos and community interests. Please forgive my change of heart, but over this past week I decided that something a bit lighter was needed two days before Christmas and during the Hanukkah holiday season.
With this space allowed me each week, I try to spotlight events in local history, or reveal some of the thousands of the bizarre, head-scratching little film clips (occasionally running to feature-length films) which have permeated my life and left me with these thoughts: "Did I really see that?" and "Do these things happen only to me?"
My first pet cat, a calico I named Ginger, was killed by a car early one evening while crossing Emory Street. I was so disconsolate that my mother allowed one of my pals to give me a newly-weaned tiny all-white Persian female kitten which, creative juices flowing madly, I named Snowball. Maybe living in the neighborhood from birth conferred more "street smarts" on her, but she lived a good amount of years, allowing me the opportunity to gift a couple of litters worth of kittens on my own friends and neighbors.
Snowball always ate her meals from an old aluminum chicken pot pie dish placed on the back porch, and no matter where that cat was, when we rapped the aluminum pan on the banister rail, she'd come running. A long chain-link fence surrounded London's parking lot, dividing it from our backyard on the way. One afternoon, I idly peered through the glass of our back door as Snowball ate her dinner. I tensed as I caught sight of a large stray German shepherd approach our yard sniffing the grass along the fence bottom as it came. My cat spotted the intruder immediately, and hunkered herself down flat on the boards; her eyes never left him as he made an inspection of our yard. He soon came to the foundation of our house and hooked a left, inching ever closer to the porch. Aware of what was coming, I cracked a grin. As the big dog was passing the porch, Snowball went into her "rear-end shake act," so well-known to cat owners everywhere.
At precisely the right strategic moment, Snowball launched! I had no way of knowing the eventual outcome, but I did know if the shepherd pinned her to the ground, I had better move quickly or I'd have another furry friend to inter.
The cat landed perfectly on the dog's back, the claws of all four paws sunk deeply into his flesh. The poor mutt must have thought an avenging demon fell from the sky! With a terrified yowl of surprised pain, away he tore back the way he'd come through the two backyards next to ours with Snowball up, looking for all the world every bit as good a jockey as Willie Shoemaker or Eddie Arcaro as the dog raced left on Morey Street, then right on Holman Street, loudly yelping and howling all the way.
A few minutes later, here came the victorious Snowball, nose and tail held straight into the air, prancing straight up the very center of Holman Street and did the same on Morey, returning to her own well-defended yard, and up the porch stairs where I held the door open for my deserving "badass little feline friend."
Snowball fun fact: Though we never saw another all-white cat anywhere in the vicinity of our neighborhood, Snowball's last litter was made up of three completely white newborn kittens - one with brown eyes, one with blue eyes and one having one blue eye and one brown eye.
Fantastic feline fable #2
It's the early '80s and I'm sitting on the front porch reading the paper. The birth of our youngest, Katie Lyn, was still a few more years down the road, but her three siblings were all of school age, and on this day they approached, all talking at once as usual. When finally I quieted the trio, I saw little Margaret Erin step from behind Danny and Coley with a raggedy looking gray and white cat cradled in her arms. See, the boys were cagey. They knew I could never say no to my baby girl, so they elected her to make the approach, pleading with me to let them keep this poor little cat, which belonged to their friend Nathan, but Nathan's family was moving to a new house that didn't allow pets, so this poor cat has no home and we're afraid he'll die, so can we keep it, Daddy, can we please keep it, puh-leeeze?
Within 10 days of his adoption, the cat returned from his wanderings one day looking as though he'd had it out with a wolverine. One ear half torn, face raked and bloody, dried blood in spots everywhere. I mean this cat looked like me on a Saturday morning back in my pub-crawling days.
I could see the only responsible action was to bring the animal to the vet. Before bringing it, I carefully attempted to sponge off the dried blood with warm water. Of course, for my trouble, I had my forearms and hands ripped and bitten. Muttering vile curses, I could hear the kids taking their hiding places as I placed the cat in a box and left the house (I believe it was about this time that the newcomer began to be referred to as "the damned cat".) Well, the vet told me the damned cat would need some work (the man's strong point was as a diagnostician) so I drove home. Ever the responsible pet owner I called daily on the damned cat's condition, but each successive day, I was told he was being given antibiotics, being observed and monitored, but was otherwise "resting comfortably."
My concern for the damned cat was gradually replaced by my concern about being summoned into civil court for inability to pay a veterinarian's bill, so after five days of "R&R," I figured the damned cat could be monitored and rest comfortably at home, so I drove to the vet's office, paid several hundred dollars down payment on the balance, and placed the animal back in the box for the ride home.
Upon opening the door, I saw it was pelting rain and my car windows were down (of course) so I sprinted to my car, reached into the near side passenger window and placed the box on the seat and quickly circled to the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition to start the car and put the windows up. It was about then that a heretofore unnoticed sleeping Rottweiler in the next car woke up, apparently in a foul mood, caught the smell of feline through his partially opened window and began barking like he was on the heels of Cool Hand Luke. As I swiveled my eyes toward him, the damned cat popped up from the box like an old Jack-in-the-Box, leapt through the window and took to running. My car was in a line of about 40 or 50 other cars, and you just know the damned cat stopped and hid under every one, only moving to another whenever I laid down in a puddle to reach him crouched underneath, as the hound continued baying.
Hey, hold it a minute! Come to think of it, this really isn't light reading at all. Now I remember how this story ends, and it's really not very happy at all.
Oh, never mind, just have a memorable and wonderful holiday season whatever your faith, and let's hit 2015 running. Peace.
Thomas McAvoy looks back at the past each Tuesday. Contact him at [email protected].