My family moved from a rented home in my hometown to an acre lot on a lake a few miles away when I was three years old. The house had a nice view of the lake. It also came with four cats.
Several of the cats were known to the lake neighbors. One of them would sit on the dock when my grandpa would come over to fish, and the locals knew they could toss a sunfish or crappie onto our dock, where the cat would gleefully catch and eat it. I don't remember much about them because I was so young, but then I don't remember a lot about the black lab we had from when I was three to six, either.
Most of the cats we had when I was growing up were outdoor cats. They were free to roam about when we were at work or school, and lived a pretty contented life. Sometimes we would come home to find dead squirrels or birds that they either left us as gifts, or they had caught and had become tired of playing with after a while.
One summer day when I was 10 years old, my dad asked me to turn off the Saturday morning cartoons and help him find where our mother cat had hid her new kittens. He could hear them outside, but couldn't see them. We quickly found that she had hidden them in the rafters of the garage, because she wanted to put them in a safe place. We were concerned, because that garage was awfully hot in August, and because the mother cat had no back teeth, and my parents were worried that she'd drop them at some point. It wasn't unusual for our female cats to hide their kittens in the garage or in the various woodpiles my dad had at the top of the hill to protect them from predators.
One of our most famous (or infamous) mother cats was known as "Schwarz," which is German for the color black. This black cat became part of our family one cold February day. We were going to church, when we noticed something underneath one of the cars in the garage. We had kept one of the overhead garage doors open a bit for the other cats we had at the time to come and go as they pleased, so that's how this new cat got in to the garage. We were soon able to coax this new cat out from under the car, and found that it had its tail, mouth and arms duct taped, probably by a particularly cruel neighbor farm kid. My brother and I held the cat securely as Dad calmly cut the duct tape off. It ran away for a while, but later came back. My mom was so disgusted by the act that she wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper, where Schwarz became known as the "duct tape kitty."
Most of the cats we had were rather adventurous. They weren't afraid to carefully sneak up on the Canadian geese that would sometimes land on our shoreline, poke their paws at turtles who came by to lay their eggs, chase birds and even woodchucks, follow a cow in the farm neighbor's pasture (and later have to take a bath after standing underneath the cow who had to relieve herself), or try to snag a fish from my Uncle Felix's fish bucket. Felix kept everything he caught, but if I saw one of the cats successfully snag a small fish from his basket with their paws, I wasn't about to say anything. The way I saw it, they earned that catch!
Another favorite cat was affectionately known as "Cheeko," because it was a black and white cat with a black head and white cheeks. It was my brother's favorite cat growing up, and it went missing for several months. It came back one winter day while my brother was waiting for the school bus. He ran into the house to exclaim, "Cheeko's back!" He had to go back outside to catch his bus, but after school he made sure to give Cheeko a cat treat and later watched him paw at the frozen minnows in his minnow bucket that he kept in the basement, as he was saving them for a warmer day to go ice fishing.
We had plenty of other fun cat moments, like the tabby who jumped on the metal barrel I was burning trash in one fall day and singed his whiskers enough to be nicknamed "Pierre;" watching them stalk birds, rodents and garden snakes; take their worm pills only when they were wrapped in a piece of cheese; and chase each other around the lakeshore property. Owning so many cats taught me the importance of caring for other animals and I think it helped me develop the kind nature that I have as an adult. We had a few rabbits, a goldfish and the aforementioned black lab "Oscar," but I think the cats taught me the most of all of our pets about responsibility. I haven't had a pet in many years, but if I do adopt another animal for my townhouse, it'll probably be a cat - someone to keep me company that can fend for himself while I'm at work or out at a concert on a weekend.
Well, that's all for now, just felt the urge to write on a quiet weekend. Got a couple of shows to go to next weekend, so stay tuned. Until then, have a great week, everyone!
