CAT TALES II (Paladin)

Again, no pictures yet.   If memory serves, no photos were taken of Din.  He was a gift from my future wife in my sophomore year at the University of Kansas.  A black kitten who was barely weaned managed to catch his first mouse within days of moving into our apartment.  His official name was Paladin.  I'm sure we were influenced by the television show.  My room mates called him Din, which they told me was Hindi for day.

I was rooming with the Kothari brothers, Vinai and Lalit.  They introduced me to the Indian community on campus and talked me into playing cricket with their team.  I was a lousy fielder.  But the parties they threw showed me more of our Din's personality.  He was playful and a woman's swaying dress was just the toy for him.  We found this out when one of our friends was practicing a dance for the International Festival.  She was moving rhythmically in her sari when Din attacked the floating cloth, climbing and swatting.  He was above her knees before we managed to extricate him from her... carefully so as not to rip the beautiful sari.

After the games, we would adjourn to the apartment and party.  Usually, this would consist of replaying the game and drinking a few beers.  Really just a few since we were poor college students and could not afford to get drunk.  That night, we had some dance music on the record player (younger readers may want to Google this term).  In order to avoid another dress battle, I pushed Din into the cabinet above Lalit's bed and set his food and water in with him.

Dancing progressed nicely until I danced too many dances with one of the other team's girls.  The combined vigilante force picked me up and tossed me into the yard.  As I was sheepishly re-entering the party, we heard a crash and scream from Lalit's room.  The mass of us managed to jam the door to see the other team captain in bed with his girl.  Both were stripped to the waist and wearing cat food and the contents of Din's water dish.  Din was parading up and down the bed, offering to fight them both, singly or as a couple.  The captain was cursing in what I suspect was fluent Urdu and the girl had managed to cover herself.  Party was over.

At Christmas that year, my parents sprang for an airline ticket home.  The Kothari brothers had an invitation in Kansas City so no one would be there to care for Din.  I packed and stuffed him into a gym bag for the flight.  How could I know that the little, black demon had worked out the zipper.  When the flight landed Lambert Field, I grabbed my gym bag and discovered it was empty.  Searching the plane for a little black tail caused me to be the last one off.  At the door, a stewardess was cuddling Din.  She glared at me and said, "I believe this belongs to you."  I stuffed the monster back in the gym bag and scurried off the plane.

From the moment he entered the house, Din was master.  We entered through the kitchen and I set my baggage, including he fateful gym bag down.  Our dog was Sean, a wonderful cross between an Alsatian and a collie, sweet, friendly, shaggy and a fearless protector.  He bounced up and greeted me enthusiastically, then discovered the gym bag.  He sniffed, tail wagging and almost danced as he realized there was another creature in there.  As we watched, Din's little paw wormed out of the end of the zipper.  It groped around, then zipped an opening about two inches wide and disappeared.  Sean was ecstatic, bouncing, tail wagging and panting.  Din's little head poked out and he surveyed the new room (probably the cleanest he had ever seen).  He wormed his way out of the bag and observed Sean's behavior with distant impartiality.  Sean danced up, tail still wagging to touch noses with the kitten.   Din permitted this familiarity for a few seconds.  Then he swiped Sean's nose with a tiny paw full of claws.  Sean jumped backward with a startled 'yipe'.

It was at home I discovered that Din was a bit sadistic.  He would walk calmly under Sean, allowing his tail to tickle the big dog's belly.  When he was under Sean's chin, Din would hiss and watch Sean as he jumped with an alarmed 'yipe.'  My brother had a hamster.  Din would lie on top of the hamster cage and the poor rodent would see this huge (for him or her I never knew) threatening cloud of feline menace.  The hamster would jump on its (there that settles the sex thing) wheel and run.  My parents told me that they could hear the wheel squeak all night long.   Most mornings, we would find the hamster lying exhausted in his wheel.  Mom did say that hamster bit cat's tail when he let it fall within reach.  Rodent's revenge.

Alas, Din did not live long.  He contracted feline distemper the next year and died.  His memory makes me keep my pet's inoculations up to date.

Cat tales I

No pictures in this one.  
It is the story of our first family cat, Sandy.  I think my recollections are from 1948 or 49.   It was while I was growing up in St. Louis County.  We had left our apartment on Amherst Avenue for the new house on Dielman Road.

I don't know where Sandy came from.  He was a fine, ginger tom.  He must have been one of the more patient of his breed as I remember him suffering multiple burials in dry leaves while I practiced what I thought was the service for the dead.  He would lie still while I piled leaves on top of him and began intoning (as well as a six year old could intone) prayers in some kiddish language, then leap from the grave while I was halfway through.  One day, he came back for three partial services before heading for parts unknown until feeding time.

My sister was in diapers at the time.  Her rough handling, he would not permit.  Dad has a movie of her chasing him across the patio.  Sandy kept just out of reach.

If memory serves, that green patio surface, which stained my sister's belly and diaper was the result of one of his inventions.  I think he convinced the masons to add a green pigment to the concrete mix.  In any case, we had a green surfaced patio out of doors.  The problem was that after a few years, the surface began to powder since it had not been sealed.  We would come into the house with green feet, or in my sister's case, a green stomach.

Sandy was mostly an outdoor cat.  There were plenty of dogs in the neighborhood.  Almost every family had at least one, but Sandy was able to either keep them at bay with claws and snarls or zip up one of the many trees around.  Many of the lots nearby were undeveloped.  My neighborhood friend Don went hunting with his bow in them.  There was also a fine flood control ditch we called "the creek" and fished its ponds.

I'm not sure when Sandy disappeared.  We never found his body.  It may have been he found a house whose cooking was more to his taste.

The memory of that great yellow feline remains.