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.