My journalism journey part 6
My journalism journey part 6
Montana was glorious; living at 4,300 feet took awhile for my body to adjust. Anaconda was in a valley and every time a cloud came over, we got a little rain or snow, depending on the season. I loved the scenery. But I was a little lonely at first. The dog, Sox, ran away and so my editor's wife, Margie Mundstock, offered me one of their kittens. She had two momma cats living outdoors that each had a litter of eight kittens. My editor was frustrated with the kittens digging in his garden and threatened to take them to the creek (which he pronounced "crick") and drown. So to save the poor creature, I offered to take a pair. I had never like cats; my dad didn't like cats and the only cat I ever knew was my friend Libby Rich's cat Midnight, who nipped at me once (I'm sure I deserved it, in hindsight).
One afternoon, I went over to play with the kittens and pick out a pair. The poor babies were a bit shy. There was a little girl next door who liked to take the kittens up on the deck and drop them to see if they'd land on their feet. Years later, when I was taking photos of a girls' basketball game, I met her. She asked me to take her photo. I told her I didn't take photos of children who terrorized kittens. She said she didn't like cats; I said I didn't like children who were mean to animals and wouldn't take her photo. So there!
I settled on a pair of male kittens. One was a gray tabby with green eyes that I named Kittle after my favorite Chicago White Sox player at the time, Ron Kittle. The other was a gray tabby with a white chest and green eyes that I named Carlton, after the White Sox catcher, Carlton Fisk. Both were playful and frisky and I thought would be a good pair to take home. Margie said to come back in a week and the kittens would be ready to take home.
So I came back in about a week one afternoon; no one was home. So I played with the kittens in the yard. Carlton didn't want to come to me. Kittle did, as did a little shy black kitten whose fur was tinged with a reddish hue. I played with a piece of grass with him. He was friendly; I called him Cinnamon because of his coloring. He also had fangs hanging out of his mouth. I decided I was going to take him instead.
When I saw Margie again in the office, I told her of my decision. She said she had taken some of the kittens to the vet to be euthanized. She wasn't sure if the black kitten was in the batch. When I came to take the kittens, we couldn't find Cinnamon, but finally caught him and Kittle. I took the kittens home and they immediately hid. When Cinnamon came out, he clung to my neck and purred. Kittle played a while, then came on my lap and stole my pen while I was interviewing someone. Kittle was a character and never shy. He was always in trouble.
Cinnamon was a little shy. I could tell he had been terrorized by the little girl next door. When I picked him up, he was afraid I was going to throw him down. But he and Kittle came into my bed immediately. And I started sneezing and coughing. I thought for sure I was allergic. So I got tested. Turns out I wasn't allergic to cats but to dogs. Go figure. I lived with a dog most of my life (we had a dog named Lady Louise II, then my sister had Lady III), but I was allergic to them, not to the cats I had just adopted. I just had a bunch of other allergies to the rest of the world: trees, molds, pollens, grasses, etc. But the cats, they were OK.
The two little guys settled into my life and curled up in my heart. I didn't know how to react to them, but I quickly learned. You didn't hit cats; you lightly tapped them on their nose to discipline them, as their mom would. The kittens taught me a lot, too, just about how to handle them.
As they grew up, they delighted me with their antics. One day, I came home for lunch and was greeted at the door by Cinnamon, who had a little package in his mouth from a rattan sleigh. The two kittens had picked apart everything in the Christmas decoration and were playing with the packages in the clawfoot bathtub. I was angry but I had to laugh. He was so cute.
One day, Cinnamon wasn't eating or drinking. He was lethargic. I didn't know what was going on. I took him to the vet, who thought he either had feline leukemia, kidney disease or a blockage. As the cat lay on the steel exam table, looking scared and skinny, I said, "Doctor you have to save him, I love him." Cinnamon looked up at me with his big green eyes as if to say, "I didn't know that!"
It turned out he had swallowed a metal bracket from my stereo stand (no wonder it didn't stand straight; he had taken it off). On the X-ray, the piece looked like an "M". Wally said, "Don't you know, we brand all our cats with an 'M'?"
Dr. Dave, the vet, lived next door to me, it turns out, and after removing the piece, came over and told me Cinnamon was fine but asked if he could keep the bracket for his collection. When Cinnamon came home a couple days later, his tummy bare and stitches in the middle, he was a different cat. He wasn't afraid of me anymore. He jumped into my arms when I came home at night. He curled up next to me in bed and put his paws around my neck and purred.
He knew I loved him and I would never hurt him. And somehow, I had learned to love a cat; well, two.
Over the years, I would be owned by other cats: Bootsie (known as the ***** for her attitude), Bonnie, a Siamese; Maggie, a white kitten who was given to me by a couple I interviewed for a story (the kitten climbed on my camera bag and started licking my fingers); Scooter, who came into my life after Kittle died; Diva and Nettie, who came into my life after Cinnamon died; and now Juliette, who was adopted in Louisiana after Scooter died. They all hold a place in my heart and came along the road in my life.
