Love this blog written about our family’s cats. I’ll be back with a new blog on Tuesday.

My mother strongly disliked cats. Actually I really think she hated them, when in all actuality, she was afraid of them. As a child crawling up the back porch steps, a pair of cats, fighting and growling, fell down the steps and scratched her on the face. This terrified her! In her baby book there is a photo of her sitting in a little black cat chair. Guess that was before she was traumatized by the fighting cats!

When I moved to Alexander City my next door neighbor had a big cat. I would catch mama sweeping the walk by my apartment door but quickly realized she was trying to sweep the cat away by scaring it with the broom.

We never could have a kitten, when we were children, but always had several hunting dogs lounging around on the porch. Early in our marriage Chief and I were at Awbrey’s in Roanoke shopping for garden seeds, when I noticed a pretty little black and white kitten wandering around the store. I commented on how pretty the kitty was. Pat said, “That’s Jack. It’s a boy cat. Y’all can have him if you want him.” I wanted him and Chief had grown up with house cats so I happily brought “Jack” back to Alexander City.

Of course Jack fattened up and we soon realized that Jack was a Jackie! From that one little cat we soon had a small cat herd of 22 wild yard cats! Funny thing, my brother is a veterinarian and could have easily fixed that problem!

The cats loved no one but Chief. When he sat outside by himself, they would gather around him. One or two of them would eventually trust him enough to hop up in his lap. They hated me and would run in all directions, kicking up a dust cloud, whenever I came outside. When mama visited, she’d sweep the steps one time and the cats stayed away till she left. Chief would feed them at night in aluminum pie pans. When that Special Kitty cat food hit those pans it would wake the dead!

As our children came into our lives, they would usually find a kitty and claim it for their own. Stewart carried a little notebook around and kept notes on the different ones. He named them and studied them. His favorite one was a big yellow male tabby he called Boosie. Boosie was so sweet. Stew would walk around with Boosie draped around his shoulders like a shawl.

One winter morning I cranked the car and we heard a cat screaming. I quickly turned off the car and Chief raised the hood. Poor little cat was battered and cut. We thought it was dead. Chief put it in a sand bucket and told the children we’d bury it that afternoon. I felt guilty all day for not slapping the hood of the car before I cranked the car that morning.

Y’all the kitten was not in the bucket when we came home. Chief thought maybe some animal got it. Low and behold that kitten walked back into the yard days later. Yikes! Looked like a Frankenstein cat. One eye was higher than the other and it’s tail was crooked. It only had one ear that stood up. Years later this cat got locked in my Cutlass and paid me back by clawing all the upholstery off the doors trying to get out. My mama paid to get it fixed.

Well, we left the woods, and moved into Tom’s childhood home when his mother moved into her guest house. Boosie and a few of the cat herd followed us over the hill. The rest, tired of the forest food choices, slowly made their way to our new home, hungry for Special Kitty in a tin pie plate.

Through the years we had lots of litters of kitties usually grey or black. Occasionally a yellow Boosie would be born. Stew would name the yellow ones Boosie #2, and Boosie #3.

So it’s time for my mother to visit. We loved sitting outside on the porch. She calls and says, “I just can’t enjoy visiting y’all with all those cats and kittens. You have to do something with them!” Guess she was not in the broom sweeping mood for this visit.

So as a loving daughter, I decide to pack up all the little kittens and take them to the Humane Shelter. Course, I do this cowardly while the children are at school. After school when Stew is wandering around the yard looking for Boosie #3, I shamefully tell him he’s probably hunting chipmunks in the woods. Mama visits for the weekend. The grown cats remember Gran Nana’s broom so they stay off the porch. Stew is distracted by Mama’s visit and momentarily forgets about Boosie.

A few days later, I send Stew to the mailbox to get the day’s mail. Bad idea! Boosie #3 is pictured on the front page of the newspaper in an article about the Humane Shelter! He comes up to the porch just crying his little heart out, pointing to the photo and saying, “That’s my Boosie!” I thought, “Lane, you should be ashamed!” Then I lie again to my youngest child and try to convince him that it’s not Boosie. He drops the paper in the swing by me and says, “Bad, Mama!”

That child, now 32 years old, will occasionally laugh and say, “Bad mama!” I know that’s the truth!