Part-3
Meanwhile, back @ the Ranch.......
Well my Dad taught me to read @ 4. He had odd jobs to help the family income, my mom worked at Olin,(then Ecusta-now is back to Ecusta again.) She worked in endless belt division making woven/sewed tough braided nylon belts for industry. Often she would come home with a needle hole(s) in a through a finger or two.
When I was 18 months old my Dad was working as a dispatcher for the Fire Dept. You had to climb it seemed like 50-75 steps to get up to the dispatchers office above the Main Fire Department. One night he kept hearing "ploop,ploop,ploop,ploop,..... then again ploop,ploop,ploop,ploop,ploop,ploop,.... and so on.
What he found was a black & charcoal gray & white tiger stripe tom kitten trying to climb those steps as earnestly as it could. It would get to almost the last step and give out from fatigue and fall all the way down to just keep starting over & over ....determined to reach the top.
He could not be away from the dispatch mike but for a few seconds, and quickly scooped up the kitten and put it in a box near his desk in the upstairs office and feed it some of his supper. Having almost been an MD he knew what to do to neuter the male kitten before bringing it home. Then accidentally caught the last vertebra of it's tail in the car door @ home trying to keep the surprise that evening. (It healed without incident or crookedness.)
It would be nearly eleven PM-midnight before he would get home. That was too rough on him, he was late 60's-early 70's by now. Mama would get me up in time to run to the kitchen and greet him as he came home. I called the cat "Atomic" because he had so much energy. But in time it shortened to "Tom".
Talk about a one person cat and a one cat kid, we were the "terrible two's" for sure what one didn't get into the other did . He helped me with my cereal & milk every morning from under the tablecloth or in my lap. He had a purr box a chainsaw would envy & claws to match . We played hide and seek, he would wait out of sight till I would finish counting and then try to find me & if he couldn’t I would start giggling soon and give it all away. Or if when it was my turn & he was hid too good he would purr and purr louder and louder till I found him.
The back porch was a tin roof and screened with a non fruiting grape species with a very large leaf, screening half of it for shade . A good sized couch covered with a deep pile carriage blanket with a rich dark background and flower-like diagonal design in strong warm reds and golds. Just above the back of the couch was mom’s bedroom window. They ran the length of one wall. I had a cot @ one end of the room. I had to sleep with a brace on my left leg down to the foot. Was very hard on sheets. It was fun to pull the window up just enough for Tom to slip in streak to my bed and scurry under the covers to sleep at my feet . How he breathed I don’t know & those shoes I had to wear - well one tough kitty. Almost always we got caught & I got in trouble & he got put back out.
My mom’s bed had an underside liner on it & when things got too hot to handle Tom would race through the house & dive under that big four poster & up through the torn liner & “spring city again.” .
There he would sing & play till my sister would start poking with the broom or worse yet start jumping on the bed . Tom hated earthquakes so out he could come squawling and carrying on then off he would run. I could hold him all I wanted , but nobody else for too long.
(Well sorry Gerry ...it’s payday gotta run for now. Going to the bank is a pain with the traffic & clunky car but the money is sorta nice sometimes . I just sign it & she puts it where my pen don’t write.) Her checking account - heh heh.
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Edward F. Sutton
[This message has been edited by Edward F. Sutton (edited September 22, 2000).]