Chapter 31 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

MY DOG WENDY





Every once in awhile I would read the classified’s pet ads. One day I saw the perfect deal for a thoroughbred Springer. For only $35 I could obtain a puppy as the owner was going on vacation. When I went to see the pups, I further understood why I was to get such a good deal--the pups were only four weeks old, and I would have to wean one myself if I were to purchase it now. Otherwise the dam and the pups were to be at the kennel for a month and the price would be proportionately higher.

It took no convincing at all for me to decide to take the only female liver and white female pup before they went on vacation. I figured a female dog may not be the rover as the males dogs tended to be. She was so tiny she felt comfortable being carried in my one hand. Her markings were exactly like the dog in the ad. I left it for the last week with his mother, and went over last minute to get the pup before the people left for vacation and the litter to the kennel. With my new “baby” snuggled on my lap, I drove home.

From the start Wendy did not like the car. It took a lot of cuddling to calm her down for the ride home, but a pup that age had to check in with the vet on almost a weekly basis. It seemed that she needed puppy-shots from what I remember. All dogs seem nervous going to a vet, but Wendy was nervous just being in the car, so every time we went anywhere, I made it into a fun adventure by taking her on side trips after the trauma of visiting the vet.

Mostly we would go to Choconut creek in Vestal which was near Main Street where the vet‘s practice was. I’d park the car near a bridge that crossed the creek and took a footpath down to the water. There Wendy would get her feet wet, although I wouldn’t let her swim until she was older. There were smells she could sample, and always new discoveries. I think the first word she recognized was walk. “Wendy, lets go for a walk! ” I’d say, and scoop her up for her visit to the vet. I began taking her on other rides just so she wouldn’t relate the car ride to getting another puppy shot. For these other expeditions, we usually went to Rock Road, a mile long road that lay in a gorge from it’s eons of gurgling erosion. It had been such a hot dry summer, the creek had almost dried up. She found she could easily cool off in an area near the bridge where the spring run-off had eroded an area in which there was water even during droughts. After a rainstorm the night before, when I said the next two words Wendy learned, “Rock Road,” we went off to that place, and when Wendy did her regular wading, she suddenly found that she was swimming, and loved the feeling. From then on we would look for areas where she could actually swim.

Wendy was a gentle loving and intelligent dog and only embarrassed me once. What is it about manure that fascinates dogs? A neighbor had planted some nice shrubs, giving them a good start by lining the transplanting ditch with manure. Not once, but twice, Wendy went up the street, dug up one of the bushes and brought it back to our lawn to chew on like she’d dug up a bone. However, the replanted bushes survived, and Wendy turned to chasing rabbits for a better sport.

Chapter 29 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

MUFFIN

I really missed having an animal in the house after Kaiser left. Right around the time Alby was born, Marlene and Joe Browne moved up the street. Along with their house they moved into was ownership of the previous occupant’s cat, Muffin. The previous owners had figured that it would be easier on the cat to stay than to adapt to a new home and neighborhood, and Marlene, like me, loved all animals. Problem was, Muffin didn’t like Trixy their miniature Spitz, so she began shopping around the neighborhood for a better home.

At this time I had no idea that other families were also trying to lure him in. Every time he would come to our house I would lavish attention on him, giving him tuna fish or last night’s leftovers. The children all loved him too, so we worked together to convince the cat to live with us, after checking with Marlene. (Later at a neighborhood get together--we women had for a night off once a month to gather at one or another's house to talk to people who were more than three feet high--I learned that Muffin had stopped at all their houses at one time or another, measuring them up, seeing if there were competing pets and such.)

Although Muffin was a sissy name, he was all male cat, and would disappear for days doing his tom-catting, coming back all dirty with his long hair matted. It looked like he did all his fighting under a greasy car or truck. I decided That muffin should be neutered, and called the vet to set up an appointment. The day the operation was to take place, the cat disappeared. I called to cancel the appointment, and set up another. The day of the second appointment, Muffin disappears again. Embarrassed, I called them again. When I apologized, saying that it seemed like Muffin knew what I was going to have done to him, they said that was probably the case. Cats can sense such things. We left it open--that when I was able to catch the cat, I’d take him down to their office. Of course, we weren’t able to corner Muffin until a Friday afternoon. I called them. They wouldn’t be able to neuter him until Monday, but suggested I bring him down that evening, and leave him over the weekend.

These offices have teenagers who work part-time. I once considered such a job, and they showed me a stack of about fifty applications ahead of me. When I brought Muffin in, a handsome teenage boy came to take him back to a cage for the weekend. I was embarrassed again as Muffin looked such a mess. His fur was all clumped up in balls along his abdomen, and there was grease and dirt all along his head and back. “He’s such a mess,” I said.

The boy expertly sized up Muffin’s sloppy condition and said, “Oh, we can clean him up for you… We’ll trim off all this on his abdomen. We have special shavers.”

I must have sounded worried when I okayed his being cleaned up, and said he’s kind of sensitive. He said, “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt him a bit to cut the balls off!”

My jaw dropped and my face turned red. The boy suddenly listened in retrospect to what he had said, also turned red, and quickly said, "...The fur balls! The fur balls!”

Although Muffin became more of a homebody once neutered, there seemed no way we could keep his hair from getting terribly matted. I’d promise myself I’d brush him daily… or at least weekly,… and where did I leave that brush? …and he’d be all matted up again. He didn’t sit still for it either, and more than once I nicked him loosening up a fur mat, so I couldn't blame him for his reluctance to be groomed. At that time I decided I’d never get another animal that would be inclined to have its fur mat up like that. (That was before others in the household decided to get an Old English Sheepdog, but that's a later story within an explanation of my not being a part of the decision... or the household.)

On a snowy morning on New Years Day, I found Muffin hunched and drooling,looking sick, by the back door down stairs. (It seemed ironic how many holidays or Sundays my pets needed emergency treatment.) I called the indulgent Dr. Norris, describing Muffin’s symptoms. He thought the cat must have somehow uncovered and ate a toad, as it seemed like he had been poisoned. But when I brought him down for closer observation, Dr. Norris realized that Muffin’s jaw was broken. He figured he was hit by the snow plow, as cats and dogs will walk where the snow is less deep. He recommended my taking him to Dr. Mendel, a vet who specialized in small animals. [The same place I took him to have him neutered, but didn’t mention that to Norris.]

Dr. Mendel fastidiously wired poor muffin’s jaw with the skill and precision of an orthodontic surgeon. I think I was charged $52. I was afraid my husband would think that too much to spend on just a cat, so I wrote a check for $30, and paid the rest with cash. (At least it wasn’t an operation like the one on a girlfriend from high school days who broke her jaw in an automobile accident, and had to have her jaw wired shut for over a month and was on a liquid diet. And I’m sure the bill may have been a little bit more… ya think?!)

The only side effect Muffin had to his injuries, was a temporary paralysis to his right foreleg. I found that a brace I made from a toilet paper roll worked well, so he could hobble around. Several days later when I removed it to see, ...he was fine.

Muffin lived a long life of about fifteen years. He was always independent like most cats. Wasn’t real friendly, or much of a cuddler. He reined king of the house when we had dogs again, and learned to stand off any strange dog that tried attacking him. Like cat’s do when they are scared, he’d hiss and his long hair would stand on end so he appeared twice as large, and then he’d stare that dog down… even the most vicious would back off. I never saw him run from another animal.

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Chapter 30 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

PRINCESS

Although we had our cat, I missed having a dog around. I wanted to wait until Alby was a toddler before I got another puppy…it would be just to much: A baby, two preschoolers, and a puppy. So, Princess visited me. She was a shepherd mix that was mostly collie, and had that kind disposition… a dog belonging to neighbors up the street. Princess was a good name for her gentle nature. She’d accompany me if I took a walk, but I’d let her in for a snack, and eventually she’d fall asleep under the kitchen table. Many a day the owner, Sharon, would call me to ask if Princess was there. She was like a piece of furniture… I just took her for granted and had to look to see if she indeed was there.

I began to realize that I would have to get myself another dog. Borrowing a neighbor’s just didn’t cut it. I began looking for the perfect type… no more Weimaraners!

In a magazine there was an ad for some kind of pet vitamins. A woman was holding my next dog: An English Springer Spaniel--liver and white. I cut out the ad, and put it on the refrigerator. She was my dream dog, and eventually I knew one, just like the picture, would be mine.

Chapter 28 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

SKITTERY

Skittery was a gentle guinea pig I got for the children [?]. Again, I think I enjoyed the little pets I bought for the children as much as they did, and having to clean up their cages, I paid them much more attention. I realized he would not escape from an area like a table top because of the drop, so I built him a little plywood yard with a simulated fence around it and a wooden plywood barn, complete with gambrel roof and painted the roof green, and the barn red. A generous supply of cedar chips absorbed his waste, but also fell to the floor around the area… So, I was therefore more embarrassed than complimented when a friend would drop in and comment about the cute set-up. Looking back, it must have struck anyone who saw it as clever. I was just too insecure at the time to appreciate my own creative talents… or any talents that had nothing to do with housewifery.

Guinea pigs don’t need much exercise and are easy pets to keep, unlike hamsters which are always acting like they’d like to escape. But I liked taking Skittery out on excursions. He loved grass, and, unlike celery, it was free. But when I’d feed Skittery celery, he was like a cute bean-making machine. The celery would slowly be chewed through one end--like feeding a branch through a wood-chipper--and his beans would come neatly out the other end.

The shrubs we had put in when we moved in and hired a landscaper, gave Skittery shade and shelter from being seen by a passing dog or wild animal. I learned that he would not go out to the open lawn, so on nice days I’d just place him under these bushes to skitter around, mowing the grass along the edge of his sheltering evergreens. Later I’d look for him, finding him easily, and put him back in his barnyard. After awhile he began getting a little wild and difficult to catch. They can run pretty fast when they want to. I almost decided not to let him roam under the bushes any longer. But I thought it was easier to let him have a little freedom than to be constantly vacuuming up the cedar chips that fell around his barnyard set-up… And, his incessant squeaking made it clear he was asking to go outside again.

One day I could not locate him anywhere, and had to leave him out overnight. The next day I found him, but could no longer catch him. He knew enough to go under the area where the prickly junipers were too thick to reach him. If I tried wriggling on my belly, he’d run away by the time I got near. I simply left out his guinea-pig pellets, and water, and kept trying to catch him, but on the third day he was gone.

I figured an owl or a dog caught him. But, months later, when talking to a neighbor over a cup of coffee, she told me about this odd earless rabbit she saw in the woods one day, not a squirrel, as it had no tail and was grey and white. She hadn’t realized it was my guinea pig, as she didn’t know “the kids” had a guinea pig, nor that someone would have a guinea pig running free outside. I began to wonder what would have happened to him out in the wild. If he even made it until winter, the cold weather would have killed him. Why couldn’t I learn that if I give an animal too much freedom it would revert back to being wild--even a mild-mannered guinea pig.

Chapter 27 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

KAISER
We found the perfect home in Vestal, on a dead end street in a small development with similar houses, most containing a family with some children around August’s and Joanna’s age. We had a wonderful view of the valley that runs south along Route 26. Once good and settled into our new home, we thought of getting another dog for our family and started looking at ads.

Kaiser was AKC registered pup of good quality and references. He was a good looking dog, and seemed very intelligent, and eventually found he was genius at Houdini like skills. Since the Weimaraner was developed to be a good family dog, that part of his character translated to “needing to never be left alone no matter what!”

We discovered this trait when he was four months old and was left at home one summer’s day when it would have been to hot in the car. The screened windows were left opened, but the doors closed and locked. When we got home, he greeted us on the driveway so glad to see us. We were more than puzzled as to how he got out, and went into the back yard finding a screen bent beyond repair, looked up and saw it was from the second story window. We hadn’t even a back lawn to have cushioned his fall. He seemed to be OK, but we took him to be checked over by the vet, and Dr. Norris agreed, but told us to keep him quiet in case he had strained some muscles. That was to be his first of many escapes, and attempted escapes in a Houdini-like life.

Dogs are very observant, and Kaiser applied his observations for how to also get back into the house. The children had learned how to ring the bell to be let in if they had trouble with the front door. The dog was their constant companion outside, and would follow them in whether they worked the knobs, or rang the bell. I wasn’t the greatest housekeeper, and this was in the 1960s when the greatest ego threat to the housewife was the white glove. I was more the type to want to get down on the floor and join them in their games than to be constantly picking up, yet I would be very embarrassed if caught with a messy house, so when one day the doorbell rang in the middle of the day, I panicked! The living room was a mess. I made a clean sweep, filling my arms with the disarray to throw into the closest bedroom and kicking the rest under the couch, yelling, “Just a minute!” Then ran to answer the door. No one was there. I leaned out looking for a prankster while Kaiser wandered in. Later on in the day, the same thing happened… and the dog wandered in. I was sure some neighborhood kid was the culprit. But no one seemed to be around. I looked at Kaiser, and shook my head. Then I tried sticking the dog outside, and on my tip toes looked through the little high windows on the front door. Kaiser walked down the two steps, sniffed around, looked around, nothing was going on, so he came back up and jumped up at the door, his big paws hitting clumsily at the door handle and frame until “bingo” he hit the bell.

From then on it was the favorite parlor trick for the master of the house if anyone new visited. They had to wait while we pushed Kaiser out the door, and saying for them to just wait… and wait… several minutes later, “Ding, dong,” and Kaiser will have rung the bell.

Like with other dogs, I would take Kaiser just about everywhere in the car with us. We had a small red Volkswagen Beetle with a roll open sun roof. I took the kids to Ingram Hill to climb the tower. The dog had to stay in the car, so I rolled open the sun roof just a bit so the car wouldn’t get hot. The ranger made out cards on which it stated that they climbed the tower on such and such a date, then he printed out their names, and signed it giving one to both Joanna and August. They were happy. When we got back to the car… Kaiser had torn away at the headliner all around the sunroof trying to get out of the car. I knew he didn't want to be left home, but thought he was great in the car... Wrong! We knew better than to EVER take him anywhere in the Volkswagen unless we could take him with us when we got to our destination. We started leaving him home, but he began to chew at door knobs and the handle of the sliding glass door, and scratching the wooden trim around doors until it was mostly clawed away.

Midway Bowl, had a babysitting service that was more like a pre-school run by a Mrs. Pickering, for young mothers to have watch their children while they bowled. I had first joined the team at IBM Country Club, then followed the lead of a few who tipped me off about Midway. Once when coming home from bowling at Midway, when we pulled down the driveway to the front of the garage, we could see Kaiser’s belly passing by the window as he must have run across the garage at such momentum that he ran right up the door. When we came inside we could see his footprints on the ceiling. I think he scratched and chewed at every door in the house, and because all were locked except the door to the garage, he opened that knob with his teeth, and was busy trying to find a way out of the garage.

It wasn’t long before Kaiser could open every door in the house to get out, pulling back the sliding glass door; opening the front door knob, and pushing on the storm door handle; and, of course, opening the door to the garage; and even discovered how to lift up the garage door with his teeth. It got so we would leave the doors unlocked so he wouldn’t destroy the moldings around the door. We knew he’d get out, but it took him awhile, and when we’d get home, there he’d be waiting for us, looking so relieved that we were finally home, and then he was safe. This was fine in the warm weather, but not when it was cold.

There was an iron pole support in the middle of the garage. I decided that Kaiser could be chained to this support if he had to be kept home. I did so once, and wasn’t careful to clear away everything within Kaiser’s range. When I returned, he had clawed open a bag and evenly distributed a yard of peat moss throughout the garage.

I found a big, heavy, almost round rock, I found an iron loop with a flat flange bottom and glued it to the rock with epoxy cement. I placed this in the corner of the garage, clearing everything away that had been within reach. Even this didn’t work. He was like an old fashioned prisoner with a ball and chain--literally! Again, it just slowed him down, and he’d drag around that rock like a sled dog in training.

I needed to shop for some new clothes, and took him with us to Vestal Plaza, and attached his chain leash to an anchored bench while I went into a story close by. Before I had even looked through my second rack of clothes, a cold nose was nudging my elbow, and other shoppers were giving me disapproving looks. Kaiser had broken his choke collar, and tracked me down.

Aside from his escape artist tendencies, he was a good family dog. He was patient with the children, but had his limits. Joanna was an inquisitive child, and would sit on the same bed where Kaiser was resting, and try to touch his eyeball before he’d blink. It just happened that I noticed this while I was putting away clothes, and Joanna didn't know I was observing her little game. Gently but firmly, Kaiser took her chubby little toddler’s hand in his mouth until she yelled. I stepped into the room, knew she wasn’t harmed in any way, and Kaiser willingly released her hand which hadn't a mark on it, so I wasn’t too hard on Kaiser, but taught Jo not to hurt the dog. He was even good with the little guinea pig I had gotten for the children. Or maybe for me, and I was reliving my childhood through my children. Kaiser understood that this was a pet, and not food.

But Kaiser was getting to be a danger both to himself and the traffic, as he was playing near the main road with some other dogs. One day I had no alternative but to take him with me when I went bowling. I had the station wagon, and thought he would be fine staying within it. He was used to being in that car, but I guess he hadn't been left alone in it much, as, in the middle of bowling, over the loud speaker a voice boomed, “Would the owner of a blue Ford station wagon please come to the office--a dog is tearing up the interior of your car.”

He had completely torn out the headliner of the station wagon. We had to get the headliner in the red Volkswagen replaced, and then... the Ford.

Once we had to leave the dog in the kennel for a weekend away. It felt so good to leave him somewhere--having someone else responsible for a change. When we returned, I don’t think it surprised me that they said they had to cover their 8 foot chain link yard so he wouldn’t go over the top. Also, they said, he had chewed and clawed his way into the hallway adjoining all the other pens--barked, and kept all the other dogs barking all night. And his paws were raw and almost nail-less from digging at the cement. I don't think they would have accepted him there again had we ever put him in a kennel again.

At least we got Kaiser past his second birthday. And on the day I came home from the hospital with my third child, Albert, Jr., a friend of Al’s took Kaiser to live with his family. He had six children, and his parents lived with his family. Someone would always be there for Kaiser. He finally had the perfect home, and would never have to pull his Houdini acts again. Plus it makes for a happier ending for our last Weimaraner.

Chapter 26 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

The Search for Kiyoodle’s Soul

When Time enough had passed so Al could cope with Kiyoodle’s loss, he, of course, wanted another Weimaraner. I think I was still in a state of grief, but my thinking at the time was, “Maybe if we found a litter of pups born around the time of Ki’s death, one may have Ki’s spirit--a reincarnated Kiyoodle." It was a few months later, and two months is about when one wants to find homes for their female dog’s litter of pups.

We found an ad for two month old Weimaraner pups, and ended up with, instead of another Kiyoodle, a pup we couldn’t even name, and simply called him Pup-up. All I remember about the family who owned the dam was their seven year old boy. I remembered the rhyme of what little girls and boys were made of… the boys being made of “…snips, and snails, and puppy-dogs’ tails,” as he had kept the cropped tails of the pups.

Now we had an AKC registered Weimaraner pup with papers… if we cared… yet in this dog we began to see there were notable differences between Pup-up and the quality Kiyoodle. Pup-up wasn’t quite as handsome, nor as intelligent, nor as loving, nor as …Well, he just wasn’t Kiyoodle, and we made a mistake in trying to replace a dog that was so very unique and loved. As for Kiyoodle’s spirit, I’ve since heard of the Buddhist belief in the spirit growing progressively through lives well lived. If that is a true thing--the spirit moving into a higher form of animal--Kiyoodle made it to a level either equal to the human being, if not above, as he had such a pure spirit.

We soon moved from Norwalk, Connecticut to upstate New York. IBM was changing from its being in control of the computers they were selling to big businesses. They moved their best service people to a more central location, Endicott, New York, where they transferred Al. From there he would help repairmen, perhaps hired from another company, acting as a trouble shooter over the phone. When it couldn’t be solved over the phone, he would travel to wherever the machine was to see if the problem could be fixed in person. That’s as close as I can come to figuring out that situation.

While having real estate agents try and find us a home, we moved into a cottage on Laurel Lake in a nearby community, Silver Lake, Pennsylvania. Our not so perfect pup moved with us, and we loved him as our new dog in his own right. But, maybe his problems were more real than just our judgments in comparing him with Ki‘, as, even though he had his regular shots, poor Pup-up came down with distemper.

With the help of our new vet in Vestal, we pulled him through the sickness. Dr. Norris was an old fashioned vet whose ways resembled James Herriot’s practice in Yorkshire, in in his book, All Creatures Great and Small. But despite Pup-up surviving the disease, he was left super-sensitive to noise and easily irritated. I then worried about how he’d be with children. August and Joanna were very young and not yet old enough to be careful of how they treated animals. But Pup-up seemed okay with them so far. Located on a dirt road, we were able to let Pup-up run free. I was more careful about my daughter who was at the crawling stage, and determined to crawl from the backyard through the lilac bushes directly on to the dirt road. I felt like I needed her on a leash.

At that time, it was the same cost for milk whether we bought it at the store, or we bought it from delivery, so we had the milk delivered. You could hear those old noisy milk trucks rattling over the bumps a half mile away. The first milk delivery after Pup’ had recovered from distemper was fateful.

The young milkman came yelling to the door, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry… I’ve run over your dog! There was no way I could avoid it! He just dove under my wheels!”

He was horrified.. I had been folding clothes in the bedroom, and had run out to see what the commotion was about. I was upset, but not as upset as this poor man who had no way of having avoided the mishap. I had to calm him down, and explained that the dog just couldn’t stand noises. I assured him that it wasn’t his fault, and that Pup’ would have been miserable in this noisy world as a result of the side effects from his having had distemper.

Al had come home, and we put Pup’s body in the back of the new Ford Station wagon, and brought him to the vet in Vestal to be sure he was really dead, and Dr. Norris pronounced him so, and disposed of his body for us. We had no way of creating our own pet cemetery yet. I wasn’t sure we ever would. I had believed and still believe that pets have spirits that live on as do people, and their bodies are just a vehicles for those spirits.

I felt bad about Pup’, but we learned through experience that there is more to a well bred dog than just AKC registration. But we still loved that breed of dogs, and were to soon again get ourselves yet another Weimaraner.

Chapter 25 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Tragedy

My first big tragedy in life after my father dying was when Kiyoodle so needlessly died. I had always joked when he acted too rambunctious that I couldn’t wait until he was two years old, for it was said that it took two years for this type of dog to mature. On Ki’s second birthday, he went swimming after a stick on one of his neighborhood treks with one of the boys on the block. There was junk thrown into the pond where this took place, and he cut his foot on something sharp. The boy brought him home and explained what had happened. He could walk on his foot, but it would keep bleeding, and bled quite a bit at first, but I bandaged it and it seemed to be okay until Kiyoodle would walk on it again. So I tried to keep him quiet. But when he’d lie down he felt he just had to chew off the bandage. The foot obviously needed a stitch. Although it was a Sunday, I managed to find a vet. Kiyoodle was always hyper-sensitive. His personality was so accepting of everyone that you wouldn’t think of Ki’ as a nervous dog. (Even a couple that visited from the city who didn’t like dogs, grew to love Kiyoodle, because Ki’ loved them so much, and conveyed that affection without being overbearing.)

Even with my help, the vet couldn’t hold Ki’ still to stitch up his paw, so he gave him an oral tranquilizer. This made Kiyoodle act drunk, but didn’t help him stand still for the stitching up of his paw. Finally the vet said he had to be anesthetized. This was done with sodium pentothal. As soon as Ki’ was out, I noted out loud how quiet it made him--I couldn’t even see him breathing. The vet turned white and dashed out to get a shot of some stimulant to reverse the drug, and tried to revive Ki’. When I understood what was happening, I couldn’t believe it. As soon as I came out of my shock, I began pounding on Ki’s chest to get his heart going. He just lay there… my remarkable, wonderful dog-- my “first child”--just lay there. I can’t remember what I said… Probably, “Do something! He can’t be dead! All he had was a cut on his foot! He just can’t die--he can’t!!!”

I don’t remember for sure the words, but when I think back I can still hear their echoes, as if there was a huge chasm inside me and their sounds were reverberating off its walls.

When I had calmed down somewhat, the vet called my husband for me and I told him over the phone. Being still so upset, the vet asked me if there was anyone else I needed to call. I called my mom. Poor Mom. When she heard my sobbing voice telling her what happened, she told me later, she was first afraid something terrible had happened to one of our children, as Joanna was born and just an infant then.

That evening was one of the only times in our (to be 18 years of) marriage that I saw my husband cry. And it hurts me to talk about it even now, and this happened in 1965. I’m like my Mom who used to cry about her lost dogs when she’d reminisce about her childhood and all the dogs she'd known and loved.

Chapter 24 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Guard dog? Hunting Dog?

I loved that dog so much, but if that breed is supposed to be a good all-round hunting and family dog, he was one hell of a guard dog. Al would go away on business for several days, and Kiyoodle would do all the worrying for us. He’d listen, sniff, pace, bark, pace, sit nervously, pace again, bark more, sit and listen until I’d yell at him to lie down and “give it a rest!” I’d then mellow out, and pat the nervous dog, reassuring him that I was there for him in case there really was a burglar.

As for his hunting abilities, there were two ducks that must have surveyed our backyard from afar and knew Kiyoodle was harmless, so they’d come to feed on whatever the birds and squirrels spilled from the feeder. I enjoyed seeing Kiyoodle get excited about things, and knew he wouldn’t hurt the ducks, so I kind of nudged him to go outside to see what was under the feeder.

The ducks merely looked over their shoulders as they ate, gauging the distance between themselves and this “retrieving hunting dog” that was standing by the doorway looking out over the back yard with a questioning expression as if to say, “What am I supposed to do out here?” The ducks finally got a little leery as Ki’ ambled in their direction, but just waddled away. Ki' went under the feeder, but didn’t find anything he’d call food--looked puzzled--looked at the waddling ducks--turned around and came back in. (Some hunting dog!)

Chapter 23 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Rare Dog in More Ways Than One:

The Weimaraner was still a rare dog in the United States back in the sixties, but I somehow think that Kiyoodle would have gotten the same reaction if the breed was common. Even an untrained eye can admire the fine lines of a well bred racehorse. In the same way, this dog’s muscles would ripple under his glistening silver grey coat as he’s trot along the hedgerows near the sidewalk where I would be pushing August in his stroller. A car would come to a sudden stop and the window would wind down as the curious person would lean out and ask me what kind of dog that was. I would tell them, and watch the admiration as they couldn’t take their eyes off the “Grey Ghost” as the Weimaraner was termed.

Kiyoodle never made a mistake once he was housebroken, but there was a time when I wished he had peed in the cellar.

We went to a friend’s small wedding in New Your City, letting Ki’ out to do his stuff before we left him for the afternoon, thinking we’d be back in the evening. We took along August who cried a lot at the reception, so I was looking forward to getting back. I helped Al get the folding carriage into the pinched quarters of the trunk of the car, and put down the car keys in the trunk by the stroller while I pushed and shoved it into position. Al asked if it was all set. I said yes, meaning the stroller was all set, and before I picked the keys up again, he slammed the trunk shut. With the keys locked inside.

After trying to get into the trunk, through the back seat--impossible, and having to call the police who usually have a master set of keys--but not this time--we had to give up and find another way to get home. We borrowed a friend’s car who said something about a problem with its low gear. We unfortunately found out what the problem was when we stopped to pay the toll crossing the George Washington Bridge, and were stuck in first gear from the Teaneck New Jersey side to 34th street, where we were going to leave it at Brew’s Bar.

We hadn’t planned on having to stay over night, and hoped that Jimmy Woo who was the usual bartender was there, but no… so we couldn’t get a check cashed. We had to find a really cheap hotel, and there was one with a little ill repute attached to its reputation, but it was the next block down, and it fit the bill, money-wise. Al went in first to get a room, laving me and the baby out in the one-geared car. The man behind the desk laughed when Al insisted he needed a cheap room for his family for the night, but almost dropped his cigar when Al brought in me carrying the baby in the portable bassinette.

The room was clean enough, and had some clean cotton towels. I had to use one as a diaper, seeing I wasn’t prepared to stay overnight. We didn’t get mugged or catch a disease using the communal bathroom down the hall, and early the next morning we used our last few dollars for the train trip home. I was very worried about Kiyoodle. I heard later on that he had howled all night from loneliness. And when I let him out to relieve himself, he lifted his leg for such a long pee, that he had to rest the leg he was lifting twice before he was through… and there was NO wetness nor mess in the cellar of the house where we had left him… poor thing. He had gone almost 24 hours without going to the bathroom. It was the only time I wished a dog had peed and pooped in the house.

Chapter 22 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Kiyoodle’s appetite gets the best of him:

Back then, I don’t know why, but, I never gave leash laws a second thought. I felt sorry for dogs that were tied and would have had a problem giving Kiyoodle all the exercise he needed if I made him wait until I had time to walk him. It usually worked out fine, because, if the children in the neighborhood had any dog at all, it was usually a small lap dog variety, nothing that they could romp and roughhouse with outside.

But Kiyoodle couldn’t pass up food--whether it was on a plate or in the trash. So when a neighbor called me about Ki’ getting into their trash, I told her not to touch a thing, I would be down with the dog and pick it up. I did so, bawling out Kiyoodle, telling him what a bad dog he was. He no longer got into their garbage, so I figured he learned his lesson.

One day a different neighbor drove into our driveway, stepped out of his car, and asked us if that Weimaraner was our dog! When we said yes, and asked why, he stated that they had a 10 pound pot roast cooling out on a stump on their lawn, and our dog came along, and not only ate the whole thing, but lapped up the gravy as well. I looked severely at Kiyoodle, who looked nonchalant about the whole thing. He new he hadn’t gotten into garbage. His belly was so swollen, that if he had been a she, one would think her pregnant. Al apologized and gave the person $20.00 (quite a sum for a 10 pound roast back in 1964).

I was so angry and embarrassed about Kiyoodle that I marched him to the house where the theft took place. I guess I impressed these people…telling Ki’ what a bad dog he was. I had asked them to get the empty pot. I showed it to Ki’ and bawled him out thoroughly. The neighbors ended up giving me $10 of the money back.

Kiyoodle’s epitome of how far he’d go for food could be proven one day on the back porch. An ant was carrying a huge crumb for his size. As the ant crossed the porch, I said, “Ki, look at that crumb!” He nosed after the ant, and gently lifted it’s load, leaving the insect unharmed, and ate the crumb!

Part II -- THE WEIMARANER YEARS --



Chapter 21 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

KIYOODLE

My first husband Al Z., had a female Weimaraner for a short while before we were even engaged. Being in an urban area the dog was constantly on a leash when around his apartment area in Teaneck New Jersey where Al shared an apartment with Brimley S. “Brew” for short. They took the dog out to Montauk Point on Long Island one weekend, and had her loose on the beach. She was enjoying the freedom when she spotted a dog on the other side of the road, and dashed across, getting hit by a car -- she was killed instantly. I was heartbroken, but Brew and Al felt worse. Though the dog had wrecked the seat cushion, so that they had to turn it over so as not to notice, and a few other furnishings got chewed up when the dog was left alone, they loved that dog. I didn’t think he’d ever want another Weimaraner.

My husband worked for IBM… which we used to think stood for “I’ve Been Moving.” True to form, just when we tied the knot, he was sent to school in Kingston, N.Y., to train for a job keeping the computers in good repair for Pan American Airways, in the Pan Am building in NYC. At first he stayed in Kingston, N.Y. during the week, while I was still working for Braniff, commuting from Weehawken, New Jersey. We just saw each other on the weekends, but it was becoming a strain. I was pregnant with my first, and it was lonely during the week. I went home to Woburn to visit my parents when I had some time off a few months into his schooling. Al called me while I was there, and said that his class time was being extended, and wanted me to move up to the Kingston, N.Y. area to be with him. I was so excited. I was especially glad to leave my job, as I felt constantly tired as a result of my pregnancy. We found a little cottage in Mount Marion, N.Y., commuting distance from his school for IBM, and we moved in, only to find myself being more lonely than I had ever been before. However, I met another pregnant woman at my regular check up, so I had someone I could talk to locally.


No sooner had I settled into our little cottage in the winter of 1962-1963, when Al saw an ad in the paper for Weimaraner pups. I could use the company. One of the good things was this Weimaraner dog they developed from the German Shorthair, to make for a better all round hunting dog plus a good family dog. When we went to see the litter of puppies, it turned out that the elderly widow who was selling them had never owned a dog before. Her son had been a crop duster in Texas and died in a plane crash. She was left with his pregnant Weimaraner hound. She took the dog back with her to upstate New York. I think the new responsibility helped this lovely woman to deal with the grief of her son’s death. She was to sell the puppies, but keep the mother. I had the feeling as we left with our beautiful male pup that she would have a lasting and loving companion for the years ahead.

We called our puppy Kiyoodle. I’m not sure of the spelling, but loosely translated, it was a term that Al’s mother called his “rascal friends” when he was a boy living in upper Manhattan. His mother was Austrian and his father came from the German speaking side of Switzerland. His parents spoke only German in the home, and when it came time for Al to go to school, they had to hire a tutor to come in and teach him English.

At the time I met Al, his favorite bar and grill was “Brews” …they went to the bar because Brimley‘s nickname was the same… a kind of “Cheers” before its time. Everyone knew Al, and he was reading a popular book of the time, The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich. The guys at the bar joked about him reading only the Rise… not the …Fall. So, though when growing up, the Irish were the popular immigrant group to the point where Al changed his middle name from Frederick to Thomas when he joined the Church, now he began to take pride in his Germanic roots, and the Weimaraner was a German dog, rare and new to the United States in the 1960s. One that he could be proud of, as it was and is a beautiful breed of dog.

It was winter when we housebroke our young pup. We really didn’t know what we were doing, but without reading up, we brought up Kiyoodle the best we could in our ignorance… [kind of like our parenting skills later on]. There were plenty of mishaps on the multi-colored floral beige and brown area rug that belonged to the cottage we were renting. The rug’s color disguised a lot of Kiyoodle’s mistakes, but when we rolled it up when doing the spring cleaning months later, the other side revealed many stains from our poor puppy-training skills.

Kiyoodle finally learned that he was a “good boy” when he relieved himself outside in the snow. But when the snow began melting, he would obediently find what was left and do his duties there. When it was all melted one day, the frustrated dog had to finally use the lawn. He was relieved in more ways than one, for he expected disapproval, having been trained on a snow-covered lawn.

Although he was always sleek and muscular, Kiyoodle had an unquenchable appetite. If it was food and within reach, he’d consume it. If it was out of reach, he would knock it down… then eat it. The same day my first child was born, Kiyoodle knocked a jar of peanut butter to the floor breaking the jar and consuming some of it’s contents…glass slivers and all. I caught him soon after it happened, but was convinced he had eaten enough to die, and called the vet. She reassured me that he’d probably be okay “…just feed him fresh bread.” It must have done the trick. When Al got home from work and I told him about Kiyoodle…and having called the vet. Then, ”Oh, and by the way, I’m having contractions” he whisked me off to the hospital. I was so afraid it was false labor that I didn’t want to go. “The contractions are about two minutes apart. I think we have plenty of time.” I tried to reassure him. A half hour after arrival at the hospital, our first child was born. A boy. We named him August Frederick after his grandfather.

When we brought our son home from the hospital, I was afraid of how our “only-child-until-that-point” would react. I lowered the bassinet, letting our half-grown pup satisfy his curiosity. He accepted the new member of the family completely. Once when changing the baby’s diapers, Kiyoodle jumped up on the bed. Magically his oversized paws never touched August then…or at any other time.

We had a rule about not getting on the bed. I guess my changing the baby on this off limit place gave Ki’ the impression that if one “baby” could be on the bed, the other “baby” could also. But Ki’ knew the rules, and made up his own. He would pull most of his body up on the bed with his hind feet still on the floor. It was his way of claiming he wasn’t “really” on the bed if two of his feet are still on the floor.





By the time August was born, Kiyoodle had gotten quite used to riding in the car. But he was the only dog I knew who would get car sick. [I might now add, thus far. In the future, there would be others…] We had a Ford Thunderbird at the time and didn’t know how to remove the back seat. Luckily, Purina Dog Chow, regurgitated, wasn’t too repulsive a smell, and what seeped behind the seat disappeared and along with it - the smell… after a few days, that is. When we finally traded it in I wondered what they found if whomever ever removed the seat.

Ki’ learned that if he placed his big feet on the center rest between the driver and passenger seats, he could see through the front windshield, and when the car went around corners, or curves, he could balance by leaning on the passenger seat or the driver’s seat for support. Often he would place his nose too close to the windshield, getting the inside covered with nose prints. Back then all gas stations had full service, and often the attendant would keep sudsing the center of the windshield, trying to remove these nose smudges which were inside.

August’s car-bed fastened over the back of the passenger seat, and lay on that side of the back seat. This was fine for Kiyoodle’s position in the car.

When my husbands stint with IBM’s school in Kingston was over, he was ready for his job in N.Y.C. We found a nice home in Norwalk, Connecticut, with a school at each end of our street.

As soon as we settled in, Kiyoodle got to know each child in the neighborhood. He would be busy each morning first walking the oldest children to their school which started classes earliest; then come back for a snack, and a drink of water; then he’d be off again walking the younger children to their elementary school. When school was out in the afternoon, Kiyoodle was busy again being a companion to every child in the neighborhood.

The children soon learned what a great retriever Kiyoodle was. You could take a stick--any old stick--and throw it into the bushes where they may have been many sticks just like it, and Ki’ would fetch back the very stick you threw. He loved to retrieve from the water and made quite a game of it. But his greatest trick ever was his flimflam game:

Kiyoodle always had an assortment of balls, and loved to be chased, playing keep away. But it took a sucker to play the game. Kiyoodle would carry a ball throughout the neighborhood looking for his patsy. A neighbor may be doing yard work, and Ki would walk up to him and drop the ball. The chump may not notice at first, so the dog would pick up and drop the ball again staring at it waiting …maybe a glance at the fall guy, then back to the ball. Finally the neighbor would throw the ball for the dog. Ki would gallop after it and bring it right back, dropping it again at the person’s feet. Well, playing with the dog was more fun than yard work, anyway, and the person would throw the ball again. Now Kiyoodle brought the ball back, but didn’t drop it. He let the dupe take it from his mouth, and throw it again. Now the neighbor had to try a little harder, but not too hard--he hadn’t got his good run in yet. By about the fifth throw, Kiyoodle’s friend was into the game, and when Ki’ got close enough so the neighbor would try to get back the ball, he’d just get away, finally being chased in a zesty game of keep away.

Mr. Slattery across the street tried to train Ki’ to be the outfield catcher when he’d help his son with batting practice. Ki’ did well for awhile, but time after time he’d use the opportunity for another game of keep away. Jim Slattery didn’t think Ki’ was too bright at those times, and once he had to come over to our house to make us have Kiyoodle give him back the baseball. However Kiyoodle may have been thinking the same thing about Jim not being that smart, as Jim had fallen for the “sucker game” more than once.

Chapter 20 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

CITY CAT

The first animal I got after I was on my own was a black cat my landlord gave me when I lived in a fifth floor walk up in Manhattan. This cat had a certain ally-cat toughness to him which I suppose is needed when a cat is someone’s first responsibility to another living being when on one‘s own.

I couldn’t believe he could survive in an apartment alone for a weekend while I visited my parents, so I smuggled him on Eastern Airline’s shuttle flight to Boston. I was working for Braniff Airways at the time, and had lived in Queens; Elmhurst; and Woodside before making the move to Manhattan with a roommate with whom I’d gone to Bay State Academy in Boston. Judy B. was always discontented with one roommate or another and we’d move, then move again. Now it was just her and me, and she was becoming discontented with me. But she was going into the airline hostess area of Braniff, and I was engaged to be married.

On the trip, the cat rebelled at being zipped into a flight bag. I felt so guilty. The passenger next to me said nothing, nor did the attendants, but it was obvious that the yowls and growls weren’t just a bad case of indigestion. I didn’t have the guts to actually take the young cat out of the bag, but stuck in my hand, caressing the poor critter in an effort to calm him. From what I remember, I guess that worked, but the cat would have fared much better at the apartment with dry cat food and enough water for a few days.

I thought fresh air and exercise were physical requirements for pets. It was the first time I had a need for kitty litter, but after that necessity, I still thought it needed a romp in the park, so I would take Blacky out to an area just around the corner of my apartment where he could chase pigeons. City pigeons seemed quite tame, but they become clever at gauging just how close they’ll allow people or their pets. Blacky would crouch down on he pavement of this “concrete park” and sneak up on its victim …in plain sight thinking he would be able to catch this easy prey. This gave both the pigeons and Blacky all the exercise they’d need. Blacky was still quite small then, and I’d wonder if he’d get carried away by the bird if he ever succeeded in catching hold of one.
Blacky was less than a year old when I married and moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. In one way or another, Blacky always seemed frustrated. I scolded him for getting up on the counter by the sink, so, when my back was turned and the cupboard was open, he jumped into it and pushed things out. In so doing, the cat broke some of my good china. I know an animal doesn’t do these destructive things on purpose, but …I began to wonder.

I now had to keep him inside …to be an indoor cat. He missed his outdoor privileges, and when he had a chance, would give us the slip, usually when I was airing out the kitchen from one of my failed suppers. Our apartment was on the second floor. Blacky would yowl from the roof above the fire escape, where he somehow climbed, wanting me to rescue him. I’d have to climb up precariously on its railings, hold on to the gutter with one hand, and grab the cat with the other to quickly swoop him down before he had a chance to know what was happening… or rebel. At that height, any animal is going to hold on for dear life, so he’d dig in his claws in the process.

For a party trick my husband thought it hilarious to get out the llama slipper, something I brought back from a free airline trip to South America, for a little show Blacky would put on. He was now a maturing male cat, and somewhat sexually frustrated, so he would go at the slipper like a male puppy on a leg. I would be red with embarrassment.

Then Blacky got out once too often. He evaded my high wire act attemts to rescue him, and somehow found his way to the ground and left. I knocked on a few doors, and posted a notice of our lost cat at a corner grocer’s to no avail. When we saw a cat in the neighborhood that looked just like him about a month after his disappearance, and when he acted like we were strangers, we figured that he was better off in his new home, as he looked like he was thriving well.

Chapter 19 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Toby

My first glimpse of Toby was when I saw the furry snowball of a pup at an A.S.P.A. in Boston. I had gone into Boston to pick up my High School pictures with a friend, John Y. from school. John was fond of animals, but would never pick up a mongrel. He instead had scrimped and saved to buy himself an A.K.C. registered Afghan hound of noble heritage. He also raised Siamese cats, and had given me my Siamese, Nikki Timbo.

While we were in Boston, having a little time before our train’s departure for Woburn, we did some window shopping. We couldn’t pass a pet shop or animal shelter without checking out the animals. When I saw Toby, I just had to have him. I gave no thought as to who was going to get stuck with house-breaking him. And little did I know he had contracted a disease, coccidiosis, which my mother had believed only infected poultry.

My mother was upset with me, but I figured that since I paid the fee for the pup to spring it from the shelter, had been my decision. Never mind that I had school to attend, and my mom was stuck with the job of not only raising the pup, but nursing it back to health. Plus it was a time in my mom’s life when she was beginning to feel her age. She was still recuperating from a hysterectomy, and this probably brought on early menopausal symptoms. I think she purposely complained in a manner where I overheard her, rather than lecturing me, a technique of hers to get a point across, that she was getting too old to be raising puppies anymore.

But Toby became my mother’s dog… named Toby because he was born in October. Toby ended up Mom’s companion, and she took him with her every time possible when driving, and would sometimes purposely go out of her way to where dogs could be seen from this miniature Spitz’s car window. Then Toby would bark frantically at these dogs as if to tell them they had no right to be on his road, jumping all around the back seat of the car practically snapping at the window letting all dogs know how ferocious he was! The king of the road! Right? Once, on a hot day when the windows were open and he was doing his frantic barking, jumping up and down threat to the offending animals, at a sharp turn in the road, he fell out of the window . Suddenly this white fluffy bully was a timid and reticent wimp. All of his body language was apologizing to the curious, threatening and angry dogs approaching. My mother had immediately pulled over, stepped out, and swooped up the quivering dog. No sooner had she gotten Toby back into his seat by the car window--his throne--when he again start yapping at these same fierce animals who previously going to make mince-meat of him.

We wondered about Toby’s sexual preferences. He’d go after a cat, a child crawling on the floor, your leg, but not after a female dog. My nieces, not realizing Toby’s intentions thought he was hugging them, and didn’t know why Grandma got so embarrassed and pulled him off.

Years later, when I was married and had children and dogs of my own, Mom came to visit with Toby in tow, of course. In my neighborhood, my girlfriend, Marlene also had a miniature Spitz--a female one. It looked so much like Toby I couldn’t wait for my mother to see Marlene’s dog. Toby was very old and in no way a young stud anymore, but when he saw this other Spitz, it was love at first sight. The female just happened to be in heat at that time, and Toby’s timing was perfect. The only time he ever mated, and it was with this “identical twin.” It must have taken all of Toby’s last energies, as he died in his sleep right after Mom took him back to her home in Rhode Island.

Marlene’s dog had a most beautiful litter of puppies, that even with lack of AKC registration she was to make a profit on those pups. My son August begged, pleaded, and cried in vain trying to convince us he should be allowed to have one of the puppies. Thankfully his dad did not give in to him, as we already had a dog at the time. (To be truthful, I never really liked Toby, and didn’t want to repeat the mistake I made that time in Boston. I always liked a big hound-type dog.)

When my father went blind, he had to retire from his civil service job at the Boston Naval Shipyard. And because of other infirmities he didn’t qualify physically for the program for getting a Seeing Eye Dog. For all my life he had left for work before we’d arise, and return at suppertime. The family conversed about our day at the supper table, then my dad disappeared behind a newspaper. He was an avid reader, so he missed a lot when he went blind. But having him home so much the last few years I lived at home in Woburn, Helped me to get to know this man better than I ever knew him before. He was a man who knew disability not as an obstacle, but as a challenge. He went with my mother several times a week to a Catholic organization for the blind to learn Braille, and became very proficient at reading the Braille Readers Digests. He also qualified for the talking books. But because he didn’t qualify for the Seeing Eye dog, he trained Toby to help him walk up Williams court. It was a challenge, but with the aid of Toby on a leash and his white cane he was finally able to walk up Merrimac street, across the tracks to School Street, and to the local store. Toby may have been a yappy little dog and a little hyper, but he was good for both my mother and father as the house got emptier and emptier as each child grew and became independent. Then when the youngest, Peter, joined the Air Force, my mother and father looked for a smaller house closer to the ocean, as my mother loved the ocean and swimming. She, Dad, and Toby settled on Connanicus Road in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Within a few years of the move, my dad passed away.

Mom said she was watching the Ed Sullivan Show, and Robert Goulet was singing “If I Should Ever Leave Thee” and my father said, “See, that’s why I could never leave you” agreeing with the words of that beautiful love song from Camelot. He got up and went into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and he had a way of stretching his arms up over his head when tired. He did that and lay back on the bed with a heavy sigh. My mother somehow sensed something wrong, and went into the bedroom to find that my dad had just died. She had resuscitated Dad several times before when Dad was very ill and almost died, but she couldn’t touch him this time. She knew that this was it… nothing would bring him back now, but in the aftermath, Mom felt his presence for several weeks, and even had a dream where he was looking into the mirror over the bureau in the bedroom, and saying something about how much better and younger he looked now. It was that following morning that Mom no longer felt his presence. She was a very lonely woman.

My brother Tucker and his family had moved from New Hampshire where he had an interim job working on a farm, to a cottage nearby where he commuted to a job in development, and had lived there several years before Dad died, so Mom wasn’t entirely alone. And Toby did what he could to keep her company, but next time I visited her, the loneliness was so thick it was palpable. She went back to nursing, updating her RN license for Rhode Island, and seven years later, met Rocky who worked in the same hospital as a part time janitor in his retirement. Rocky, like my dad, was ten years older than my mom. Whereas they had many good years together, she was made a widow again about a decade, (and several dogs) later.

Chapter 18 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Nikki Timbo

Nikki Timbo was my Siamese cat. A friend of mine from Junior High on through High School, John Y. raised Siamese cats with registered bloodlines. In one litter a kitten was born dead… or at least he wasn’t responding to the mother cat’s cleaning which usually stimulates the kittens and starts them breathing on their own. John tried mouth to mouth and tiny little pink nose resuscitation, and successfully revived the kitten. The kitten appeared to be a runt, and John doubted that this one as a possible stud would lower the grade of Siamese cat that could be traced back to his cat’s bloodline, so he gave me the runt kitten.

In the fifth grade, our teacher, Miss Matthews, read us a story about a Chinese boy that was so loved, they fed him royally and as a result he got very fat. This boy had been given a long, long name that started out as Nikki Nikki Timbo Noe So Rimbo… or something like that and on and on. The little Chinese boy in the story gets stuck somewhere, and his name was so long that through relaying the name to get help getting the little fat boy unstuck, he lost a lot of weight. He was saved and everyone was happy, and as a safety precaution, they shortened his name to Nikki Timbo.

It just seemed like a good name, therefore, for me to name this little kitten. As it turned out, though Nikki had gotten off to a runt-like start, he developed into a beautiful specimen, sleek and clean--a beautiful seal-point with prize winning features, and my friend John was upset with our family for having Nikki neutered. But some kitten raisers with only the prize giving superior cats in mind would probably have destroyed Nikki, rather than giving him to a friend.

Nikki was more like a dog than a cat. He noticed others and particularly liked my father. My dad was slowly losing his eyesight at that time, and Nikki became a comforting lap-cat for Dad. During one of his trips to the hospital--either because of a heart attack or an eye operation--Nikki took his absence personally, and when Dad came home, the cat strutted around the house giving Dad wide berth--totally ignoring him. After it happened more than once, Dad realized and explained that Nikki’s actions were because Nikki didn’t understand why Dad deserted him, and it was the cat’s way of punishing him for being away.

Nikki lived on to be my dad’s cat when I later left home to join Braniff Airlines, to work the teletype room in their NYC reservation’s office. It would have been traumatic for Nikki to resettle him in New York City, where I didn’t even take good care of myself and had strep throat, followed by tonsillitis during my first year away from home, and had to come home later for a scheduled tonsillectomy. It was Nikki’s turn to be my lap-cat while I recuperated.

Chapter 17 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Tommy and Gusty

There were always one or more cats in my home in Woburn. Poor old Juney cat finally had a stroke and fell off the roof of the back entry. After that she acted very strange and walked in circles. Mom knew the best thing to do would be to have her euthanized but kept putting off the inevitable until one day when she wandered under the wheels of a garbage truck, solving the problem. The driver and his assistant felt awful about it, and Mom had to comfort them in explaining the cat’s ill health and even suggesting that perhaps the cat knew what she was doing.

My mother let us keep a couple of stray cats shortly after Juney’s death. One was a tri-colored female that was taken away from its mother too soon, and wanted to suck on any earlobe if a person made the mistake of cuddling it against his or her neck. My younger by three years brother Peter paid most attention to the calico, named Gusty for short, as it was named Augustus for being born in August. He let the cat get away with his ear lobe sucking habit once in awhile; therefore it would attempt to suck your ear even when it was an old, old cat.

I owned the yellow or red striped kitten--the breed of common housecats people have called Marmalade cats. These striped cats are almost always male, and whereas all those we had before, Mom called Reddy, I called this one Tommy. Ironically, this was the first male that was not a “Tomcat” as we had it neutered. Gusty was neutered also, as we didn’t want any more kittens for which we’d have to find homes. We were lucky with Juney, our past kitten supplier, as she only had one litter of kittens a year, and hadn‘t had kittens towards the end of her life, whereas female cats can have several litters a year. Mom thought that it was a medical reason and also why she had such difficulty with the labor each time she gave birth.

Tommy cat was a good companion, recognizing me as his favorite person. I once heard that people couldn’t legally own cats, as they are so independent. Whether this was ever true or not, I agree with the philosophy. Cats adopt us, not the other way around. Tommy adopted me. Tommy was gentle and only scratched me once when I stupidly held him up to climb on the grape arbor, and the only toe hold for him to use was my arm, so he dug in to climb up as I waited as if that was what I’d expected. Not so smart on my part, and not his fault on his part. I used to try to get him to go under the blankets on my bed in the winter, hearing of some wonder cat that did this, keeping someone’s feet warm and not suffocating in the process, but Tommy was only content to lie on top of the blankets. Before natural gas was piped into North Woburn, we had an old coal furnace, and the closest radiator was down the hall from my room. I’d go to sleep under piles of blankets in the winter, and make a mad dash for the kitchen to get dressed each morning next to the oil stove. Many a morning I would be able to see my breath before my face when I awoke. It took courage to get out of bed on mid-winter mornings.

Tommy wandered off when he was about five years old. Later someone had seen a dead cat across the field that fit Tommy’s description. I hoped it wasn’t him and he was keeping someone else’s feet warm, as by then we had the gas heat, and I had a hot air vent in the floor of my bedroom. We were coming up in the world.

Augustus lasted through many moves as my mom and dad moved to Rhode Island in 1963. Dad died in that same year. Seven years later, my Mom married Rocky--Sherman Rockwell. They moved to Boon Lake, Rhode Island, then a year or so later, to Belgrade, Maine. Augustus disappeared after that move, and Mom had given her up for dead. Miraculously Gusty showed up thin and hungry MONTHS later, and just to be sure it was the same cat, when Mom picked her up, and held her close, delighted that she was back, she started sucking on Mom’s ear lobe. She must have been around thirteen or fourteen years old by then, and she lived for several more years.

Chapter 16 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)
Heppy’s Bunny

The Easter after my brother Tucker brought his family home from Germany to live with us, Tucker bought a rabbit for Brigetta. We were still calling her Hepplechin, "Heppy for short"--a sweet German nickname for this little Heidi look-alike. It was a tame little salt and pepper grey bunny.

My mother didn’t want it to make a mess, so they trained Heppy’s bunny to use newspapers lain out in a corner over the linoleum. I was amazed. We no longer had only outdoor rabbits my mother had raised before, so I had no idea rabbits could be paper trained.

As the weather improved, the bunny was free to run in and out of the house. Once I saw it at the top of the hill on path to the woods, dashing down towards the house, up the steps to the back entry and running into the kitchen and to the newspapers…just in time! Otherwise, it would have relieved itself “outdoors.”

Shortly after, the bunny disappeared. I used to think it had died, but throughout my life, I’ve found that other than dogs, cats, and some fowl, pets are prone to go wild if not penned up.

Chapter 15 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Discrimination Among the Ducks

We finally had three pekins, because Mom finally took one of the pair’s fertile eggs and put it under a Muscovy hen. Maybe it was just that our Pekin hen wasn’t a good brooder, as she never successfully hatched one egg in her nest. Pekins, it seemed just sat. Mom used to say the Pekin ducks cooked their eggs. So her offspring was hatched under a Muscovy hen. The Muscovy ducks were better brooders. They knew just how long to sit at any one time; they turned their eggs daily, and sometimes purposely got wet before sitting on the eggs again, as if they determined that their clutch of eggs needed cooling or the moisture.

We thought the pekin duckling was a cross-breed, as it had a black crest on its head, though otherwise as stark white, big, beautiful pekin drake. It was the typical Ugly Duckling story, for as soon as this beautiful drake developed, the Muscovy ducks shunned him, pecking at him if he came near. The pekin drake disowned him as well. Eventually the pekin hen somehow knew that this stately young drake was her own son, and they hung around together. While the Muscovy ducks worked the brook within the fencing, the pekin hen with the stately drake son would paddle together on the other side--the lower unfenced portion. Both duck groups working the brook free of the weeds and forget-me-not along its edge. The pekins began to drift further and further from the flock daily until one day they were gone.

Jerry set out following the flow of the brook along the base of a shoulder of hills that stretched from east across the meadow, then northwest, weaving its way through Hall’s meadows then finally north through the pines. My brother’s trek took him all the way to a smelly piggery. There in a filthy muddy pond was the old pekin hen and her regal son, not looking so elegant, but both seemingly very content. No longer was their plumage a sparkling white, but streaked with mud.

No amount of my brother’s calling to them from the edge of their new home could coax them to come back. “They felt welcome there.” my brother said “In our duck yard they were outcasts. There, they felt like they belonged.”

When Jerry got involved in the more profitable business of delivering newspapers, I took over the daily feeding of our Muscovy ducks. Eventually when I took over part of the paper route, my mother found a buyer and sold all the ducks.

Ducks, Ducks and More Ducks:

All my life I’ve loved ducks. Who wouldn’t. They go around with a look of a smile etched on their beaks. Back in North Woburn before we had paper routes and an otherwise busy life, my mother bought Jerry and I a pair of Pekin ducks. When we showed Mom we could care for these, she had the meadow and part of the brook below our house fenced in. She then bought several Muscovy ducklings. I don’t think she explained the economics of duck raising too well, as the idea of selling them for meat was something neither of us even considered. To us they were just neat pets and Jerry named every one… even when the flock grew past a count of twenty.

Fencing in the Muscovy ducks would only work if they couldn’t fly. As much as my mother hated doing so, she sheared back their wing feathers once they developed so they couldn’t jump fence and fly away. The permanent way to do that is to take off the last joint… if you’ve had any roast fowl, you know that last joint is an almost meatless bone when it comes to eating a bird. But it is necessary to flying. Mom couldn’t bear to permanently injure the ducks, so in a matter of time, their wing feathers would grow back enough so they could get over the fence. Then with what took almost an hour, though it seemed the better part of a day, the troupe then would come through the meadow, marching up past the garden, past the back of the fenced in backyard, and then at an angle towards the far side of the barn, up the sand bank to the top of the hill where they would take a test flight. If they couldn’t really get off the ground enough to fly over the barn, they’d thy again another day repeating the daily trek until they all flew beautifully. Mom never clipped their wings again. The ducks weren’t about to leave… they had a good home, enjoyed the brook, and got in the habit of the daily trek to enjoying their flying high with a splash-in-the-brook landing within their yard. Jerry tried flooding the meadow by building a dam to block the waters flow, trying to make our brook into a pond. I had visions of having a lake in our meadow, but the meadow didn‘t have a low enough area to harbor the waters new level, so we widened the brook somewhat.

Finally having about 30 ducks, and Thanksgiving right around the corner, Mom couldn’t see why we couldn’t have a few “small turkeys” otherwise known as two Muscovy ducks done up the same way as one would stuff and roast a turkey. I think one of my older brothers killed the ducks for Mom, as I couldn’t see her actually wielding the ax. I guess Mom was being more practical than thoughtful, as we didn’t think how Jerry would feel about this. I think she hoped he’d just think they were small half grown turkeys. Mom told me about it, but didn’t break it to Jerry until after he found out himself: *Jerry thought they were short legged chickens. After we ate, he went out and counted the ducks, finding that two were missing. He said they were the most tame ones… Ones that let you walk up and hug them. He got so sick he regurgitated his meal, and collapsed in the meadow from the shock that he had just eaten his best and usually only friends. He went in and yelled, calling our whole family murderers. He collected the leftovers and buried them in the front yard and put crosses on the graves with the two names in the crosses, “Grey Lady” and “William Penn.” He never forgave Mom, nor trusted any of us for having kept this deception from him.

*The facts of this part was extracted from my brother’s memoir of his childhood [ a project in which he typed up his memories, complete with photocopies of old black & white pictures, for Mom when she was in a nursing home for the last few years of her life. He made a copy for the rest of the family from which I extracted emotional backlash over the Thanksgiving Day in which he had nothing to be thankful for.

I think my mother felt the same way I feel about fowl, in that we din’t put them on the same level as house pets, like cats and dogs. Later I was to raise chickens for their meat, though I can’t find it in myself to do the butchering myself. But at times they have provided me good company. Back when I was nine or ten years old, we had a hurricane that knocked out the electricity for about a month. My mother had to get dry ice to keep the food in the freezer from defrosting. Howard Johnson had great sales on their ice cream while it lasted. And one night the rest of the family was gone while I stayed home… forget the reason, but in the black of the night, I lit all the candles I could find, and got some cards out so I could play solitaire but still felt I needed more, and some company from the ducks helped. It was three Pekin ducks we had at the time, and I put plenty of papers on the chairs in the dining room next to where I was going to play cards at the table, and went out and carried the ducks in to sit with me until my family returned. My mother said it made a pretty picture, when they came around the corner of the court where they could see framed in the front window, the candles, the girl with long pigtails playing cards with three white ducks that were attentively watching as if waiting their turn at cards.

Chapter 13 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Animal Burial Ground

Never being much of a small bird person, I wasn’t interested in my brother Peter’s parakeet. Perhaps it was my age as my interests were starting to turn towards boys. But his bird would fly about the house and perch on our fingers, but it was only Pete who made a pet out of it. It was given to him, cage and all, at Christmas time. I don’t know how long it lived or how many replaced it throughout the years as they never seemed to last too long.

I remember my mother purposely leaving a window open on purpose when Pete had an especially nasty parakeet--funny how when you want them to run away, they hesitate, but if you treasure the bird, the one time you leave the window open, out it goes, but that one that bit ears and chewed curtains finally, with encouragement, flew the coop sort of speak.

But one of Pete’s more beloved parakeets died about a week or two before I was going through the back entryway to our house, when I smelled something that reeked. The back entrance was the equivalent of a mud room in a modern house, and where we used to have the ice box… also where Mom used to milk the goats. Now, when anything was going to be disposed of that may smell up the house, we left it on the bench in the entryway until we had time to put it in the garbage or bury it. I noticed a small brown paper bag sitting alone with the top rolled down tightly. Fearing the germs of anything dead, and rather than accusing my little brother of not burying his parakeet, I gingerly plucked up the bag with thumb and forefinger; grabbed a shovel; and headed over the sand bank to the animal graveyard to bury Pet’s parakeet.

Having dug a shallow sandy grave, I threw the bag in, but somehow just couldn‘t cover it without having actually seen the corpse. I swallowed hard, for it smelled so bad, and didn’t want to be sickened by the sight, but I'd always wonder if I didn't check. So braced, I opened the bag. There was an inner wrapper of waxed paper. I had to reach in to loosen it. I held my nose, Hesitantly, I caught a corner and unrolled its contents--my father’s limburger cheese!

My father suffered many afflictions throughout his life, one of them being an ability to detect subtle tastes. This problem was a result of having inhaled some mustard gas during his tour of duty in France in WWI. Plus he was a chain smoker, which also compromised his ability to discern mild flavors, so he liked his cheeses with sharp flavors. Later on, when I was living on my own, I used buy those packages of small cheese samples that come in a round wheel, and are wrapped inside with foil… foil that keeps the smell from mingling with the other cheeses. Usually there would be a sample of limburger in the mix.

*[A note about my dad]
Dad was an inspiration for me. Always had arthritis as long as I could remember. Perhaps his early arthritis was caused from many broken bones throughout his life. When he was an infant, purchased milk was without the added vitamin D, so as a result he had rickets as a young child, leaving his bones brittle from not getting enough vitamin D from the sunshine. He also had operations on his eyes for cataracts in his forties, and about twenty years later his retinas in both eyes began tearing, and eventually this left him blind. He had to take an early retirement because of that, and took his blindness as a challenge, learning Braille so well he could have been an editor for the Braille books he received by mail. He also began having heart attacks in his 60s, almost dying several times, but ended up living six years longer than the doctors anticipated. He had a lot of problems, but never complained, and the same day he died, he had been swimming earlier with my Mom. He was almost 70 years old and lived a good life, never letting his infirmities get him down.

Chapter 12 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Oh, Rats!

Throughout my life in Woburn I had an assortment of pets, the oddest being a chameleon I sent for by mail. (It’s probably outlawed now, as it seems cruel.) It was actually an anole, or American chameleon. But the first one sent arrived shriveled and dead in it’s small cardboard box. We sent a letter to the return address and they shipped another. I hesitantly opened the box pulling out the sphagnum moss around it, and out popped a beautiful little green lizard. There were no directions for care, and I worried that it wouldn’t find enough insects on our indoor plants. I never even thought of housing it in an aquarium or terrarium--we just let it roam freely on Mom’s potted flowers. It seemed to do well until one day when it made a rapid movement in front of the cat. One playful chomp, and he was but a brief memory. I don’t even remember if it really changed colors.

Around that same period of time, my brother had inherited Tucker and Dan’s paper route, since they graduated to after school and weekend jobs at local greenhouses. At one time, Woburn was called the Greenhouse Capital of the World.

Eventually Jerry would split the route and I would take over delivery in a nearby group of tightly knit neighborhoods that sat like an island once you drove up the one street from where all the other little drives branched out like a prolifically limbed tree to smaller neighborhoods of houses and cottages . While Jerry alone ran the route, a customer gave him some pet rats. They weren’t plain white, but tri colored, like the coloring of Indian Paint ponies. He kept them in their cage--a wood boxy wood frame and hardware cloth. He took care of them in feeding them and making sure they had water, but I felt sorry for them as they were left in their little cage a almost all of the time, especially where Jerry had to do the newspaper route after school every day and on Saturday. They’d trot around in circles out of boredom. I began to take them out for little exercise sessions. My brother finally gave me them, and I brought their box up to my sleeping porch once the weather was warm enough, as that’s where I slept though the summer. It was a small room over the front porch, with seven windows on its three sides, and a windowed door to my regular bedroom in back. With that door closed, the rats couldn’t get into trouble or get away if I let them roam.

I’d let my rats roam in the sleeping porch and they used their box for eating and their bathroom. They were very clean and intelligent pets. There were two males and a female…and I could tell very plainly which were the males, as once they matured, they had rather large testicles which seemed ugly to me, and I never saw that in pictures of lab rats, so it kind of surprised me. But otherwise, they were handsome pets. They would weave through a large plywood dollhouse I had that sat as high as a standard bureau, across from the bed, so I could lie on my side and watch their antics. It seemed as though it was made for them, but it had no stairway, so I would have to be their elevator. I’d carry them about, but no longer let them get near my ears. I really think the one I was cuddling at the time thought my ear lobe was a piece of cheese. Other than that they never harmed me.

I wasn’t raised in the city. Rats never menaced us. To me they were like rabbits or even cats when it came to their place as pets, even more than large mice. But one night as I lay sleeping, I turned on my side during the night awakening just enough to catch the silhouette of one of my rats walking over the stuff piled atop of my dollhouse. I should say slinking. The way a rat walks normally just gives them an appearance of sneaking about which just looks like curiosity in the light of day. But the sight of this shadowed figure in the middle of the night stirred in me an innate fear coming from a deep distant place inside me I never knew existed. From then on the box that held their feeder and bathroom was to also be their bedroom, and they were locked in at night.

My mother didn’t want them to get loose in the house so there outings were mainly in the sleeping porch. They loved climbing, so I would sometimes take them out to a small elm tree that stood alone on the front lawn. I’d let them climb up, putting their box at the foot of the tree and await their return from their tree “play pen.” One day I decided they needed a larger tree, and let them climb the Catalpa. I lay on the ground underneath watching them wend their way up the trunk and along the spreading limbs exploring this large tree. I soon lost track of their whereabouts. I wasn’t worried, as there was no other tree close enough for them to jump into its branches. Eventually they would have to come down the trunk, as even the lowest branches from which to possibly jump, were pretty high off the ground.

I kept an eye on the bottom of the tree for nearly an hour, and decided they should be done exploring, and climbed up to search for them. I looked carefully along every branch. There was nowhere they could hide. They were gone! It was as if they had evaporated into thin air. I couldn’t believe it.

Later I figured that they must have gone to the end of the lowest branches and checked to see if I was looking in their direction and quietly made their leap for freedom. I never saw a trace of my pet rats again. Perhaps that was good, as my mother was sure that we would then have a rat problem from my little rat escapees.

Chapter 11 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

Squirrel Orphans

Catching up to my brother Jerry as we walked home from elementary school one rainy spring day, he was standing under a huge maple tree looking up at something, and as I drew near I could see two baby squirrels climbing down towards him. We ran home to tell our mother. Jerry said that they must be hungry orphans as they were holding their stomachs from hunger. (I don’t remember seeing this, but they must have been hungry if there wasn’t a sign of parent squirrels nearby… and even at a young age, wild animals won’t approach people except in dire necessity.)

Mom got a cardboard box, some food, and a pair of leather gloves, and followed us out to the nearby tree. It took very little coaxing to get the hungry babies to trust us enough. Soon they were home, and my mother was on the phone to the Science Museum again to find out the recipe for feeding young squirrels.

My mother hated slurping noises. If everyone has a number one pet-peeve, that was hers. If you slurped your hot chocolate in her presence, that would be the first and last time you did. The reason I mention this is that we got a laugh out of the way in which they gave advice on how to feed these squirrels. We were to warm some evaporated milk, then place in it pieces of bread. The squirrels would pickup the soggy bread and slurp out the milk, and slurp they did… Nice and loud! Jerry and I looked at each other trying not to grin, but reading each others thoughts, and then we turned in my mother’s direction to see her reaction to the noise. No reaction. We had to say it. “Mummy! You hate that noise. Doesn’t it bother you?” …and we both didn’t wait for an answer but started laughing hysterically. My mother wasn’t going to get mad at the squirrels, and she kind of smiled and said as how they needed to get the milk that way as they wouldn’t know how to slurp it out of a dish. She really didn’t mind it. It taught me something. It’s not so much the noise, but who’s making it. It is good manners when you know better and don’t slurp, and the other way around is bad manners, but when it’s innocent animals making that exact same irritating noise, it didn’t hit a raw nerve with our mother. Interesting.

There were birches growing over the area where our parents and visitors parked the cars. They were listing more towards the ground each year, and should be removed anyway. Mom sawed off one that was most in the way, and brought it into the dining room the same day we brought in the squirrels. She was always doing little nature projects, the last one was making baskets out of willow branches. She got her willow basket and lined it with some soft shredded rags, hung it from a branch of the birch tree which she had erected, much like an ornament on a needle-free Christmas tree. In this “nest” she placed the baby squirrels after their hunger was satisfied. They felt at home immediately and disappeared into the rags for a well needed sleep. Several days later, the catkins that bloom from live birches were blooming early from the branches of the birch in our dining room. Later we noticed a fine powdery yellow dust from the pollen released from the catkins. I guess Mom didn’t think the tree would develop them. She hadn’t put it in water or otherwise tried to keep the tree alive.

The squirrels adjusted to their new home very quickly. They enjoyed playing and being played with. They’d jump from the tree to anyone’s shoulder as they passed through the dining room. They were more amusing than monkeys in a zoo. They loved cuddling down inside our sweaters or in a coat pocket. We didn’t dare take them outside, for fear they’d get “lost”, but would tote them around the house. They got so they could leap clear across the dining room and land on a startled visitor’s shoulder. After awhile they poked around the house looking for other places to sleep than the willow basket nest. We would end up searching all the closets, coat pockets hanging in the hall, and finally after almost giving up, and just waiting for them to come out when they got hungry, we’d find them in the bottom of a cupboard someone left slightly open, or in an old lined boot.

I was terribly upset when my mother announced that we had to return them to the wild. We moaned and groaned, but was careful not to talk back to my mother. She tried to tell us that they would be happier with their freedom. I was afraid something would catch them… they didn’t have parents to teach them what to watch out for.

I had a tree house in an oak tree that technically was on Hall’s land. I don’t know who tore it down once, but it made me so upset and angry that I marched up to the hardware store, got more nails, got the wood I needed to repair it, and rebuilt it in a day. It was a simple boards-between-two-branches kind of tree-house, though I’d found some corrugated tin for a roof. In my imagination it was a castle. I had a rope to shinny down real fast if I needed to, but climbed the tree to the tree house. I had many picnic lunches up there, looking down at Tomato Hill and Hall’s fields, and let my imagination go, dreaming about who knows what, while patient Jeanie would be laying on the ground below awaiting my descent. The tree house was mine, I’d made it myself… but it wasn’t as protected as our home, and when my mother suggested I take the squirrels up to the tree house, I said that I couldn’t keep them in… there’s no walls. “But,” Mom said, “it will be a natural place for them to stay until they get acclimated back to nature. I’m sure they’ll stay awhile, especially if you feed them up there”

I tearfully brought them up to my tree house. I hardly had them up the tree and they began to climb all over. I got out their food, hoping they’d settle down to eat, and want to stay put. One ate a little, and then scrambled along the branches like a trapeze artist, jumping from one branch to another. “Come back,” I yelled, while the other followed. “Stay here!” It was impossible to go out to the ends of the branches to get them. I tried to watch to see where they were going. One disappeared completely. I was angry and scared. They wouldn’t listen, and were going to get lost, I was sure of it. After an hour of waiting for them to return, I got down from the tree and went down to the house to let my mother know.

“They’ll be back,” Mom said. “They are wild, and want to explore. I’m sure when you go back up tomorrow to bring them food, they will come in to eat.”

The next day I brought up their food, and only one squirrel was there. I was sure something terrible had happened to the other one. I tried to lure in that one by holding out the food to it, and he wouldn’t even come near me. I felt that Mom was wrong. We no longer had our funny monkey-like squirrels. I left some food for them to come in and eat while I was gone. Something ate it. When I went to the tree house from then on, I always was on the look out for our squirrels, but never saw them again. There still were grown up squirrels on the big trees along Williams Court, but I didn’t think they were ours, as it just seemed like they should remember us and somehow let us know that they were there and they were alright. My mother said that they would be much happier wild and free. I couldn’t understand that, as I never saw two happier animals in my life, but I couldn’t deny them their freedom. I got a vicarious thrill out of watching wild squirrels run though a network of high tree branches, gauging how far out they could travel on a tender limb, and how far to jump to another, with less than a split second of thought. As an older woman looking back, I’m sure those squirrels did live, as there weren’t many predators in the area I lived, and I’ve since released many animals into the wild, and could see how quickly they instinctively took to the life they were meant to live. Now I would rather see a wild animal that would probably live less long than one in captivity, as I feel it’s like imprisoning an innocent being. Freedom is living, but being in a cage is merely existing. I rarely go to zoos because of that.