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.