REFLECTIONS

Take a walk at midnight and hear the screeching sound of a cat fight in the distance.

This bone-tingling sound will help outline a sequence of events about to unfold.

As a young child, this happened to me as I enjoyed the panoramic view of a couple of black cats waltzing on a wooden fence post.

Wait a minute! That screech sounded again. It was not just a couple of cats rambling in the dark. It was a whole prairie of animal sounds that made living on a small dairy farm a very special experience. This time, it had to be a barn owl.

It seems that every small dairy farm has cats. We did. We loved them, and they managed to love us in their own peculiar ways.

Snipe hunting

On this one summer’s night, my brother Dave and I went hunting snipe. You’ve heard of them, right? It’s a small bird with a long beak, and one that is hunted mostly in the dark of the night.

On this one particular night, Dave and I heard some strange sounds coming from near the chicken house. It wasn’t the normal cluck-cluck sounds of our friendly chickens. It was more like a squeaking sound.

When my brother and I investigated more, the sound became sharper, and it took us to an old leather tractor seat that had become a home for a black mother cat and her two little kittens.

The kittens looked rather malnourished, so what did my brother and I do? We took them to the house, showed them to my mom and asked her to give us an eye dropper.

EEK and MEEK

Yes, we proceeded to feed them daily. We named them “Eek” and “Meek”. We soon found out they were boys. We learned sex education early on the farm.

These spunky little cats moved in on us, and we soon had two house cats. They loved to chase one another on the living room couch.

“Where did they go?” my brother would ask. Soon, we saw one of the black cats, woven in lots of spider webs he collected inside the springs of the couch.

Suddenly, Eek became sick, and we tried our best to nurse my brother’s cat back to health. He didn’t make it.

We still had some cats on our farm, but they were all barn cats and didn’t measure up to Eek. I then decided to adopt Meek as my cat. First of all, I renamed him. He became “Scooter.”

Scooter was a very special cat. He had glistening black fur and black and gold eyes. He remained a house cat.

Exceptional hearing

Scooter had exceptional hearing. Following dinner, we would leave the dishes for later and retire to the living room. Soon, we would hear and few rattling dishes. “Scooter!” we would holler and then “thump”, we would hear Scooter hit the floor as he ended his exploring of the evening leftovers.

My mother’s living room chair was his favorite evening chair. Once in a while, we would find Scooter curled up in the bathroom sink. He often visited me in my upstairs bedroom. I arose and sauntered downstairs for breakfast. He remained upstairs.

A few moments later our doorknob on the chair leading upstairs began to rattle. It was Scooter wanting to join our party.

Scooter was a friendly cat, but there was one old bachelor friend of ours named Alvin Halvorson who Scooter didn’t really like. When Alvin would arrive, he would try to chase Scooter away. Scooter would then spit at him.

After a long evening of card playing, we would escort Alvin to his pickup truck. Oops! Scooter was on top of Alvin’s pickup lid and was giving it a shower.  Don’t mess with Scooter.

We even had a pet parakeet on the farm. His name was “Chico”, and he would often call Scooter: “Here, kitty-kitty.”

Daughter Tammi brought home a cute little smoked Persian kitty. She had a smushed-in nose. We told Tammi time and time again, “Don’t bring a cat home.” She didn’t listen.

After Tammi passed, her cat Shawnee became ours. Cats have their own personalities. Just add one to your family, and you will find out quickly.

Not everyone likes black cats, however. Riding with Judy’s dad on a street in Ellendale, he quickly turned the car around when a black cat crossed in front of him. Are black cats really bad luck? Find out for yourself!