Always had cats from Macon, University, Bruce

Cats have been a part of my life in one way or another as long as I can remember. None now, however, for they might make me fall and I can do that without any help from an animal.
I had cats in Macon and they had a short lifespan because we lived on a corner and they would go out to the street light at night to catch bugs and get run over.

Jo Ann Denley

No cats when we were living in Vets Village at the university, but I did agree to keep a neighbor’s cat one afternoon. Disaster, for she was a Siamese and they must be the most temperamental of all felines. She wandered into the bathroom, drank from the toilet and then fell in. And oh, the yowling. I gave serious thought to just flushing her down, but didn’t know if the university maintenance crew would sanction that or not.
After we moved back here, a neighbor nearby called and told me that my cat was killing hers under her house. “So,” I thought, “I’m not crawling under her house to break up a cat fight.”

One afternoon Deanna was dressing up our cat in doll clothes and pushing him in a stroller. Neighbor Newt Hanson, who lived across the street walked over and said, “I can’t believe this.”
“Deanna dressing that cat up. He’s the baddest cat in the neighborhood.”
I said, “My guess is that he must be worn out by the time he gets home.”

The last cat I had was a sweetheart – a long-haired domestic calico kitten. We acquired her when Deanna’s boyfriend gave her PK (Pretty Kitty) for Christmas. She lived in an apartment that did not allow pets and got passed on to us.
When Gale was hit by a car passing three and he was sent to the Trauma Center in Memphis, longtime friend and columnist Wayne Weidie in Ocean Springs called to say he wanted to visit Gale and asked if he could break up the trip by staying at my house. I told him he could and also mentioned where the extra cover was if he got cold, for it was January.

But I told him that I had a young kitten that Celia was feeding. “If you go into the closet, make sure you don’t shut my kitten up in there.” When he got to Memphis he told me that he had shut the kitten up in the closet and didn’t know it until he was asleep and heard her yowling.
Some things you just can’t control. Weidie, bless his soul, was just one of those, and so was my kitten.

You may email Jo Ann Denley at joanndenley@brucetelephone.com