Cats

We were in a town called Quincy, and we were getting ready to leave in the morning when this nice orange cat come up to us. I started playing with the cat and it was paying a lot of attention to us. Dad saw this and took a liking to the cat and named it "Quincy", after the town we were in. The cat didn't go away so Dad thought it would be a good idea if we took the cat with us. Now the cat probably belonged to someone and thinking back probably would've hated being in the car, but Dad really tried to convince Mom to let him take the cat, using me as an excuse since I fell in love with it. Mom pointed out we were in my Grandmothers car and that we had already made enough mess without having a live animal. Mom then treated Dad like a little kid who brought home a stray puppy, she simply said "no".

But this set the stage for future cat events, and we were to find out that Dad basically gets his way one way or another. A little history: My whole life I've known Dad I've never known him to ever hold a job. He must have made money somehow, or else how could we have spent entire Summers on the road living out of Motels and visiting roadside attractions? But Dad never, as long as I've been around, had a real job, except for the job at UCLA in the Neurological Research Lab taking care of the test animals. From what I have been told this is one of those labs where they would plug electrodes into animals brains to see what would happen, I'm always reminded of those anti-vivisection picture of the cat or the monkey with all the wires sticking out of their brains with their expression a mixture of pain and bewilderment. Well, my Dad worked in one of these scientific labs as a technician, taking care of the test animals, mostly cats. For many years afterward Dad still carried his UCLA identification card and often used it to get discounts, or impress people at cocktail parties, even though the expiration date was 1962. On more than one occasion when asked what he did for a living Dad would answer he was in "neurological research", even more than 30 years after the fact. Once when I was in school, I think the 3rd grade, we were asked to tell what our dad's did for a living, Everyone else had answers like; "president of a big oil company", "a doctor", "Center for the LA Lakers"... but when they got to me I was stumped, and the only thing I could think of was "scientist". I think this amused the teacher and she mentioned it to my Mom later, but I was truly at a loss at what my dad "did". From then on I was told that "...he is in investments.", and that became my answer for years to come.

But getting back to the story, Dad worked in this research lab where they basically tortured cats for scientific purposes, and I think that while Dad found this fascinating and necessary toward the progress of science, he might've felt some sense of wrong and truly felt sorry for the animals. I was told he was fired from that job for letting the cat out of their cages to experience a little freedom, Dad was upset and frustrated when telling how the doctors didn't like the way he treated the cats with compassion. Before leaving that job Dad was able to take one of the cats home and it lived at my grandparents house for many years, the cat's name was Psycho and he was never very friendly to me.

So Dad always had an affinity for stray or needed cats, especially on the trips and it became another tradition to find and take a kitten along in the car for the journey. The first cat I can recall getting was a gray Russian Blue cat we named Jerky. I forgot exactly where Jerky came from, probably a free kitten given away in front of a grocery store, but Dad picked up this cat somewhere and brought him along on the trip with us. The first thing we needed to take care of was the cat box situation, this was solved by lining a cardboard box bottom with a plastic garbage bag filled with kitty litter, and placing it on the floor of the back seat behind Dad, and opposite the ice chests. For the most part this worked well since cats pretty much know from the very beginning that the box is the place to go, and emptying the box of cat poo was fairly simple by just stopping by the side of the road and dumping the unwanted litter out and replacing it with clean Johnny Cat. However, after a while the smell did become a permanent passenger in the car and spillage was unavoidable, we all began to learn how much a person could get used to if having to live with it in a confined space over a long period of time. Adding to the mess and odor was the food and water situation for the cat, especially the water dish (an empty cat food can) that would always spill and mix with the dry food and stray kitty litter. Us kids learned to avoid that section of the car all together and ignored the chaos until it became too disgusting, or Dad ordered one of us to deal with it. Except for the occasional times where the cat would get underneath the brake or accelerator pedals, making it difficult for Dad to drive safely, the cat did quickly become accustomed with driving in the car and Jerky's habits conformed to ours in no time.

But, there was also the problem of having pets in the motels, which at the time most motels forbid any kind of pets, and for good reason. All of us then had to get used to the fact of hiding the cat from the management (as well as occasionally sneaking one of us in) and us kids became very stealthy at including the cat in our motel activities. On a few occasions the management did catch us with the cat and became angry, either threatening to kick us out or charge us additional for the potential mess. Dad would always somehow talk his way out of it or agree to keep the cat in the car overnight, but nobody ever liked it. Jerky did however become part of our family and when he was brought home Mom was initially not happy and reluctant to accept Jerky, in fact Jerky was to become one of the favorite cats of all time and even Mom became extremely fond of Jerky and he was one of the favorite cats. This was great, but also started a dangerous precedence, since now bringing the cat home from the trip was proved successful, Dad had to find a cat on every trip since.

Jerky was probably the only successful cat story I can recall on the trips. There were a few trip I didn't attend that my sisters went on and they relayed stories of getting a kitten, that after a few days was not able to withstand the heat and stress of traveling, and died in the car. I assume this was sad and traumatic for my sisters, and a great disappointment for Dad, but after a few days of mourning they would inevitably come across more free kittens and have another companion for the road.

The year Ted and the family was on the trip, Dad showed up again with a black kitten. Us kids were delighted but Mom was furious. The cat had diarrhea and immediately made a few messes either in the car of in the motel room, so we named him "Spot". Ted thought this name was appropriate and funny and even Mom had a chuckle, but Spot wasn't happy, or happy to be around. The car was already crowded and full of all kinds of different smells, and the cat only added to the stress and unhealthy factor to our group, and from then on Mom began to make plans. One day well into the trip, Dad took all of us kids on some event for a couple of hours and left mom with the cat in the motel room, when we returned Spot was mysteriously missing and Mom appeared both angry and unconcerned. Dad immediately had a fit and accused Mom of foul play, demanding an explanation, Mom only responded with cool and calculated denial. The rest of us kids suspected many things but mostly kept quiet.

Having a cat was always Dad's thing, an unexplained need for a mascot. Dad often recalls the time he was traveling in his '55 Thunderbird and picked up an alligator lizard somewhere down South. He kept the live alligator on the dashboard of the car as he drove along and I guess it kept him company or something. He then tells that he was racing to catch a ferry, and cut it so close that he actually jumped the ramp onto the ferry before it left. Well, this angered the ferry captain so much that he stuck his head into Dad's window and yelled obscenities into his face. This apparently got a reaction out of the alligator who reared up and hissed at the captain (like a cat) This so amused the ferry captain seeing this strange creature hiss at him that he forgot about being angry at Dad and let him pass through without trouble. So having a pet seems to be essential to Dad on the trips, and since we couldn't get alligator lizards anymore, cats were the next best thing.