Cats and Dogs I Have Known Part I

PART ONE - CATS
     I was raised a cat person.  I was not fond of dogs except for a couple of animated ones , namely Snoopy, Underdog, and Deputy Dawg.   (I weep over a generation that's never heard of Deputy Dawg).   The best Underdog episode ever was the Thanksgiving one where someone went back in a time machine and changed the events of the first Thanksgiving so that it never happened.  Suddenly all of the floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade began to disappear until Underdog saved the day (how I can remember those details but can't remember what time my haircut is tomorrow I'll never know).  But I digress.
     My first cat was a Siamese named Simon.   He was a great cat as far as cats go. I can't remember what grade I was in when we got him (yet I can remember what Santa brought me every year...see previous post) but it was in elementary school somewhere around 4th grade.   But alas he ran off and never came back.  For 20 years I held out hope he'd come home until one day my parents were talking about the cat that crawled up in the engine of the car and fell out down the street.   I always figured he had wandered off to a nice farm in the country where he chased field mice.  I never dreamed he had actually BOUGHT the farm!
    We finally found another Siamese that was from a loving, gentle stock unlike most snooty Siamese.   Casanova became my closest friend and constant companion. He slept in my bed each night with his head on the pillow and the covers up to his neck.  He lived about 15 years and set the standard for cats.
    After that is a blur of cats that came and went.  As I moved out on my own I'd collect some, then deposit them back with my parents.  One cat grew to have an extremely large head but met his end after killing one of my dad's chickens.   Tigre was my roomie and adjusted fairly quickly when I got married...being relegated from sleeping on a pillow to the foot of the bed.   My other cat, Woodrow, didn't fare so well.  The week before I got married he disappeared mysteriously.  Some say Tigre rubbed him out, but he was a pretty lazy pacifist. There was even some buzz on the streets of Yazoo City that my new bride had something to do with it, not being a cat person herself. (I will not comment on that particular event because it was quickly overshadowed by me taping Golden Girls over the only videotape of our wedding!)  Tigre was the last in the line of cats which would be the last cat I ever owned....although you don't own cats, cats own you.  
   Then came the no pet years as babies were being born.   As babies become toddlers and toddlers became preschoolers, my focus would quickly change to puppies and dogs (and that unfortunate season of life with the hamsters which reproduced faster than gremlins)!  But you'll have to wait until my next post to hear about my adventures in dog land.