Stories of Our Cats

by Jeanne Toomey

Mike found "Amtrak" as a starving story in Washington Heights, captured him and brought him home to his apartment in Queens.  The resident cat, "BTM," it turned out was not anxious to share his home and Mike's affection.  After a few feline battles, Mike brought us Amtrak.  I made the cat, a gray altered male, comfortable and found him to be a very friendly animal.  In fact, he became a favorite for visitors and the rest of the feline population.

Another cat with a checkered history is "Panda," obviously black and white, who was a feral outdoor cat until a few winters ago.  Two cat lovers brought her here.

"I hope she'll do well," Sylvia, a slim and pretty woman murmured.  "She's a stray who never came near us.  I fed her everyday a few blocks from the house.  She'd wait there for me under a hedge.  But I know she'll be safer here."

I turned and studied Panda.  She was a stubby animal, frightened and really homely except to Sylvia.  And she sure was wild!  In a few days she managed to slip through a fence and escape from our North Building by ducking like lightening past one of the workers.

An immediate problem.  Winter in the Northwest Corner of Connecticut.  How to keep feisty Panda from becoming an icy corpse.

When deep snow made the way from beneath on of the cottages impassable, Carl "Cubby" Bouplon dug a path almost for the exclusive use of Panda.  After several winters I managed to lure the black and white vagrant by an unfair strategy, tuna fish, set out by the glass door.  I hid behind it and when she ventured in, shut the door fast, and voila, a captive Panda.

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