Cat deprived

I often wish that I could afford my own house so that I could have a cat. Where I live now, I can't have any pets, and having been raised in a house filled with them as a child, I've felt so utterly deprived in the 25 years I've lived in my apartment. In particular, I love cats, because they are so comforting, especially when they purr. I remember when I was young and every time I was sick, our family cat Dooney, a half siamese cat who was black with white paws and a white stomach, would stay with me through my entire illness. He was such a motherly cat and took care of us kids through our entire childhoods, finally dying on Palm Sunday of 1970 of sudden kidney failure at age 15. It was a devastating blow and I can't remember crying so hard because it felt like losing a sibling or something. I desperately miss having a cat now but I know how easily I become too attached to pets and find losing them to be utter heartbreak. The cat pictured, Dupree, my brother's cat, is getting up there in years. I think he turns 15 this year himself and he's slowed down just a bit from his younger days, but still shows some kitten-like spunk from time to time. However, he's the most curmudgeonly cat I've ever met. He doesn't like to be held, touched or even spoken to, unless, of course, it's on his terms. He adores my brother, but then, it was he who rescued him when he was just a kitten, abandoned in the woods somewhere down in Southern Ohio. He'll jump up on my brother's lap, sleep on his bed and rub against him and even sit in his lap and purr, but he doesn't seem to like me for some reason. Maybe it's because I want to pay attention to him and he doesn't really relish a lot of being petted or talked to. However, there are a few neighborhood cats who have, of late, begun hanging around my mom's house who seem starved for attention, so I go over there to get a cat fix from Herman, a brown tabby who seems upset with his owners for getting some pit bulls, and a sleek black short hair cat that my nieces named "Satine" who doesn't really seem to belong to anybody in particular, but my mom's next door neighbors feed him, so he does get taken care of after a fashion. He's extremely affectionate but drools like crazy when you pet him. Maybe that's why nobody seems to want him, because he does have that drooling problem. But he is a beautiful and loving cat who I would proudly give a home to if I could. So for the past quarter century, I've been deprived of having a cat of my own to love and to keep me company and comfort me when I am down. I've so missed it and I wish I could have my own house where I could have a cat and a yard and a place to call my own. Maybe someday............when I win the lottery........(sigh)

MEMORIES OF CATHOLIC SCHOOL DAYS

Something I saw in a recent newspaper article spawned some old Catholic school memories, which I attended from 1963 to 1966. Back in those far off days, you learned to live in mortal fear of the nuns, because they would unashamedly whack you upside the head for the smallest offense. There were several that I was extremely afraid of and learned to steer clear of if I had anything to say about it, but sometimes, you could not avoid an encounter with one of them. Such was the case in communion and confirmation instruction. Everything had to be just so. You had to hold your hands a certain way, walk a certain way, sit a certain way and even pray a certain way, and heaven forbid if you did it wrong. That would earn you a stiff rebuke and a good whack from one of the nuns. For a very young child, this could prove to be traumatic at times. Struggling to remember prayers (quick, all you ex-Catholics out there, can you still remember how to say your old Rosary? Or sing the "Veni Creator Spiritus" from memory?) and trying to learn the Latin liturgy of the Mass could prove to be quite daunting when you're only six or so years old. Having segregated playgrounds at school was also tough because I often wanted to play with the boys, but that was forbidden turf. There was a big white line painted across playground sections, girls on one side, boys on the other, and you did not dare cross the line for fear of ending up in the principal's office, and that was a very scary proposition at Catholic school. To get to ours, you had to go to the second floor of the old section, and then open this door and climb this narrow little stairwell into this little cubby-hole of an office, where sat our school principal, who I was perfectly terrified of because she was a nun and a strict one at that. Those old habits made them look very intimidating and far taller than they actually were, and I wonder if that was done for effect to scare young children or what. And it always seemed like I drew the really mean teachers in Catholic school, not the nice ones my older sister kept getting. I don't know why this was the case. Bad luck, maybe. OK, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Bauer, was really nice, but I have little memory of that school year because I seemed to spend so much of it sick at home, with mumps, chicken pox, rubella, scarlet fever.....and on and on and on. So it felt like I spent most of that year at home recuperating from illness. But I can honestly say that the lion's share of my Catholic school days were ones filled with fear and loathing. So yeah, I'm one of those Unitarian Universalist ex-Catholics who still has occasional baggage from those days, but not like I used to. Still, I wonder if I would have stayed a Catholic had I not had so many bad experiences in those first three years of school? Thinking back now, probably not. Too many other issues that took me away from my childhood faith, but I still wear my St. Brigid's cross necklace and keep a St. Christopher medallion on my car keychain, so I suppose the old Jesuit saying is true: "Give me a child unto the age of seven and he's mine for life."