{"id":2636,"date":"2008-06-15T19:28:19","date_gmt":"2008-06-16T02:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/15\/the-family-cat\/"},"modified":"2008-06-15T19:28:19","modified_gmt":"2008-06-16T02:28:19","slug":"the-family-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2636","title":{"rendered":"The Family Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many\u00c2\u00a0years, my family never had pets other than goldfish and turtles. Although my sisters and I often asked for a pet (a cat, a dog, a pony) my parents were always insistent that we were not getting a pet.<\/p>\n

That all changed one sunny afternoon when my mother was home alone. On that day, my mother\u00c2\u00a0was hanging\u00c2\u00a0the laundry on the clothesline that extended from our back porch to a tall post in the yard when she was startled by a black cat that jumped from the ground to the porch railing (a good six feet) and introduced himself.<\/p>\n

By the time the rest of the family had returned home, my mother had served the cat a nice meal of tuna, and set up a place for the cat to sleep. We were utterly astounded that my mother had let a stray cat into the house.<\/p>\n

We\u00c2\u00a0knew that we had to name the cat, but couldn’t settle on a suitable moniker. We decided to let the cat, itself, decide. My sisters and I\u00c2\u00a0called out\u00c2\u00a0all sorts of suitable cat names (Puff, Fluffy, Blackie) but the cat simply ignored us. Finally, we tried “Smokey” and the cat looked up. And so, we named the cat Smokey, even though the name\u00c2\u00a0was decidedly inappropriate for a jet black cat.<\/p>\n

The next day, my mother let\u00c2\u00a0Smokey out of the house, thinking that\u00c2\u00a0he would find\u00c2\u00a0his way back to wherever\u00c2\u00a0he came from .\u00a0He was probably less than a year old and in seemingly good health, so\u00c2\u00a0he must have had a home somewhere. Smokey, however, had decided to adopt us. Whenever my mother would let\u00c2\u00a0him outside,\u00a0Smokey\u00c2\u00a0would faithfully return\u00c2\u00a0to our house\u00c2\u00a0when\u00c2\u00a0his wanderings were over.<\/p>\n

And then, one day, Smokey didn’t return. We\u00c2\u00a0searched the neighborhood. No Smokey. We called his name. Still no Smokey. We posted notices of a lost cat. And still no Smokey. After he was gone for three whole days, we concluded that\u00c2\u00a0Smokey\u00c2\u00a0was either dead or injured, or perhaps he had simply moved on to a new home.<\/p>\n

Another day dawned and my mother went out to the back porch to once again hang laundry. Smokey reappeared, jumping from the ground to the porch railing. He was a bit thinner, but still full of energy and ready for his lunch.<\/p>\n

Years later, my parents told us that Smokey really hadn’t run away .\u00a0Our parents\u00c2\u00a0had decided that\u00c2\u00a0they couldn’t afford to keep a cat, what with expenses for cat food, kitty litter, and vet bills. So, my father\u00c2\u00a0had carried Smokey to the car, drove some 10 miles from our house, and let the cat\u00c2\u00a0go. Somehow, Smokey managed to find his way back to our house.<\/p>\n

\"Smokey\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Smokey<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE: Smokey (Albany, Albany Co., New York). Photographed by Jane Danko about 1975.<\/p>\n

In the following years, my parents adopted a number of cats, usually strays. Smokey, however, was the first, and he always\u00c2\u00a0had a special place\u00c2\u00a0in my family’s heart.<\/p>\n

Written for the Carnival of Genealogy.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2008 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many years, my family never had pets other than goldfish and turtles. Although my sisters and I often asked for a pet (a cat, a dog, a pony) my parents were always insistent that we were not getting a pet. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal","tag-carnival-of-genealogy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-Gw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}