11 November 2017

Today is Armistice Day. Yes folks, on this date, 11 November 1918 the end of WW1 finally came. World War One was the first fully industrial war. Actually it was a huge meat grinder. Near the start of that terrible mess, they actually had horse calvary charging at machine gun emplacements! The so called "Allies" had some of the most incompetent leaders ever. Hell, they had old Winnie Churchill making the bullshit plans for the disaster at Gallipoli! He should have had his British citizenship revoked and been sent into permanent exile for that. I am sure the main reason that didn't happen was due to the fact that it was mostly the poor ANZAC troops who died in that disaster. Had the been British troops, maybe he'd have been truly punished for his crimes.

Any who, here in 'Merikkka, we now call 11 November "veterans day".  Oh, it is even a holiday in 'Merikkka now. Well shit, I don't remember it being a holiday. Maybe I need to get out more.....LOL, not gonna do it. This is one day I refuse to let anybody know I was ever in the Marines, let alone my time in the damn fool Vietnam war. Oh, and why is that, you ask? Because every damn clown and his/her brother then feels some bullshit 'need' to "thank me for my service". They have NO fucking idea just what that war cost me and many, many others who were on both sides of that shit storm. Thank me for my service? Fuck that shit. Anybody who leaves such a comment here will not get it posted and may even be disallowed to comment here for an indefinite time. If you never were in any military, you don't have a clue. If you served but didn't go to war, you have zero clue what it is like. There are me,tries I have never shared with others. If you weren't there, you cannot even imagine what it was like. If you were there, you know and don't need to be reminded, you KNOW, all too well, as I do. I came back from that mess in September 1971 and the memories are still fresh. Every time I read about the latest damn fool war, surged, whatever, the flashbacks get out of the box and the closet I'd put them in. Yeah, like the song says, memories ARE like starlight. They DO go on forever. I detest flashbacks. 
Any way, to Marines, yesterday was THE day. 10 November 1775, the birth of the Marine Corps. See yesterdays post for more.

Today I am going to give the story on old Walter P. Kronkat. 
I still was living in SoCal and Sherie was still in good health. We had been out doing our grocery shopping. When I pulled our Suzuki Samurai into the driveway of our house, we saw a cat sitting in our front yard. We'd not seen this cat before and we both thought it would run off as we opened the garage door. Had a remote opener in the Samurai. Well, I backed into the garage and Sherie looked in the yard. The cat is still there she said to me. OK, lets get this put in the house and I'll see if the cat is OK or hungry. I was bringing that last bags into the kitchen and she came from the front room to tell me I should take a dish of food and some water for the cat as it was till in the front yard. 
I took some food, water, and even a few cat treats to the garage and placed the food and water dishes near the front edge of the garage. The cat saw me, and cautiously came to see what I'd put down. He smelled the food and began to eat. Poor cat must not have had any food for some time as he (found out later it was a male cat) ate all the food in the dish then lapped up half the water. 
Now during this time, I'd been sitting on an old folding chair I kept in the garage. The cat looked at me, walked over close to me. I put my hand out towards him. He looked at me, checking me out as cats will do. He sat down and kept looking at me, deciding if I would do as somebody he might trust. Now I know he'd seen our other cats in the bay window we had on the house, so he knew I may be an OK human.
After some minutes of deciding, cats some times take a while to decide. He walked closer to me, then jumped onto my lap, looked up at me as if to say, I need a back rub. LOL, well, naturally I HAD to scratch his ears then rub his back. Old cat began to purr like a sweet running race car engine. He looked at me again as if to say "Oh yeah! That's the spot". I then noticed his right eye was messed up big time. We found out he was blind in that eye later on. He also didn't like when my hand touched his right hip. He didn't try to bite me, just gave a sound that I knew meant, don't do that. He started treading on me and then looked directly into my eyes as if to say "This is MY new home. And that is how it is". 
Now, if you are old enough to remember Walter Cronkite doing the TV news on CBS TV, you know how he ended each news cast. He'd say "And that's the way it is" and give the date, i.e.. Saturday, November 11, 2017. Well, this old stray cat gave me THAT look. 
I told Sherie we now had another cat and his name was Walter P. Kronkat. Walter Kronkat because of his Cronkite demeanor and the P., well, just because. Sort of like Alfred E. Neuman.  The P. was added by me to make Mr. cat seem more distinguished. Yeah, well, cats KNOW they rule the world, so my puny bit wasn't even needed, but hell, he was moving into OUR home, so I added the middle initial anyway.
We found from the vet, he'd most likely benefit twice. Once to mess up his eye, and then to break his hip. There was nothing that could be done for the eye. He had surgery to fix his hip. For a "free" cat, he cost us close to $600 in vet bills to get his surgery and shots. The vet told us he didn't know of anybody who would have done that for a stray cat. We told him, Walter is so sweet, and damn he looked good! He was a small cat, maybe a rag doll breed, never did find out. He had the softest long black and white fur of any cat we' ever had. he was the only long haired cat we, or I after Sherie died from glio blastoma ever had. Old Walter was a character and then some. He loved to sit on an end table in the front room of our home and as any of the other cats passed by, he'd swipe at them with his front paw. Never really hit them unless their tail was pointing up. He was just playing with them. Surprisingly, the other cats accepted him in just a few days. When he came home after his surgery, they all had to get close to him and check to see it was him coming home and not some other new cat.
His one big quirk was, he would hide if he saw my with my camera. Any photo of him I ever had was of him sleeping. Oh, that reminds me. He liked to sleep in one of the dinning room chairs, with his head hanging OFF the chair seat. If you put his head on the cushion, in about 5 seconds his head would be hanging down again. We just let him sleep whatever way he wanted to after the first week. 
He had a good life with us and died about six months before Sherie was diagnosed with her brain cancer (glio blastoma). Shit, I miss them more than words can say. Sherie most of all of course. We had 24 years together and went through things nobody should have to deal with. We got through the bad times easier than I thought we could because we were so close. We made it through some extremely rough bits because we always talked things out and we never accused each other of why things went bad.  We'd often sit and talk all day, no TV or even stereo on. After my back gave out we had many days like that. I miss that more than anything else about her. 

OK, today is also Caturday, so-----LOL cats!!









4 comments:

  1. I am glad you rescued Walter cat. Did you know that cats were worshiped in ancient egypt and the cats have never forgotten it. They feel entitled to be worshiped to this day. Hugs

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  2. Thanks Scottie. Actually we didn't rescue Walter. He ended up in our front yard. We knew he had seen our cats sitting on the large window sill of there bay window. That side of our house in SoCal faced almost due South so they got plenty of sun there and the sill was big enough for all 6 to sit on it with space left over.
    No, he decided that HE had found his new forever home, so he moved in. And THAT is the way it was. I don't remember the date. Wish I did, then I could do a full on Cronkite bit about the true story. He cost us way more than we wanted to spend, but he gave so much back to all of us, Sherie, me, and the other 6 cats.

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  3. I'm actually a dog person myself. Sorry.

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  4. Bill,
    I like dogs also, just cats are my favorites. All cats. In my ideal world, I'd be able to be best pals with a tiger. I'd be good friends with most animals, but oh man, to have a tiger as a friend......hey, I can still dream.

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Well, it sure has been a long time