When I was growing up, we generally had a cat in the house. I don’t know where we got them or to which of us they belonged; if a cat can “belong” to anyone, probably to my grandmother. I mentioned elsewhere that I “convinced my grandmother not to throw the cat out the window”, so it’s probably a good idea to explain that, so you don’t think she was crazy.

My grandmother lived with us, “us” being me, my brother and our mother, as long as I can remember. After my father left, my mother went back to work, taking the bus to Newark every day, starting from when I was about seven. I give her much credit, it was a struggle for her, but we always had a roof over our heads and coal in the bin, and I never went to bed hungry.

With my mother at work, Grandma became my de facto “caregiver”, a good word, but one that  always sounds to me like Newspeak. I often argued with her about small things, sometimes just to have an argument. Once, exasperated by my logic, she told me I’d make a good lawyer,  and that was not meant as a compliment. She made my school bag lunches, usually a sandwich on white bread of Spam, or deviled ham, or if I wasn’t lucky, olive loaf. Those are the only ones I remember, there must have been others.

Hobo sign, courtesy subversify.com

Behind our house on Berkeley Avenue was a sort of service alley, and one day a hobo came to our back door to ask for something to eat. Grandma gave him a glass of milk and made him a sandwich to eat on the back porch. He thanked her kindly and left. In a while she sent me to see if he had written anything on the back gate. He had drawn a crude cat, which I later found out tells other hoboes “A kind-hearted woman lives here”. A practical woman too, she had me wash it off.

One day while playing with our first cat, a gray-and-black tabby like #1 above (not the actual cats, heh), I decided his whiskers were unnecessary and cut them off, leaving about a half-inch. The cat did not object, and we continued to play. That night, after my mother had been home for a while, she asked “What’s wrong with the cat?”, and after a moment or two figured it out. It turns out that cat whiskers do have a purpose; as it was explained to me that night, they tell a cat whether he can fit through a narrow space.

(I’ll interject here that to my knowledge, neither of our cats had a gender or a name; they were referred to simply as “the cat”.)

My brother left a large paper grocery bag lying open in the middle of the living room. Cat number two (see #2 above), an orange tiger-striped tabby, spotted the bag, circled it, then went inside to take a nap. My brother said “Watch this”, grabbed the bag, closed it, and shook it vigorously. When he set the bag down again, the cat burst out of the top and headed for the other end of the house. After a while, the cat returned, circled the bag, and got back in. Cats are either adventurous or dumb; my vote is for adventurous.

One evening there was a family discussion about how cats are always able to land on their feet after a fall (pretty much true). Perhaps looking to start an argument with my grandmother, I said that seemed unlikely. In rebuttal, she picked up cat #2, walked over to our second-floor window, and said “Watch.” I yelled “NO, GRANDMA!” and ran over to save the cat. She laughed and set the cat down on the floor. Maybe she’s where I get my sense of humor.

As will happen, Grandma got older, and the family got her her own caregiver, a longtime family friend, a sweet woman named Laura who stayed with us when my mother was at work. After a while, Grandma went to live with Aunt Mabel, who could stay with her all day; next came the nursing home; then she died.

When I went back to school after the funeral, the girl who sat next to me in Latin II, Filomena, asked in her haughty way where I had been for three days. When I told her, after a second or two she burst into tears. She had never considered the possibility of losing her Nana.

Fort Dix, about 1951. Aunt Mabel, brother Dick, Mom, Grandma, me