My Folks Loved Animals

My parents loved animals-all animals. If a homeless giraffe had been wandering around our neighborhood, it soon would have found a home with us. In some cases, Dad would have preferred spending time with a horse instead of with a fellow human being. Of course, I can understand his reasoning, at least in the case of a person who acts like the south end of a north-bound horse.

When I was only a few years old, Dad and Mom brought home a crippled chicken from our grandfather’s farm. Named “Henny Penny,” it soon found a comfortable place in the backyard; it moved into the doghouse with our cat. This was certainly a case of strange bedfellows, but somehow the arrangement worked. In fact, the chicken became the cat’s protector. Neither man nor beast could mess with the cat without getting pecked by Henny Penny. I guess you could say It was not a good idea to “ruffle its feathers”.

As my parents grew older and as the children began to leave the nest, so to speak, our family cats were given the privilege of moving into the house. These inside cats were spoiled, but the most spoiled of all was a butterball named “Tom.”

After sampling some turkey scraps, Tom no longer desired cat food, fish, birds, or even mice. At least once a week, when she went shopping, Mom would buy her cat its own turkey breast. Not surprisingly, the poor beast soon became fat and lazy. He was allowed to sleep anywhere he pleased. His favorite napping sites were the top of the TV set, the kitchen table, and my bed!

To our utter surprise, Mom brought home a chameleon, or American lizard (if she had brought home a cow, it would have been to our “udder” surprise). He was kind of cool; I liked to put him in front of a mirror and watch his throat expand and turn red. Unlike our cats, hamsters, or even Henny Penny, he could change his color from green to brown.

One day, my older brother, who was at work, received an urgent phone call. Mom told his boss that there had been a terrible accident, so he hurried home. The chameleon had escaped from its cage; Mom had accidentally stepped on it, forcing its intestines to pop out of its rear end. Miraculously, the creature lived another year or so.

Eventually, Dad made a little cage for the lizard. Then Mom was able to take it with her to the grocery store, the clothing store, or any other place of business. At the grocery store, she scared the poor clerk half to death by sticking the creature near the lady’s face. Mom couldn’t understand why anyone would be frightened by such a harmless little lizard.

We also had our share of hamsters and gerbils. One of our hamsters, whose name escapes me, was ill, so one night Mom placed it in a baby doll crib beside her bed. At approximately two in the morning, we were awakened to form a search party. Somehow, the furry little creature had escaped from the crib. We searched upstairs and downstairs, but couldn’t find Mom’s pet.

Dad believed that it might have fallen through one of the heating registers, so he and my brother went into the basement and proceeded to take apart the furnace pipes. A few minutes later, Mom found the hamster snuggled behind the dresser drawer in her bedroom. After putting the furnace pipes back in place, we crawled into our beds for a few more hours of much-needed rest. However, I had to share, for in my bed, sound asleep, was Tom Cat, content with a belly full of turkey.