Journey of Love

As a child I lived in Tampa, Florida. We kids grew up hard and didn't have a lot of extras like some of the kids we played with in the old State Street Housing Project.

My brothers and I would walk along State Street, collect all the empty pop bottles we could find and return them to the local grocery for the three cents bottle deposit. On a good day we could find up to thirty cents worth of bottles. I know, that doesn't sound like much money to the kids today but, believe me, it was a lot of money for a kid in those days. You could buy a loaf of bread for twenty cents, a bottle of Coca-Cola for a nickel. Yes, it was a lot of money to me.

We would divide the money up at the grocery and each one of us would scatter through the store in different directions to the candy counter of his choice...usually.

But for weeks I saved my pennies to buy, what I thought at the time was, the most beautiful, trained, pedigree feline of the century. I have to chuckle at the experience now when I think of that old skinny cat and how I really got stung out of my seventy five cents. Odds are the old cat didn't even belong to the kid who sold her to me but that's neither here no there to the story.

Though Mom protested the day I brought her home, she finally said I could keep her after a few provisions were agreed upon. One, she had to eat only table scraps and two, I alone, would have to see to her everyday needs.

I was heartbroken to learn weeks later we were moving forty miles inland and couldn't take Minnie with us because my dad didn't like cats and didn't want her at the new place we were moving to. We left Minnie with a neighbor and made the move to the country but I was devastated because of having to leave her.

I can't recall the exact day but it must have been more than a month later, as my brothers and I were playing in our new yard, we witnessed something unbelievable.

There, a few hundred feet away, came Minnie. She was ragged looking and even skinnier than we remembered her. She recognized us immediately and came running as fast as her tired old legs would carry her until she was at our feet rubbing up against and in and out of our legs. She was purring loudly and mewing repeatedly.

I couldn't help myself, I kept screaming her name over and over.

"Minnie! Minnie!" I wailed so loudly my dad heard me from the house.

"Well...I don't believe it...I just don't believe it!" Dad said in disbelief as he walked out to where we were.

"I'll tell you what...if that old skinny cat missed you kids so much she would walk
forty miles to find you...well, she can stay." With those words my dad turned and retreated to the house.

Minnie rolled over for me to rub her tummy like I used to and I noticed her cut and bleeding feet from the journey. Mom got the peroxide and did what she could for her. She was around a couple days before she finally felt like interacting with us again but when she did it was wonderful. I had my old Minnie back.

The old cat lived to the ripe old age of twelve years then died, peacefully, in her sleep. I guess that's all any of us could ask for.

My dad didn't like cats until the day he died, but he had a lot of respect for an old puss we kids used to call "Skinny Minnie".