The Cat with a Bucket List and Other Writings

By Forrest D. Poston

From Buddha-cats to disappearing record stores, fairy god-princesses to family tales, and youthful misadventures, these stories are as true as I can make them. The collection includes 29 stories about cats that we have known, childhood, stories passed down in the family, and times when it seemed that the universe lent a hand, even if it was sometimes to slap my face.
Sections include Cat Tales, Memories of "North Camelot", Family Ties and Tales, and Assorted Adventures and Oddities.
They happened to me, but I hope they will sound familiar, as if they could have happened to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forrest D. Poston
• Release date: Apr 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370311323

Book preview

The Cat with a Bucket List

and Other Writings

Copyright 2018 Forrest D. Poston

Published by Forrest D. Poston at Smashwords

My thanks to all of those who made these stories possible through their patience or participation. Most are mentioned by name somewhere in the stories. Those who aren't may prefer it that way, but thanks just the same.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Cat Tales

The Cat Wisher

The Mister and the Lady

The Cat Who Learned to Purr

Glyph the Destroyer

The Cat with a Bucket List

Roto, Rooter, and The Drainy Day

Memories of North Camelot

Introduction to North Camelot

Finding and Losing Our Marbles

Gary and the Park Mansion Adventure

The Storm of '63

The Fortunate Fall

Bookin' Down Brown Street

Return to North Camelot

Family Ties and Tales

Beyond the Genes, We Inherit the Dreams

A Call for a Father (poem)

Sadie on the Bridge

And His Name Was Gary

The Legend of the Jetfire

Trumpet Player, USDA Approved

Assorted Adventures and Oddities

David and the Revelation

The Mug, the Magic, and the Mistake

The Blessing and the Blues

Ghost Dancer in the Twilight Zone

The Call That Came and Went

Necessity, Stupidity, and the Road to Jersey

Alec Kirby, Memories of an Earnest Imp

Until We Follow (poem)

Hairy, Curly, and Mo-tivation

The Best Big Brother in North Camelot

Introduction

These stories have been written over the last fifteen years or so, although I've been telling some for decades. A far number have previously appeared on one of my web sites, while others were written just for this book. Most of those on the site have been revised for the book. Admittedly, a storyteller picks and chooses what's told and perspective, but the facts here are as true as I can remember or as true as they were told to me, which makes some of them weird, some a bit hard to believe, but if you think it's hard to believe when you read them, imagine having lived some of them. It's hard enough trying to figure out those meaning of life questions when one of the questions is just how much of your own life you can believe.

That may have something to do with why more than a few people think I'm a bit odd or why they should think it. I do, but I like it...most of the time. Mostly, I just hope that you'll enjoy the stories, even the ones that make you cry, but I also hope that you won't be able to help thinking a bit as well. Just because I haven't had a teaching job for years doesn't mean that I'm not still a teacher, and if I can trick you into thinking, I will. I'm mean that way.

The first section is all-cat, and you can follow the cat crew on Facebook in The Cats of Gin-For's Odditiques and The Life and Legacy of Al E. Cat. The second section covers some stories from my early childhood, up to age 8, a few of the strikingly stupid things that I survived plus some other incidents, accidents, and scraps. The family stories section is mostly items in which I was not directly involved, while the final section covers silly, stupid, and, odd incidents from my adulthood. I know that young and foolish supposedly go together, but sometimes I think I kept them together a bit longer than most.

As with our Gin-For's Odditiques site, all proceeds go to good causes: my spouse, our cats, our creditors, my auction addiction, and the plumbing project that never ends.

The Cat Wisher

For various reasons, Ginny and I could only get our cat therapy from other people’s cats for the first two years we were married. Then we moved into an apartment in an older part of Columbus, OH with the expectation of staying a while, and one evening Ginny said, I wish we had a cat. Nothing else was said, and it was simply something we expected to get around to before long. We didn’t know that Ginny was a cat wisher.

About 6AM the next morning, I went to the door to get the paper, opened the door, and found a large cat sitting on the stoop waiting. He opened his mouth and gave out a raucous cry, immediately gaining the name Loudmouth. Wish granted. We had a very loving cat, loving on his terms, at least, which meant, You may pet me and pet me while I’m on the floor, but don’t even think about putting me on your lap.

Eventually, Ginny said, What I really wanted was a lap cat. Of course, we really assumed that the first appearance had been a coincidence, which was seemingly confirmed when the next morning came and went without the wish being granted.

More precise orders evidently take longer to fill because it was two days this time. We were sitting on the deck behind the house when a cat strolled around the corner of the house and onto the deck. It took perhaps a minute before he was in Ginny’s lap, rumbling with the deep, deep purr that brought the name Bass Fiddle. I don’t know if there was a two-wish limit, or if Ginny’s powers only extend to cat-wishing … or perhaps money wishes just take a lot longer.

So we had two wonderful cats, but it turned out that we also had two cats with feline leukemia (FeLV), an all too common disease. They went from being indoor/outdoor cats to strictly indoors (and back yard), and all was generally well, not counting that BF had a Jekyll and Hyde problem. Calm, friendly, he was all you wanted a cat to be…right up until he spotted another cat. From the back yard, he spotted a cat way across the street, and in a blur he was over the fence, across the street, and after the other cat. I could run fairly well back in those days, but I didn’t stand a chance until the Hyde moment wore off.

Each emotional outburst would also bring out the usually controlled leukemia symptoms, so we’d be off to the vet for treatment. Considering the cost of vet trips, it was particularly fortunate that he tolerated Loudmouth as a housemate, almost all the time. The exceptions were unpredictable and quick, but BF was also the out of sight, out of mind type. Tossing a blanket over him instantly switched him back to gentle Jekyll.

There had to be an exception, of course, cats not ones to like being predictable. I was setting a bowl of food down for Loudmouth out on the deck where he wouldn’t tempt a change in BF, but I hadn’t properly latched the door. After all, it would be just a moment before I was back inside putting a bowl down for BF, but I’d hardly put the bowl down before an angry fur-missile blasted through the door and began chasing Loudmouth around the yard in his own version of Hyde and Seek.

They were moving far too fast for me to have a chance to toss anything over BF, but Loudmouth finally managed to slip around a corner of the deck and out of sight. Good. All settled. I was standing 10 feet or so away from BF when that thought crossed my mind, and I relaxed. Did you know that cats can teleport?

I don’t know why BF didn’t give up his Hyde or why he evidently decided that I was at that moment another cat, but the next thing I knew, I was holding a 13 pound cat on my left arm. More precisely, that cat was holding my arm, his Hyde on my hide. The claws of all four paws were tucked into my arm, and his teeth were in my hand as he hung upside down, rather like in some Looney Tunes cartoons. And I didn’t feel a thing, too utterly surprised, too caught up in how silly the image looked to worry about pain.

After staring a moment, I put BF down, and he was ready to be petted as if he would never dream of creating multiple punctures in my skin. Dr. Jekyll never seemed to remember his time as the Hyde cat, but this time, I was the one headed to the doctor for antibiotics.

In some ways, I wish Loudmouth and BF had continued to have these outbreaks for many years, but short months was all we had. Although we were able to control the leukemia in BF, Loudmouth was not so lucky. He had fulfilled the wish as requested, and one morning, we had one cat and memories of Loudmouth rolling around on the floor in the large pile of catnip the time he found where we kept it.

BF lived long enough to join us on our move down to Logan, where we discovered his fear of ceiling fans. Actually, it turned out to be a fear of birds, perhaps from an attack when he was young, but the wingspan of a stationary ceiling fan was much too birdlike. We had to cover the fan with a sheet and lure BF from the basement bit by bit with a saucer of milk. He searched the sky carefully, not fully convinced by our sheet trick, but the milk eventually won.

Times were good despite still having some leukemia outbreaks, but all times are limited. A year or so later,