A Day In The Life Of A Cat

How it all started

On my way to work I was thinking about my Mom and Dad.

My Mom's parents were not poor, but they didn't have a lot of money. Her Dad was a trucker, so he was gone during the week and home on weekends. They bought an old milk store and tunred it into a house. I'm serious.

Milk stores were not very big since they only sold milk. This store they bought was about 30 or 40 steps from the front door to the back door. It was one long room with the bathroom being the only extra room with a door. There were no bedrooms. The bathroom had no shower. Eventually they got a bathtub. I'm not even sure if the house has a shower in it now. It had a kitchen at one end, but it wasn't very big.

So the bedrooms: They were along one side and were closed off by curtains....no doors. Think of a shower curtain...that's how it was - one long wall was sectioned off by these curtains. On the other side of the curtains was the living room and the dining area. NO privacy.

Can you imagine growing up like this?

I didn't know about any of this until about 3 years ago when I went back to South Dakota with my Mom to visit my Grandpa. The last time I had been back there was when I was a little kid...maybe 5 years old. This house amazed me. Those curtains are still up to section off the "bedrooms" from the living room and dining room. When I asked my Mom about it all, she said it was hard, but that's just the way it was. She was one of 4 kids - one sister and two brothers. Nothing was secret and they all knew each others business.

I can't even imagine living like that.

Now my Dad's life was much different. On the other side of town he lived in a nice big house with his own room. His Dad was the cheif of police. From what I understand, my Dad and my Uncle were the town pranksters. My poor Grandpa had these two sons who got in trouble more than the other kids in town. They were always doing something. I can see that about my Dad.

My Dad's sister was friends with my Mom and this is how it all started. Turns out my Mom wasn't really that interested in dating my Dad because she didn't see what everyone else saw in him. Eventually they were set up on a date as a favor my Mom did for my Aunt Elaine. So 19 year old Bunnie (short for Bonita) went out with 24 year old Carl. Tuns out he wasn't as bad as she thought ;-)

The rest, as they say, is history.