Two true stories

My mother returned to the work force when I was in seventh grade. I estimate that was 1956-ish. I added enough years to my birth date to come up with that, and subtracted some years from when I graduated, and both answers were close. So, I picked 1956-ish. No matter which I do, that makes my sister very young. Mom going back to work changed her life. Another story.

For a long time mom worked in an insurance office. Now she had stories to tell at the supper table. Exactly one of those tales stuck with me, the cat story. It's not great, and you may want to skip the next paragraph. Sadly, it's the core of the story.

One cold winter day the family cat of the insured crawled up under the hood of the family car, curled up on the warm engine block, and settled in for a good night's sleep. Dad started the car the next morning and the fan blade put the cat though the radiator and generally in bits all under the hood. Enough of that.

Now it's 2020, the year without end. My friend Ann in Wisconsin calls me about once a week. Checking up. Remember the week at Thanksgiving I was not answering my malfunctioning phone and the chain of phone calls sent my neighbor Cathy over to knock, first on my window, then on my door?

Once when Ann called and we were exchanging a week of news she suddenly gasped, and told me what she just happened to see from her kitchen window. One of the stray cats they've taken in this winter climbed a tire and disappeared under the hood of her car. Enterprising fellow, warm engine blocks beat cat igloos on the porch, paws down.

I told her the cat story. On her way back to the kennel after lunch, Ann called me and told me she'd opened her hood before leaving and eventually got the cat gone at the end of her snow brush. From Ann, that's a major threat.

One warm day in Wisconsin, at the end of last week, Ann called me. She was laughing too much almost to not speak. "You'll never believe! I'm on my road, just left my drive, and I heard such a thunk! What did I hit? I looked in the mirror for something flattened in the road, and there is Lonzo (all their cats have a "Z" in their name), high tailing it back to the house! First day I have not chased him off the engine. I didn't look because it's so warm today!"

At work she parked the car, a late model Ford mid-size, opened the hood and looked. The next time we chatted, she told me she could see Lonzo's escape route, from the warm bed to the cold road. Such a cat. With luck he learned a lesson. However, the neuter fee may not be wasted.

I perused the internet to understand the current configuration under the average car's hood. Nothing like they looked when I was a teen. There are no exposed moving parts I could see, and certainly not a fan blade. Thanks to Lonzo for a story I forgot half a century ago.

At the old house, mom and a pair named Toe-Toe and No-Toe. By the time she'd worked back to the crossword mom generally had relinquished her cereal bowl to the cats. I call this picture "Breakfast with Mom".