My name is Amanda, and from the time I was weaned my mother told me I would be a tramp. I guess she understood hormones a lot better than I did, because when I was a year old the hormones kicked in and all I wanted to do was get outside of our comfortable home and attract handsome tom-cats. Wouldn’t you guess that the first time the front door was left ajar I escaped and displayed my hitherto innocent wares to any stud who was attracted to me. Also, you might guess that my one-day of freedom was all that was needed to make me pregnant. Here I was, still a teenager, and about to become a mama. Mother was horrified. She let me have it in spades. She slapped me around until I was groggy and the word, “tramp” was used quite a bit. She told me that the boss and his wife wanted no more kittens in the house and after her first litter was weaned (my litter) they took her to the vet and had her spayed. My littermates were given away. I was kept, so my mother said, because I was a lovely black and white bicolor that they call a Tuxedo Cat. Mama is a Tuxedo Cat and the boss said we would look like identical twins when I was full-grown. But, I digress. Back to my problem.

In due time I began to show my pregnancy. Mother was right. The boss was horrified and demanded to know how and when I was able to get outdoors. I tried to explain about the hormones, but he could not decipher my plaintive meows. (The boss has trouble understanding cat talk.) That very day I was unceremoniously taken outside and put in the trunk of the boss’s car and driven for what seemed hours. When the trunk was opened I was in an area far, far from home and dumped on the side of the road to stand shivering while the boss drove off. Last I ever saw of him was the red tail-lights of his car as they disappeared into the night. Now, I want you to know that up until that moment I had been a happy-go-lucky pampered house cat. My every want was taken care of by the boss and his wife. My food and water dishes were always filled and the litter box was clean and sweet smelling. Scratching post was always handy and soft pillows all around the house made wonderful places to nap. But now I was just another unwanted kitty, and a pregnant one at that, out in the cruel world all by myself. The night was dark, the road was rough on my pads, and it was cold and windy. And then, to make matters worse, it began to rain. Believe me when I tell you I was one hungry, wet, cold and miserable pregnant kitty.

Not knowing what else to do I started walking along the road. The unaccustomed exercise must have spurred my kits to start kicking and moving about inside of me. What else could happen to make my life more miserable? I soon found out! A mangy stray dog jumped out of a ditch and started chasing me. I found a nearby tree and was able to climb it with that cur’s hot breath warming my heels. I had to huddle in the rain on a branch out of the beast’s reach for the rest of that horrible night. When dawn finally arrived, the cur took off after a rabbit and I was able to make my escape, hungry but unhurt. After a few hours of steady walking with kittens kicking all of the way, I arrived at a fenced area with a gate I was small enough to crawl under. If I could read the sign on the gate I would know I had just entered Fort Stewart and the sign warned people about trespassing on Army property. I was tired and starving (feeding kittens in the womb takes a lot of energy) so headed towards a large group of houses and lay down on the back steps of the first one I came to. I hadn’t slept at all the night before for fear of falling off the branch, so I soon fell into a deep sleep. I awoke with a start, my heart beating wildly. A huge dog was face-to-face with me, his hot breath was gagging me. I heard a woman say, “Shadow, leave that cat alone.” The big dog, I later found out that he was a Doberman Pinscher, whispered to me, “Don’t be frightened. I like cats, and Cathy who is my boss loves cats.” His gentle words calmed me and I believed what he said. He had an honest face…for a dog, that is. His boss bent over me and said, “Oh, poor wet kitty…and you are pregnant too.” She carefully picked me up and cuddled me. I could’ve cried I was so happy. Shadow jumped all around us while barking out, “I told you she liked cats.”

To make a long story short, Cathy took me into her home and she and her husband (he was a sergeant in the Army) made me a birthing box in the closet in their bedroom. A few days later I gave birth, with Cathy’s help, to four gorgeous black and white kittens; two males and two females. I was in heaven taking care of them. I washed them many times a day, had plenty of milk for them, and had the satisfaction of watching my kits get strong and be full of playfulness. Cathy, the Sarge, and Shadow all spent time playing with my brood. I was in heaven, but knew it could not last forever. I had heard Cathy and the Sarge discussing what to do with the kittens after they were weaned. After weaning when the kits were on solid food, Shadow told me about the Kitten Man. He was a volunteer at the local animal shelter who found homes for unwanted kittens so they would not go to the animal control people to be put to sleep. Sure enough, my kittens and I were soon to meet the Kitten Man. Cathy put me and the kits in a carrier and off we went to the K-Mart Shopping Center Plaza. Kitten Man was sitting on a camp stool near the front entrance of K-Mart with a sign that read, “:Free Kittens To Good Homes.” He had a carrier with a few kittens in it and held one cute one on his lap. I could tell by the way he was rubbing a finger under its chin that he understood kittens and loved them. Cathy asked if he would find good homes for my brood, and after he looked at them and complimented me on the fine job I did in raising them, he said, “Of course I’ll find homes for them. They are lovely.”

Within an hour he had found the kittens homes after he quizzed the potential bosses about their experience in raising kittens in the past, and something about the quality of their abodes. I said goodbye to my babies with sorrow, but happy that they were going to be living with people who would love them and care for them. That is about all a mama cat can expect. Cathy thanked the Kitten Man and took me home. I went to the birthing box in the closet and sniffed the wonderful kitten smell until I fell asleep. The next day Cathy asked me if I wanted to raise a brood of orphans. I did not understand until I saw the Kitten Man standing behind her. He had a small box with six one-week old ginger-colored kittens in it. Their mama had died and they were starving. Kitten Man held one of them out to me and I instinctively licked it and began to feed it as I was still full of milk. The other five soon joined in and I had a new brood to feed and care for. They were not mine but they were sweet and they needed me. I felt fulfilled again. However, there were storm clouds in my future.

Sarge was given orders transferring him to Fort Lewis, Washington…a long way from Fort Stewart, and Cathy and Shadow were going with him. What to do with me and my six orphans? Here is where Kitten Man came in again. He agreed to take me and the brood to his home. Cathy made him promise that he would find homes for the kittens after they were weaned, and then find a good home for me. Kitten Man took us to his home and I discovered that I was now in a home with two other adult female cats: Boo Boo (a white long-haired Turkish Angora) and Punkin (a short-haired Calico). They had lived with Kitten Man for years and told me how lucky the kittens and I were to be in his home where cats were treated with respect and kindness. Kitten Man’s wife was also a cat lover and loved playing with my six orphans. In due time the kits were weaned and Kitten Man found good homes for each and every one of them. After feeding two litters of kittens I was down to skin and bones and one day I heard Kitten Man’s wife say, “Amanda looks like the Auschwitz Cat and I don’t think anyone would want to adopt her.” Kitten Man agreed and quietly said, “Looks like we’ll adopt her. She is a sweet cat and full of love and affection.” When I heard that, my eyes filled with tears. I would have a permanent home with good people. Punkin and Boo Boo heard it too and whispered their welcome to the family.

The next day Kitten Man, who I now call the boss, took me to Uncle Dave the veterinarian who gave me my shots and took away the hormone curse by spaying me. I now was a spay just like my sisters, Punkin and Boo Boo. A few days later the phone rang and it was Cathy calling from Seattle telling the boss that she felt so guilty leaving me behind and worried if I would find a good home. She told the boss she would pay the airfare for him to fly me to her home in Seattle. The boss told her that he and his wife had adopted me and I would live with them and their other cats until I passed away. Cathy said she was happy now that she knew I had a good home. All of that happened eighteen years ago and I am now a matronly full-figured very happy cat. The boss and his wife and Uncle Dave take very good care of me and I purr all of the time. Boo Boo and Punkin have both passed away and are buried side-by-side in the back garden. We have a new kitten in the house. Her name is Friday because she wandered up to our house tired and hungry a year ago on a cold January Friday night and was given a good home. So I now have a new younger sister. Thanks to the boss and his wife I can look forward to comfort and happiness until I join Boo Boo and Punkin in the back garden.

THE END

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Kitten Man’s note: Amanda passed away at 9:30 AM on 11 February 2002 when she was 21 years old. Renal failure was the cause. She is now buried in the back garden next to her friends. We will miss her…She was an exceptional cat. I now sponsor an annual scholarship for a student to attend the writer’s workshop conducted by the Southeastern Writers Association. It will be called the Amanda Scholarship.

More information on The AMANDA Scholarship

Biographical Sketch

Harry Rubin was born on Friday thirteen March 1925 during the reign of Calvin Coolidge. In those antediluvian days women did not go to a hospital to give birth. Hospitals were for sick people. So, young Harry was born in the second floor front bedroom at 721 Johnson Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of poor but honest parents. He graduated from Fell School, Thomas Junior High School, and West Philadelphia High School. The latter in June 1942 at age 17. The attack on Pearl Harbor happened six months earlier so Harry and all of his male classmates enlisted in the military the day after graduation, but he had to lie about his age to enlist without parental approval since he was not yet eighteen. He had enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a buck private and was soon off on the great adventure.

We now flash forward to August 1975 when Harry, now a bird colonel in the Army’s Armored Cavalry, is on a parade grounds at Fort Stewart, Georgia having a medal pinned on his uniform as part of his retirement ceremony. He had just finished his final duty assignment as Chief of Staff of the 24th Infantry Division. During his thirty-three years of service he served in 3 wars - WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Among his decorations are: Legion of Merit with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Korean Medal of Merit (Wharang Class), and Vietnamese Medal of Honor, and numerous campaign medals.

After his retirement from the Army he started a second career as a writer. He worked for a number of years as a newspaper columnist doing a weekly column for the Sunday edition. He has published a poetry chapbook titled, Limericks and Other Stuff, and has had his limericks published in many periodicals. Harry has also written the unpublished great American novel. He is on the Board of Directors of Southeastern Writers Association and has taught “The Limerick” and “Writing for a Newspaper” at their workshops. He sponsors an annual scholarship at the workshop called the Amanda Scholarship that is named for a favorite old cat who died in 2002 at the age of 21. He writes a limerick a day and believes it works better than an apple a day.

Harry has written two one-act plays. His favorite is Mount Rushmore Quartet about the four presidents seen on Mount Rushmore who come to life at sunset and discuss how life has changed from their days on earth. The other is Murder in the Old Tabby House, a comedy about a murder that happens in the old house on St. Simons Island, Georgia during one of the writer workshops.

Among his numerous short stories and vignettes are A Thanksgiving Story, My Unforgettable Soldier, No Wrath in These Grapes, A Little Red Bag, Murder in the Blue Room, An Unforgettable German Woman, The Lady Was a Tramp, Ireland on Six Beers a Day, Some Like It Hot, King Farouk, The Gray Geezer, and Procrastination Blues, Gigi, King Farouk, Hurricanes I Have Known, and Some Like It Hot, among many others.

He has attended Temple University, University of Maryland, and has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is also a graduate of the Army’s Armor School at Fort Knox and the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

He has been married to Deloris (Dee) Fletcher of Louisville, Kentucky for over 50 years and they have three daughters, two grandsons, and five very spoiled housecats. He likes sailing in good weather, drinking wine if it is red, playing golf when his aching back cooperates, and writing when the muse is with him. He, Dee, and the cats now live in Coastal Georgia.

Please be gentle with yourself and others.
We are all children of chance,
And none can say why some fields blossom
While others lay brown beneath the harvest sun.
Take hope that your season will come.
Share the joy of those whose season is at hand.

Care for those around you.
Look past your differences.
Their dreams are no less than yours,
Their choices in life no more easily made.

And give.
Give in any way you can.
Give in every way you can.
Give whatever you possess.
Give from your heart.
To give is to love.
To withhold is to wither.

Care less for the size of your harvest
than for how it is shared,
And your life will have meaning
And your heart will have peace.

In Italy they have no Christmas trees, instead they decorate small wooden pyramids with fruit.

In Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, it is customary for the streets to be blocked off on Christmas eve so that the people can roller-skate to church.

An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck.

It is a British Christmas tradition that a wish made while mixing the Christmas pudding will come true only if the ingredients are stirred in a clockwise direction.

A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.

Sending red Christmas cards to anyone in Japan constitutes bad etiquette, since funeral notices there are customarily printed in red.

In Norway on Christmas Eve, all the brooms in the house are hidden because long ago it was believed that witches and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms for riding.