He was with me throughout most of that time; a big yellow tomcat, looked much the same way any big yellow tomcat looks, I suppose.

My mother's parents gave him to me just like they gave me Frisky, the dog. Tom's origins were just as mysterious as Frisky's too.

Everyone called my uncle James "Doc" because when he was little he used to like to take people's "temperature" and pretend that he was a doctor. Doc was what people would today called "mentally challenged." Most of the time he lived with my uncle on Talleyrand Avenue; but, he often visited his parents, who were my grandparents, in Oceanway. On one of his visits he was wondering around and found three tiny kittens tied up in a sack on a railroad track! Two of them were dead; but, one was alive and my grandmother let me have him.

"Tom" was so tiny at the time that his eyes were not even open yet; but, I have a way with animals, always have; and, I managed to get our big black chow, Pal, who just happened to have puppies at that time, to nurse the little cat.

So Tom grew up with dogs and managed to get along with them very well.

He and Frisky grew very fond of each other. When Tom would go on one of his trips, Frisky would see him coming from a distance and start running towards him barking all the way. Then they would romp and have the biggest time!

Tom lived some years after Frisky. He was eventually struck and killed by a car.

Another cat I had, a black one named Midnight, was also killed by a car; but, I did not happen to see it so my mother told me that he had went to be on television!

At the time, there was a Saturday morning show where this old man had a lot of animals including a black cat. The old man told stories which were acted out on the screen. One week the story would be about this Indian, aka Native American, boy, another week it would be about this boy in the South Pacific, and there were other places too; but, the Indian boy and the South Pacific boy were the ones most often done; and, it was the same boy too! I could see that! I wasn't fooled; and I wasn't fooled by the cat either. I was too skeptical a kid for that!

One day one of our kittens got too close to where the dogs were feeding. One of the dogs bit it and crushed its skull. My mother could not hide that from me! The kitten's name was Junior.