Tigger’s collar has a phone number that’s disconnected. He’s very affectionate, and I played with him for a while, hoping that his owner would come around looking for him. No dice, so I’ve put out a little bowl of food for him and am calling around to the local animal people to see if anyone knows who he is, and where he belongs.
[edit-update: Tigger’s a neighborhood cat, who lives mostly out in the woods. Apparently he makes a good living visiting folks and eating food set out for him, and the occasional mouse and mole. I hate that he’s an outside cat, but this region is moderately safe… I guess he’ll continue to live out and about, unless someone adopts him. I’m a huge softie, and am liable to do it myself, if another family doesn’t come by soon.. I don’t know how Pye and Newt would deal with a third brother in the house.]
Kiddo’s name is unlikely to be familiar to readers; however, he was the first cat — maybe the only one — to cross the Atlantic Ocean (well, almost) by airship. He was a grey tabby and belonged to one of the crew members of Walter Wellman’s airship America. Wellman (1858-1934) was an American explorer, aeronaut and journalist. In 1910 he and five companions attempted to cross the ocean, leaving from Atlantic City, New Jersey on 15 October that year. Kiddo is said to have stowed away in one of the lifeboats, and really did not enjoy his first experience of flying, mewing and howling and generally getting on the nerves of the first engineer, Melvin Vaniman. The America carried radio equipment — the first aircraft so equipped — and apparently the historic first, in-flight radio message, to a secretary back on land, read: ‘Roy, come and get this goddamn cat!’
