| THE CHISTMAS CAT |
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It was Christmas 1952, and I was 6 years old. My brother Kenneth had come home on leave from the Air Force. After visiting with us kids, he wanted to go to Ohio to be with mother for Christmas. Mother had taken ill a year before and had gone home to stay with my grandfather Mason and grandmother Bernice. He had talked daddy into letting him take me (the baby of the family) on a Greyhound bus with him to Ohio. I was so thrilled that I was going to get to be with momma for Christmas, and up until then I had never met my Grandparents. I felt so big stting there next to Kenneth on that bus with him in his Air Force uniform. |
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I will never forget that when we got to the station there at Jackson,Ohio, that Uncle Bobby and Grandmother Bernice met us. Uncle Bobby had this really big shinny Buick car, and if I remember right, it was pink and had a white top. It was the prettiest car I had ever seen. (Remember I was only 6). Grandmother Bernice got out of the car and gave me the biggest hug. She was so big that I couldn't get my little arms around her, but I hugged her as good as I could. We went on out to the farm and Granddad and Mother was waiting for us there. Momma so so happy to see us, all she could do was cry. I held on to her and hugged her as long as I could. |
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It was Christmas eve, and Uncle Cecil and Aunt Joyce had come in and Uncle Cecil was going to take me over to some church for an evening Chistmas service. We had stopped at the farm of a friend of his that he wanted to see, and the man had this bunch of little kittens and naturally, I threw a fit, because I wanted one. Well, Uncle Cecil gave in and let me pick one out and we put it in the car, and went back in the house for a while. When we got back in the car to leave, the kitten was gone. Uncle Cecil said that it must have crawled out through the heater. We couldn't find it anywhere. |
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I cried my little eyes out. I just knew that kitten crawled in there and died. I told Uncle Cecil, please don't turn on the heater because it was in there he might kill it. You can imagine him trying to drive that car with no defroster on in the dead of winter. When we got home, all I could do was sit on momma's lap and cry because we couldn't find the kitten. Uncle Cecil swears to this day that he doesn't know what happened to my "Christmas Cat". |
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But, you want to know something? I think he slipped out and put the kitten back in the barn. |
| "That's what I think."! |