My Pets.

I was born into a family with pets. My father had dogs and my mother had a bevy of pets including three flying sqirrels!

My first pet may well have been the dumbest of the lot. I can't remember this floppy-eared beagle's name, but he just could NOT be house-trained. So at the age of four I lost my first pet. I remember lying in the back of the station wagon (back when there were station wagons, car seats didn't exist, and seat belts were mostly for decoration) holding my dog and crying my eyes out, begging my mom to let him stay. Little did I know that this initial loss would be a trend for years to come.

I also had a turtle and a fish-or-two.

My next furry pet I shared with my brother, a seal-point Siamese cat whose name I can't remember, either (it's been 45 years - give an old guy a break). He lived and endured us for a few years in Des Moines, Iowa. He loved affection, a bit odd for a Siamese, and would actually crawl into bed with me every night, creep under the blankets or sheet, and curl up next to me. We lost him when we went on vacation one winter to visit family over Christmas. Left with friends, he got out of the house and was later found frozen to death under their house.

Dad located another Siamese cat that we named Petey. Petey was a bit more aloof, but was still a great cat. We sent him away when we moved into a new home in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and he decided that he would rather mark the territory with his feces, especially on Mom's shoes. Dad found him a home with a major dog breeder. That scared me, but Dad assured me everything would be fine. I didn't ever find out for sure if it was fine because soon afterward Dad went off to Vietnam and Mom insisted that we move closer to 'home.'

We soon found ourselves in Mississippi, in the same town as my Dad's father and stepmother, and just 45 minutes away from my Mom's closest sister who lived in Alabama. It was in Mississippi that we adopted a kitten that will likely be the most unique cat that I've ever called a pet.

Rosie was a slight, black-and-white, female cat that we later found had nearly died when she and her mother had been chased into a stream by a dog. Rosie nearly drowned but made it out to became the single greatest feline dog hunter I've ever known, as well as perhaps the smartest cat I've ever seen. We named her for her bright-red nose.

Small, about five pounds, she made the move with us to a large wooded lot in South Carolina. We lived way out in the woods, the daily bus ride to school took an hour-and-half one way. She would follow us every morning to the bus stop along US Highway 601 and wait until we were on the bus. Then she would go home, into the woods, or on a few occasions, stand or sit beside the road till traffic passed, and stroll across the highway. In the afternoon, she would go to the door to be let out by Mom, and would go up to the bus stop to meet us and walk us home.

We would hunt rabbits and birds, my brother and I, and wherever we went, Rosie followed along, much as a dog would. She had a hatred of dogs, though. I watched transfixed one day as I saw a lost deer-hunting dog walk up to the edge of the woods at our yard. He quickly spied Rosie lying still in the middle of the yard, sunning herself. Dogs being dogs, the poor pooch charged. Rosie didn't move. The dog very quickly closed and just when he thought his prey was his, Rosie sprang on him with all twenty claws! The dog quickly turned tail and ran as Rosie took chase, fur flying from the dog's haunches! It was amazing to watch as this 60-to-80-pound dog ran yelping through the woods as this miniscule cat took chase, hissing and growling till the dog was gone. And I saw her do this on at least two other occasions, too.

Rosie moved with us again to a brand-new home just off US Highway 1. She stayed with us many more years, but was later killed alongside the highway, apparently by a car.

After moving into our new home we got a beautiful, black Labrador Retriever pup. Before his first birthday we learned that he had a fast moving form of arthritis that was quickly destrying his hips. Dad and I took him to the vet to be put down. We buried him beside Rosie in the yard.

After that, we got a wonderful Golden Lab puppy we named Princess. One of the smartest dogs I've ever known, she was an amazingly protective animal who knew absolutely the limits of our yard. And she protected that yard and the house from anyone she didn't know. A wonderful dog, she and Cyclops, our one-eyed cat (he apparently lost it in a fight - we got him at the pound)lived at our home for years, well after I had left for college, bought my own home and gotten married.

In the new home of Darlene and I, we got a dog I named Frodo, and a beautiful, gray, female cat named Natasha. The dog we soon had to give away, but Natasha stayed. She even provided my parents and sister a new cat to replaced the recently-deceased Cyclops with one of her first litter, a black male named Brando. His identical brother I named Jet.

Natasha moved with us to Hawaii, but disappeared one day. She would occasionally show up, but eventually she never returned. We kept one of her second litter, a very affectionate, but very dim male I named Gimpel, after a short story of the same title named after the mentally-challenged hero. He also died early. Our move to Colorado saw us take along yet another cat from Hawaii. That cat was there for our daughter Samantha's birth, followed us back to South Carolina, then accompanied us to Washington. It was on our way home from Washington that he was lost in a car accident that destroyed our van and his cat carrier. I went back to the accident scene on a couple of occasions, but we never found him, dead or alive.

Upon our return home to South Carolina, we bought a home and soon took in Mudge, a very large Golden Lab-Chow mix, and Sami, a cat our daughter named after herself ("Sami-cat"). Sami cat met a quick and untimely death. She is buried in the front yard. Petrie came next, a large, long-haired, black female. She was a very happy and affectionate cat, who loved to groom herself and whoever happened to be around. I have short hair, and Petrie would like to crawl into bed and onto my pillow at night and groom me. Darlene hated it, but it didn't bother me in the least.

Mudge grew into a 100-pound dog who was an incredible hunter. He brought home over the years mocking birds, blue jays, moles, muskrats, possums, raccoons, a deer, snakes, squirrels and rabbits. He loves guns and fireworks, chasing rockets and Roman candles, and jumping all around in the midst of popping fire crackers. He kept strays out of the neighborhood for years and loved little children, being a fixture during the years of my wife's home daycare as children, beat, pulled, tugged, and jumped on him. He would just lie there with his tail just wagging.

Our other cat is Lola, a gray stray we found one day. She became my cat and can be quite aloof, though she has a hunger for affection.

Mudge is old now, and I have instructed Ian, our son, to fire off fireworks and then take Mudge out to the woods to hunt squirrels on his last day. Mudge's last thought will be a happy one as he hears the gun go off. I don't want him at the vet's, a place he hates. That, I believe, would be too cruel.

Petrie, though, is the reason for this. My daughter called tonight to say that Ian had found her under the house, dead. She was old for a cat, about 14 years. A wonderful pet, she is the first pet I ever have kept from birth to death. I'll miss her and her careful grooming of my occasionally sunburned head.

Suicide Is Not A Military Innovation

I have been amused, if not amazed, by the attitudes of people concerning suicide bombings and the like as practiced by our most current enemy. In the north of Iraq in 2004 I tried to instill in my colleagues the necessity of vigilance and care in the defense of our compound perimeter due to the possibility of an assault. Most answered with comments along the lines of, "That'd be crazy. We'd kill em all."

Well of course.

This isn't the first time that we, as Americans have encountered an enemy so filled with hatred and a desire for glory in their Heaven that they would willingly die to kill us. World War II in the Pacific, especially in the Phillipines and Okinawa, showed a Japanese ability to die for their cause through suicide. Kamikaze (suicide attacks by aircraft), Banzai (suicide charges by infantry) and harikiri (self-disimbowelment), and similar naval tactics, were standard in the Imperial Japanese military. Thousands of American, British, Australian and other allied soldiers, sailors and Marines were killed by these tactics.

The Korean War saw United Nations Forces, led by the US, fight against human wave attacks by Communist Chinese forces. These were clearly suicidal, though probably not what one would consider suicide attacks.

But, just a few years later in Vietnam, US soldiers encountered suicide assaults in conjunction with Viet Cong and later North Vietnamese attacks. These troops would throw themselves across barbed and concertina wire barriers, risking sure death, to ease the way for their comrades to charge through the defensive perimeters. Other communist soldiers would strap satchel charges to their bodies and rush into command bunkers and ammunition stores, triggering their explosives once inside. Ask any old American infantry Vietnam veteran about these tactics. They were real and they were tactically effective.

This is an old tactic used in the modern day today by Muslim terrorist suicide bombers. Why should anyone be surprised?

Grafitti Surprise

There have been a few surprises here in Germany for me. I was caught off guard at the high cost of living, for one. If their is anything I've found truly surprising is the prevalence of grafitti everywhere. And what is really surprising is the quality of the artistry!

Now we've all seen the variety of grafitti all over America. Most of it really is of poor quality, much of it being gang symbols and marks. The closest thing I've encountered to gangs here in Europe was a couple of young teenage boys on the local trolley. Dressed in the current gang attire, with baggy pants, bandanas, and hats worn sideways, they were listening to hip hop as they sat. My first thought was, "you two wouldn't last two seconds in South Central (Los Angeles)." Of course, it would occur to anyone that a 'drive-by' would be a bit tough from a trolley!

So, without the gang grafitti, the art is quite good, and apparently tolerated. Bright, colorful, cartoon-like, serious, beautiful, frightening, realistic, graphic - it's all there. And unlike in the States, though, there seems to be a sense of discipline with grafittists here that American "practitionists" lack. Trains roll by here generally unscarred by "spray bomb," though solitary buildings, walls, posts, and the like are mostly covered and 'tagged'. Some efforts are made by owners to clean and repaint vandalized areas, but as in America, the efforts are mostly useless. I saw a building that had had construction completed one day, and was completely covered by grafitti within two days!

The biggest shock was the discovery in Old Heidelberg of a grafitti store! This shop had clothing, and mostly spray paint cans of nearly every color! It was an amazing display of acceptable vandalism!

Only in Germany, I guess!

Gibraltar Expoundage

OK. I don't really think that "expoundage" is actually a word, but I did promise to say more about Gibraltar in a previous post, so now I will:

Wikipaedia states that Gibraltar "...is a peninsula of 6.843 square kilometres (2.642 sq mi)" and that it has a "densely populated city area, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians." Considering that The Rock, as the towering peak is known, takes up about two-thirds of the peninsula, that means that all the citizens of the town are crammed into an area of about a square mile.

Gibraltar sits at a very southern point of Spain, jutting into the Straights that divide the Meditteranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Captured in 1704 from Spain by Dutch and British forces during the War of Spanish Succession, the subsequent peace treaty granted the small plot of land to Great Britain in perpetuity, which of course means forever in "realspeak."

Gibraltar is a piece of England that may be more English than the Home Country. I drove into the territory directly from the Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion, past the customs house entrance, and south into Gibraltar. This was not possible for fifteen years between 1970 and 1985 during the fascist Franco regime. The irony was that Spain and Britain were both NATO allies then as they are now! Incredibly, the only road connecting the place to Spain crosses the airport runway, with stop lights at each side to stop auto and pedestrian traffic when airplanes line up to land.

Spain has demanded a renunciation of the peace treaty for years and years, and the return of the territory to Spain. Two referenda on returning Gibraltar have been held and the last was defeated by 99% by the citizens of the territory! The irony is that Spain maintains six "plazas de soberanía" (places of sovereignty) on and along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, the two largest and most famous being the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Morocco is just as adamant that these territories belong to them, and that Spain needs to leave. My suggestion is that the British invite Morocco to any negotiations with Spain about Gibraltar and include the plazas in the talks. Seems to me that the discussions would be really intersting.

The first surprise to me in Gibraltar was that everyone drove on the right side of the street. The standard in Britain, of course, is left-side driving. It matters little, though, as many roads there are one way, and there are so few (it's only a square mile-or-so, remember). The roads are small and curvy and packed.

After driving to the south end of the peninsula and shooting a number of photos of Morocco and the abundant sea traffic, I drove to the center of town, parking at the cable car station and rode to the top of The Rock. The views of the town, the Spanish mainland and the surrounding seas were spectacular. The monkeys were cool, too.

Legend says that British garrisons years ago brought Barbary Macaques as mascots to the outpost. There is some evidence that they were there before the British conquest. Either way, they are the only outpost in Europe of any type of wild monkey.

In town, everything is tight. It is the type of place that would make a New Yorker feel comfortable, except that the roads are minimally sized, much as all roads in ancient, European towns. It was at once vibrant and claustrophobic. And fully British, with everyone talking in a wonderfully English accent. I heard not a word of Spanish!

It made a great afternoon trip from our quarters at our hotel in Rota, Spain.