Barry Hastings: ‘Rockin ‘H’ Cat Ranch,’ my life with Danielle

by Larry Hamp

In late summer 2001, my Freeport Softball League friend, Rich Kunde, knowing I was an old bachelor (not so old then as now), asked if I’d be interested in moving into his mom’s house in the pretty little village where I recovered from recent triple by-pass heart surgery at the VA in Ann Arbor, I’d started a new fast-pitch softball team I’d named “the Bobcats.”

I told Rich I’d recently inherited some cats from my ailing parents, who’d entered an assisted living facility. Their names were Bart, and McGhee. While camping out on my younger brother’s Thornapple Riverfront property east of town, I’d also adopted a stray cat I named Albert, who fit right in with what was to become, over a few years, a herd of felines.

Rich said, “No problem, my mom likes cats.” And she did.

Mrs. Kunde was wonderful lady who’d, pretty much on her own, raised several sons, all very good people. I knew Rich best, as the other boys had moved away from the area. He was a terrific ball­player, who almost singlehandedly ran our ball complex, and over the course of a few years became a good and much respected friend.

I spent the winter of 2000-01 there and grew to admire his mom, much as I admired my own. Mrs. Kunde passed away in the spring of ’01, and about that time, after many long and frustrating delays in my disability claims with the Social Security people, I was notified by an Administrative Law Judge my claim had been (at long last) approved. I ended up with a pretty hefty chunk of change, began searching for a home, and found one that spring. I’ve lived here of 16 years, and accumulated a pretty good-sized herd of cats — most abandoned by their owners when they left the area. At the peak, I had 14, and now (today) 16 are buried in small garden plots around my flower-gardens.

It took me about a week to move my (very many) books, clothing, pictures (ships, boats, related scenes) to my new digs. Just before I completed the move, some one of my neighbors up there, shot my fine cat Albert, right through the head — in one side, out the other. He was missing for almost three days, then in the morning of final moving day, I saw him lying on his side in the back yard. I ran out calling his name, but he didn’t move.

As I got close, I saw his head was covered with blood. I picked him up, pressed him against my chest — he was limp, but as I whispered, “oh, my poor Albert,” he responded with a faint “purr-r-r-r-r.”

I dashed to the car and headed to my vet’s (Henry Long) office down near Hastings, calling his emergency number as I went. Henry saved him, but he was cock-eyed, and more than a little dingy, for all his remaining ten years. But Albert had a further role to play, and it proved most interesting, and inspiring. I finished the move on Saturday afternoon, then spent my first night there in a howling thunderstorm with the cats. I’d added one, Claude, from my sister and her husband. He was older, and grumpy, but in time, and with help from the rest of the herd, became a playful and happy guy.

I woke early on Sunday morning with a lot to do, but donning a jacket, went out to the car, and she started with a roar. As I revved the engine a bit, a tiny ball of fur, a very tiny ball of fur, dashed from under the car, and into the unkempt foliage of the long untended garden. I shut down the engine, and leapt from the car (I was much more mobile then), and ran into the bushes. Spotting the little critter in the weeds, I bent down and picked her up. Stuffing her into my coat pocket, I climbed back into my old Pontiac, and ran to the corner store for a Sunday paper (we still had good, full, Sunday papers in those forgotten days).

A few days later, Albert came home to our new house, and to a brand new kitten. She was tiny, a much inbred tortoise-shell with a stubby little tail, that forked into a ‘Y’ at about three inches. When she got excited, the hair around the tip of her little forked tail, expanded into a pom-pom that twitched wildly from side to side, and up and down. The other cats thought she was pretty weird (and so she was), but the cutest little button I’ve ever seen. Before too much time had passed, I realized I’d found, and rescued, a most unique, and very, very smart little critter.

She didn’t know how to eat, and for a few weeks I fed her by dipping a finger in warm half & half, then letting her suck and lick it dry. She soon graduated to small syringes, and began to gain some weight (though she lived 16 years, she never weighed more than 4 1/2 lbs).

The most amazing thing to me, was that, almost immediately on coming home, my rough, tough, recently shot-through-the head, fightin’ Tomcat, Albert, began mothering her intensely; sleeping with her, grooming her, and once, beating hell out of two large males I’d acquired, for “bugging” her. Albert lived about ten more years, and ’til the day he died, they were ever together. It was one of the neatest, and most interesting things, I’ve ever seen in relationships between cats, and I’ve lived with lot’s of ’em.

Over the 16 years Dannie lived with us, she quickly climbed to the point where she was my “most favored feline,” (though I always tried to conceal the fact from the rest of the ‘herd). Over the years (to demonstrate how intelligent she was), she acquired at least eight or ten nick-names (Spooky-Wookie, Stubby-Wubbie, among others), and answered to all of them. She always came tearing down the hall to my office-bedroom-den, when I sang “her song” (they all had, or still have, a ‘song), her song went like this – “Oh, look at my beautiful Dannie/She got a cute little fanny/My wonderful girl/She a beau-u-tiful pearl/I love my littow Dannie.”

From the time she was pretty-much matured (six months, or so), she slept, curled up in a tiny cat-doughnut, right next to my head on the edge of my pillow (her friend, and loyal protector, Albert the Magnificent, never more than a few inches away). How can you not love to see, respect, and truly love, such friendship, and devotion to self-imposed duty?

Well, much more of this, and I’ll be in tears (again), as I was for a good part of the first three weeks following her departure from my world. I do, truly, hope there’s a Cat Heaven. I know I’ll never forget her, always love, and miss her.

So long, my pretty littow Stubbins. I had her love for 16 years, and now she’s the 16th rescued cat buried in small gardens around the edges of my large wildflower garden. I’ll bet she produces some bee-uu-ti-ful flowers; Next Spring.

Among my other much-loved, now departed cats, are Bartie, McGhee, Edison, Billy-Bob, Yellow-Bird, Throckmorton (or Throck-Wocky), Vern, Gussie (named for a former Shortstop of mine), Id, Kit Kat, and another good pal, Petey. Still here on the ranch with me, are Bigfoot Dave, Guppie, Penny, Frank the Wank, and Ninja-baby. Outliving them all is now my life’s work. Wish me luck, please.

Have you heard? The French are coming, to repossess the Statue of Liberty.

More on our recent national calamity, next time — count on it.