Dear Friends,
Vacationing from all the problems of the world and the Church for a couple of weeks, this podcast offers for your enjoyment, I pray, some light summer fare. It’s all about cats.
In lieu of vacationing in Majorca, thinking about cats this past week has given my ol’ brain a little rest. And I trust you’re finding a respite this summer to your busy schedule as well. Particularly in the heat and humidity we’ve experienced here in Indiana, slowing down a bit and hydrating more is not a bad way to go.
So, wherever you are Stateside or around the globe, take some time for yourselves to rest and rejuvenate.
Grateful for You!
D. Paul
“The Church’s One Foundation IS Jesus Christ Her Lord!”
A Crazy Cat, A Crazy World
Cat’s are crazy, no? But then I know little or next to nothing about them. I do recall my 1st Cat, a feral, which my mother fed at our “country” home in Birmingham, MI., but we had a dog also and a 1951 Zenith TV that aired “Hopalong Cassidy” every night, and between Freda (the dog) and Hopalong and his silver-clad horse, Topper, the feral was no more than a background extra, making occasional cameo appearances when he needed another round of water and food for his next foray into the neighboring woods.
Ah, to be six years old again, when other than the Korean war, the conviction of the Rosenbergs for espionage, the US’s first Hydrogen bomb test somewhere in the remote Pacific, and a few cataclysmic floods, tornados, and earthquakes—all seemed well in my childhood world under the steady gaze of the haberdasher from Missouri, President Harry Truman. As my father would say, “Anybody is better than Roosevelt.” In hindsight, looking back over three-quarters of a century, little has changed. Human nature is the same—it remains an evil and dangerous world, in desperate need of a great Redeemer.
But back, if you’ll continue to indulge me in my light summer fare, to cats, for on this very day in which I write, Saturday, August 8th., it turns out to be INTERNATIONAL CAT DAY, so tributes are most fitting. I was unaware of this international celebration fêting our feline friends until it popped up on my computer screen this morning. Is it possible someone out there is tracking what I’m doing on my computer? Duh … that’s a stupid question. But if you do want to know more about INTERNATIONAL CAT DAY, you’ll find further information at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cat_Day
It strikes me as a worthy organization, so, in the spirit of their mission, let’s move on to Cat #2, Tabitha, who was unconsciously named presciently after the biblical Dorcas, which in the Aramaic means Tabitha, the young, woman believer whom St. Peter raised from the dead (Acts 9:36-42). I was much closer to Tabitha than to my youthful feral friend, and despite two rambunctious golden retrievers as housemates, Tabitha was “one cool cat.” Her dramatic entrée to those sun-drenched days in California was quite exciting. When Debby moved from Shelbyville Indiana to join me in Hollywood, we hired a moving van and packed up some of her favorite pieces of furniture. It was later that night when we realized Tabitha was nowhere to be found. You know where this story is headed, dear reader. The year was 1979. There were no cell phones, and the moving company had no way of contacting the driver and he didn’t check in for two days. By that time, he was out in the New Mexico desert, the temperature 110 degrees Fahrenheit (probably 120 plus in the van!), and he was surprised to hear that he might have a feline stowaway. Upon opening the van door, he found sweet Tabitha crouched underneath Debby’s velvet, Victorian sofa, dehydrated and listless. The driver gave her some water and brought her up to the air-conditioned cab, where she remained passive but soon revived. Hardly as miraculous as the resurrection of Tabitha in the Bible, nonetheless, apparently this “nine-lives” business about cats is not a myth. Chalk up one for Tabitha. She was in LA late the following day, where an old friend of mine from high school days retrieved her, tipping the kindly driver accordingly. Debby and I were 4 to 5 days out of LA, with a couple of stops along the way, so Tabitha ended up in a tiny Santa Monica apartment with her “gentleman caller” for the better part of a week. Anonymity is perhaps appropriate here, for my friend, whom many of our CA subscribers would know as a jazz disk jockey of note, was also a pothead par excellence. Morning, noon, or night, it mattered not; a toke or two were always in order. Between the incessant jazz on his phonograph and cassette player and the second-hand weed in the air, Tabitha more than earned the moniker of “one cool cat.”
She died quietly and painlessly in 2006. We were living on Halcyon Drive in the Hollywood Hills. I found her in the downstairs bedroom, on her little bed next to ours. I picked her up, suddenly, unexpectedly sobbing, and took her upstairs to a crying Debby. She was a good and faithful companion for 19 years. It’s interesting to me that cats are never mentioned in the Bible. That they’re not a “beast of burden” certainly has something to do with it, I suspect. What is their utility? Perhaps nothing, other than bringing us joy and pleasure, and what could be finer.
My friend, who rescued Tabitha, died a few years ago of esophageal cancer. He was a good man, one of the kindest I’ve known. Though an atheist/agnostic (he always seemed to be hedging his bet, another one of his habits), we talked of Christ frequently. I often wonder if those conversations came back to him in the closing days of his life. I pray they did.
Tabitha’s “one cool cat” moniker cannot be said of Crazy Cat #3, whom I wrote about briefly in an earlier podcast (Jan. 21, 2026).
In way of a quick recap: he appeared at our kitchen door in early January of this year, temperature 4 above zero, skinny, scarred, and meowing pitifully. We found a safe and warm place for him in the garage and after finding out that no neighbors claimed him as their own, Debby invited him into the house on the third day of his “temporary” visit to taste some of our leftover salmon. The dye was cast, folks; his fate and ours were sealed. He basically rules the house now and I find him endlessly fascinating. Might this be a sign of encroaching senility? I know that in the endgame of her life, the wonderfully talented and idiosyncratic actress, Sandy Dennis (winner of two Tony Awards and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginian”), passed away at 54 of ovarian cancer in her Westport CT home surrounded by dozens of cats, some put the number as high as 37. Yikes! May my fascination be tempered with moderation, though we’ve now two kittens who have magically appeared underneath one side of the ol’ gatehouse. This I know for sure—they’re not from our cat—whom we had appropriately “fixed” after adopting him and he’s not once wandered outside his happy home.
Concerning his name: within days of coming into my sanctum sanctorum, aka my messy office from where I podcast, he was christened Sebastian, in honor of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose Glen Gould version of the Goldberg Variations he seemed to take an immediate liking to. While his attention span is intense, the least little thing can divert him—a little moth—which we are inundated with this August, will send him off on a wild, life-and-death chase between predator and prey. I’m most impressed, though, by Sebastian’s tidiness, ever fastidious about his litter box, his coat, and his evening accommodations at the base of our bed. Yes, he’s sleeping with us, a “no, no” line in the sand that I had drawn early on. But what am I to do, fellow cat lovers? When we retire for the night, Sebastian goes crazy, bolting up and down the spiral staircase of the ol’ gatehouse, swatting little balls littered around the entry way, and only the good Lord knows what else. Just as I’m closing my eyes, starting to breathe deeply, he senses his moment, tiptoes up the stairs, quietly enters the bedroom, and in one vaulting leap lands on the bottom of the CA King and nestles into his resting place at the bottom of Debby’s feet. Even from below, he knows the hand that feeds him. Again: what am I to do, dear friends? Alas, I’ve given up the fight. On a more sober, grander scale, it reminds me of the craziness of our world with its global wars: short of a punishing, “unconditional surrender,” the victor may well-win by attrition. Certainly, Russia and Iran are counting on it. They’re in it for the long game, grabbing whatever low-hanging fruit there will be along the way. “Lord have mercy…Christ have mercy upon us.”
Knowing God will be the ultimate voice in this world’s endgame, I close on a cheerier note, my friends: it’s “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” so let’s enjoy the few remaining weeks we have of the meteorological summer, which ends August 31st. I hope to do a little traveling with my wife and see my youngest daughter, Shelley, in New Jersey. Oldest daughter, Jessica, and her husband, Mat, come in next Monday to take granddaughter, Olivia, back up to U of M in Ann Arbor, then will take our precious Down’s daughter, Danelle, back with them to San Diego. I should return, God granting life and health, with another podcast on the 26th. But a lingering question remains, friends: Do cats like to travel? Someone, please help me!
Meow & Amen!
D. Paul
PS: Here’s a beautiful version of “Summertime” by the inimitable Ella Fitzgerald.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=The+words+to+Summertime+and+the+livin%27+is+easy&mid=0E5BF50DF595EDA4EFAF0E5BF50DF595EDA4EFAF&churl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fchannel%2fUCbQ1zmUdQMpyqKxYS4-Ef8Q&FORM=VIRE
Sebastian is really very sweet, isn’t he?
