by Pa Rock
Friend of Animals
I posted a piece in this space a couple of days ago that discussed various names that I have given to pets and assorted wildlife over the years. In that posting I noted that I had a pair of alligators in college (caymans, I suppose), one of whom was named "Milhous" and another whose name I could not remember. Yesterday an old friend from the sixties emailed to remind me that the second little gator was named "Log." After exchanging another email with my friend, she asked why I had neglected one of my more memorable pets, a large yellow tabby named "Scroungy Bastard" who drifted through my life a decade ago when I was living in a trailer park in Litchfield Park, Arizona (2008-2010).
That was my bad and completely due to a malfunctioning jalopy of a memory which grows more erratic with each passing year.
I transferred jobs moving from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, to Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona, in the fall of 2007. My first Arizona home was in a new apartment complex located at a major intersection in Goodyear, Arizona, and about five miles from work along a beautiful four-lane, palm-lined boulevard. My apartment overlooked a golf course, and though I didn't play golf it still felt like I had died and gone to Hollywood - especially after my recent stints, at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Ft. Campbell.
Two memorable things occurred while I was living in that apartment: first, I began this blog - and second, one night I was attacked by a scorpion while in bed and soundly asleep - an event that resulted forever more in me referring to Arizona as "the Scorpion State."
The next year I decided to become a homeowner. I purchased a nice mobile home in a trailer park that was within walking distance of Luke Air Force Base, and went from paying apartment rent to paying lot rent. I had not been on my new patch of desert for many weeks when Scroungy Bastard showed up. I discovered the big yellow Tom sleeping beneath a large sage bush in the front yard. After a few introductory remarks by me, the cat wandered off.
But he was soon back and his visits became regular enough that I would occasionally leave scraps by the back door, something the evil park manager warned could lead to my eviction. (I don't remember the trailer park's name, but when I mentioned it in the blog, I would always call it the Wheezin' Geezer out of respect for all of my aging neighbors.
I bought the trailer (actually a nice double-wide) off of a sweet Mormon couple who were moving back to Missouri to retire. They had a small dog for which they had installed a doggie door. One night as I was sitting in the living room watching Rachel Maddow sharpen her teeth on George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, Scroungy Bastard crept in through the doggy door and climbed up onto the couch beside me - and he was at home.
Scroungy Bastard was an independent cuss who went where he wanted and kept his own schedule. The park manager was always making threats about the unsupervised cat, but he managed to avoid being captured by the malignant Fat Tony. And for about a year we just existed as two good friends leading separate lives while sharing a shelter in the Sonoran Desert.
But things changed the following year when I was offered a two-year overseas assignment at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. Scroungy would not be able to accompany me to the Orient, nor would he likely want to go anyway.
But he soon figured out that something was up. The military movers arrived a couple of weeks before my departure and took all of my stuff - either to storage or to be moved to Okinawa. Soon I was living in a basically empty trailer. I remember Scroungy coming into the empty digs one afternoon and finding me asleep on a bed in an otherwise empty bedroom. He curled up on the bed next to me, somehow seeming to know that our friendship was about at an end.
My neighbors reluctantly agreed to take care of my furry friend, and a few days before I was to leave I took him to the vet at Pet Smart for a kitty physical and shots. The vet described him as a neutered male between the ages of two and five. He had to have a full series of shots because his health history was unknown, and the bill - according to one of my old blog-postings - was $250, a small price to pay to make sure that I was leaving a good friend as healthy as possible.
I left for Okinawa one night in mid-July of 2010. The friends (neighbors) who were going to take Scroungy Bastard into their home were gone, but we had arranged for me to leave him in their house, and another neighbor would be checking in on him until they returned. I took him to his new home just after dark and we said our goodbyes before I closed the door sealing him into a new and strange environment. He was not a happy kitty. An hour or two later as I was pulling out of the drive, Scroungy Bastard, an escapee, came walking down the alleyway. I tried to catch him, but he was having none of that
Scroungy Bastard fled into the Arizona darkness. We were done.
Two years later just after I had gotten back to Luke from Okinawa, I ran into one of my old neighbors from the Wheezi'n' Geezer. She said that Scroungy had been around the trailer park the entire time that I had been gone, but that he had disappeared just a couple of weeks before I got back. She thought Fat Tony might have finally caught him.
But Scroungy Bastard was one smart cat, and I like to think maybe he was able to find some other lonesome old fart and make a home for himself.
At least I hope that is what happened. He was a really good friend.
And the name "Scroungy Bastard?" Well, that was we called each other - with affection!
(Note: There are quite a few postings regarding Scroungy Bastard in the early days of this blog.)
Friend of Animals
I posted a piece in this space a couple of days ago that discussed various names that I have given to pets and assorted wildlife over the years. In that posting I noted that I had a pair of alligators in college (caymans, I suppose), one of whom was named "Milhous" and another whose name I could not remember. Yesterday an old friend from the sixties emailed to remind me that the second little gator was named "Log." After exchanging another email with my friend, she asked why I had neglected one of my more memorable pets, a large yellow tabby named "Scroungy Bastard" who drifted through my life a decade ago when I was living in a trailer park in Litchfield Park, Arizona (2008-2010).
That was my bad and completely due to a malfunctioning jalopy of a memory which grows more erratic with each passing year.
I transferred jobs moving from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, to Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona, in the fall of 2007. My first Arizona home was in a new apartment complex located at a major intersection in Goodyear, Arizona, and about five miles from work along a beautiful four-lane, palm-lined boulevard. My apartment overlooked a golf course, and though I didn't play golf it still felt like I had died and gone to Hollywood - especially after my recent stints, at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Ft. Campbell.
Two memorable things occurred while I was living in that apartment: first, I began this blog - and second, one night I was attacked by a scorpion while in bed and soundly asleep - an event that resulted forever more in me referring to Arizona as "the Scorpion State."
The next year I decided to become a homeowner. I purchased a nice mobile home in a trailer park that was within walking distance of Luke Air Force Base, and went from paying apartment rent to paying lot rent. I had not been on my new patch of desert for many weeks when Scroungy Bastard showed up. I discovered the big yellow Tom sleeping beneath a large sage bush in the front yard. After a few introductory remarks by me, the cat wandered off.
But he was soon back and his visits became regular enough that I would occasionally leave scraps by the back door, something the evil park manager warned could lead to my eviction. (I don't remember the trailer park's name, but when I mentioned it in the blog, I would always call it the Wheezin' Geezer out of respect for all of my aging neighbors.
I bought the trailer (actually a nice double-wide) off of a sweet Mormon couple who were moving back to Missouri to retire. They had a small dog for which they had installed a doggie door. One night as I was sitting in the living room watching Rachel Maddow sharpen her teeth on George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, Scroungy Bastard crept in through the doggy door and climbed up onto the couch beside me - and he was at home.
Scroungy Bastard was an independent cuss who went where he wanted and kept his own schedule. The park manager was always making threats about the unsupervised cat, but he managed to avoid being captured by the malignant Fat Tony. And for about a year we just existed as two good friends leading separate lives while sharing a shelter in the Sonoran Desert.
But things changed the following year when I was offered a two-year overseas assignment at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. Scroungy would not be able to accompany me to the Orient, nor would he likely want to go anyway.
But he soon figured out that something was up. The military movers arrived a couple of weeks before my departure and took all of my stuff - either to storage or to be moved to Okinawa. Soon I was living in a basically empty trailer. I remember Scroungy coming into the empty digs one afternoon and finding me asleep on a bed in an otherwise empty bedroom. He curled up on the bed next to me, somehow seeming to know that our friendship was about at an end.
My neighbors reluctantly agreed to take care of my furry friend, and a few days before I was to leave I took him to the vet at Pet Smart for a kitty physical and shots. The vet described him as a neutered male between the ages of two and five. He had to have a full series of shots because his health history was unknown, and the bill - according to one of my old blog-postings - was $250, a small price to pay to make sure that I was leaving a good friend as healthy as possible.
I left for Okinawa one night in mid-July of 2010. The friends (neighbors) who were going to take Scroungy Bastard into their home were gone, but we had arranged for me to leave him in their house, and another neighbor would be checking in on him until they returned. I took him to his new home just after dark and we said our goodbyes before I closed the door sealing him into a new and strange environment. He was not a happy kitty. An hour or two later as I was pulling out of the drive, Scroungy Bastard, an escapee, came walking down the alleyway. I tried to catch him, but he was having none of that
Scroungy Bastard fled into the Arizona darkness. We were done.
Two years later just after I had gotten back to Luke from Okinawa, I ran into one of my old neighbors from the Wheezi'n' Geezer. She said that Scroungy had been around the trailer park the entire time that I had been gone, but that he had disappeared just a couple of weeks before I got back. She thought Fat Tony might have finally caught him.
But Scroungy Bastard was one smart cat, and I like to think maybe he was able to find some other lonesome old fart and make a home for himself.
At least I hope that is what happened. He was a really good friend.
And the name "Scroungy Bastard?" Well, that was we called each other - with affection!
(Note: There are quite a few postings regarding Scroungy Bastard in the early days of this blog.)
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