kitty
My grand nephew, Bowen Parmely is the only son of my nephew, Eric Parmely and his wife Ashley. Being the only boy, with three sisters can be a bit daunting sometimes I’m sure, but Bowen is very loved by his sisters. Having only sisters myself, I know how overwhelming girls can be. We all have our own ideas about how things should go, and an easy going little boy could get pushed around by so many girls.
Life on the farm is wonderful for Bowen. He loves the animals they raise, and really can’t think of anywhere he would rather be. I think his favorite place on the farm is seated on the back of a horse, preferably eating his popsicle. Of course, he is just as happy holding he kitty or playing with the dogs the family has. For most little boys, living on a farm with lots of animals, and plenty of hiding places in the 
hay required to feed the animals would be the life. Of course, having two of his sisters be older than he is, makes the many fun games they play together possible. There is a lot to be said for the imagination of big sisters. Sometimes I wonder, however, how often Bowen find himself playing games that seem a bit girly to him, and thinking, “Boy, oh boy, I would love to have a friend to play with that is a boy, who would play the kind of games I want to.” Maybe not, but it seems logical to me. Boys are wired differently, and we girls just don’t think the same way most of the time. The good news is that Bowens parents are not prissy people, and neither are the girls, so things are “all good” for the most part.
The family loves to get out and go hiking, skiing, and riding their bicycles…all things that most boys love to do, and Bowen is no exception. He is totally in his element outside. It doesn’t matter if its playing in the dirt or mud, running with the dogs, riding the horses, or riding his bicycle, Bowen is an active boy with lots of energy. He is, after all, his daddy’s boy, and wants nothing more than to be just like his dad. What boy doesn’t, really? Still, he loves his mommy, and is a great joy for her…as he is for everyone who knows him. Bowen having a little sister has made him sensitive to the needs of the little ones too. At Christmas, when our whole family got 
together, I watched as he pushed my great granddaughter around in a stroller, the two of them having a fabulous time. He didn’t even expect her to push him, probably because she is younger, but rather, he was just happy to make her smile, and she in turn loved playing with her cousin. I could see that Bowen has a heart for these girls, older or younger. I think that will make him a very wonderful gentleman when he grows up, and really, makes him quite the little gentleman right now. Today is Bowen’s 3rd birthday. Happy birthday Bowen!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
We often don’t realize how much we are like our parents or our children are like us, until a picture provides us with the realization that the thing we thought was so cute they our child did, was not so very different than the things we did at their age. That very thing jumped out at me when I was looking at this picture of my sister, Cheryl Masterson and me holding our cats when we were little girls. I was probably about the same age then as my daughter, Amy Royce was when she, because of her love for her kitties wanted to hold the two of them at once. Because her little arms were not able to keep the kitties held around their tummies, they ended up being held around their necks. I was always impressed with those sweet cats, in that they did not scratch my little daughter for putting them in that precarious position, but rather seemed to understand that she loved them and that she was doing her best. I have seen cats scratch a child for less, but our cats never did. 
Had I known then, what I do now, I might have thought to get a picture of Amy holding our cats by their necks, but while I thought it was very cute, and I have never forgotten it, somehow, I never thought to take that picture, and so the kitty events of Amy’s past live only in my memory files now. Nevertheless, looking at the picture my parents did think to take, I can see that the apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree. Quite possibly, Amy got her kitty handling skills from her mom, since the neck seemed to be the easiest place for me to hold my kitties too, and since they don’t look particularly upset be the whole situation, I guess they didn’t scratch me either.
There are many ways that Amy is my mini-me, and this picture just goes to show that. We are alike in our personalities, and in the way we do things…although I must say I was surprised to find that when it came to handling cats, we were exactly the same too. What I find equally surprising is that our cats never took our clumsiness out on us. They just instinctively knew that we loved them very much, and that was enough for the 
cats. I can imagine that my mom and dad tried repeatedly to get me to hold the kitties differently, but somehow it always ended up the same…just like it did with Amy.
Cats can be mean, and scratch you for the slightest infraction of the rules of pet care, but I think that when they know that you are a little kid, and that you are doing your best, they tend to cut you a little slack. I don’t think I ever hit the cats or pulled on their tails, and I know that Amy didn’t either. Our cats just knew that we were their little human, and they loved us very much. That shows in the amount of time they spent around us, even if we were asleep. Yes, in pet interests, as well as many other areas of life, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
My Uncle Larry was well known to his family and his friends for being a real joker. He loved to tell jokes and make people laugh. He was also very handy with tools. He loved working on all kinds of things, from cars to carpentry. One time he was looking for one of his tools…specifically, his hammer, and couldn’t find it. He looked everywhere, and finally, when he could think of no other way to find it, he sat down on the floor by the cat, and asked, “Kitty…Whar’s the Hommer?” It was said in a joking way, but apparently, the kitty knew more than Uncle Larry expected. Of course, the kitty didn’t really know anything, but when Uncle Larry looked down…there beneath in a crack in the floorboards, was the hammer. I’m sure it was a surprise to Uncle Larry, because he didn’t think he would find it, but in a moment of resignation, he found it because of a silly question.
Uncle Larry was my mom’s best friend as a child. Just two years older than she was, they did a lot of things together. One time, Uncle Larry bought an old car…a junker. He 
worked on the car, fixing it up, with great plans for it in the future. That morning, he decided to take the car to school, and give his sister, Collene, my mother a ride while he was at it. They figured out pretty quickly that the brakes on the car probably needed more help than the engine had needed. Now they were driving down the road, had no way to stop. For me, this story brought visions of Fred Flintstone putting his heels to the pavement in an effort to stop quickly. Of course, reality is much different. According to my mom, her brother pulled off an amazing feat…swerving around every obstacle until he could finally get the car slowed down enough to coast to a stop. I can imagine that Uncle Larry was extremely relieved that he and his sister were not going to be in an accident. Accidents can be so scary, and it doesn’t take much of an impact to cause injury. I’m sure that my Uncle Larry was very thankful, but my mom was very proud of him. His driving was amazing according to her.
When Uncle Larry was older, he decided to go to work in Bemidji, Minnesota in a mine there. With World War II going on at the same time, the family found out that he had been drafted. They had no way to contact him, so it was decided that my mom, and her fiancé, my dad, and Dad’s
sister, Ruth would drive up to Bemidji to let him know that he had to come home, and prepare to go to fight in the war. They went up there, but couldn’t find him right away. He had gone into town. Eventually they found him and headed back home to Casper, so that he could go and fight for his country. I’m sure that was a bittersweet trip for my mom, who was now unsure of his future. Thankfully, Uncle Larry came home from the war, and went on to become the wonderful husband, father, grandfather, and uncle that he was to us, as well as the great brother and son he had always been. Today Uncle Larry would have been 80 years old. Happy birthday in Heaven, Uncle Larry. We love and miss you very much.
When my brother-in-law, Ron was a little boy, the family had cats for pets. While Ron tends to prefer dogs as pets these days, he did like cats when he was little. The nice thing about cats is that they are kid sized. It doesn’t matter how little the kids is, the cat is the perfect size. A kid can’t carry a dog around. unless it is a little dog, but a little kid can carry a cat around. If there is a cat in the house hold, along with a little kid, they will quite often be best friends. That is what happened with Ron and Bryon Henrey, who was the family cat at that time. Ron and his kitty, named Bryon Henrey did all kinds of things together…some of them were things you might not expect a boy and a kitty to be doing.
Most people would expect a boy and a kitty to play with a ball of yarn or a toy mouse, but 
this boy wanted this kitty to be a superior kitty, so the first thing he would need to do is learn to drive. Unfortunately, Ron didn’t have a car, so from the start, this was going to be a difficult operation. The next best thing to a car is…a bicycle, of course. Ron tried to figure out a way to teach his kitty to ride the bicycle, but there was one big problem, since his kitty would fit in the bathroom sink, it was quite clear that he was not going to be able to reach the peddles of a bicycle. Ron’s dilemma continued to be more and more complicated. How was he ever going to be able 
to make his kitty be the most special kitty around?
Sometimes in life, you simply come up against an insurmountable obstacle. That is where Ron found himself when he was trying to make his kitty into a special super kitty. He could see that he was probably not going to succeed, so he decided that if all else fails, at least look the part. When it was clear to Ron that his kitty, Bryon Henrey was not going to be able to perform special feats of super hero caliber, he simply turned to his mom, who just like Superman’s mom, made him a special outfit, that could at least make him look like a Super Cat!! And after all, isn’t that what a kitty’s best friend would do?
