Earlier this month, I promised a picture of Buddy, the first family cat we had during my lifetime. I have surprisingly few snapshots of him, and here's the best. It was taken in the summer of 1984, when we lived in Florida. Buddy joined the family in 1979, when we were living in Clayton, New Jersey. The story goes that Dad found him as a scared kitten seeking shelter in the parking lot of Buddy's Tavern in nearby Swedesboro. Hence his name. He was a very good cat, but he didn't live that long of a life. He died in either late 1986 or early 1987; he had hidden under a chest freezer in our basement in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, such that we didn't find him until a couple months later, despite several top-to-bottom house searches. I know animals have an instinct to hide when they're sick or dying, but have always felt really sad that Buddy died alone. We've been fortunate enough to be lovingly gathered about cats Salem, Mitts and Huggles when they died peacefully. And also our goldendoodle Coby. (And now I'm realizing there's another cat I haven't written much about — Scoop, the journalism cat. That'll be the next thing to rectify.)
In cheerier news, here's another photograph of Cyrano, who was Buddy's brother starting in 1980.
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