S.O.S. Emergency!! This is Frankie Hairball, chief security officer of the S.S. Corcoran. My associate and I have been abandoned. We have not eaten in nearly 24 hours.
The residents loaded their belongings in a black box and left in their Toyota Time Bomb late yesterday. We have remained at our posts for as long as possible. About an hour ago, my companion officer, Bob, went into a semi coma. I have not been able to revive her. It looks like the end is near.
I was barely able to drag myself to this chair and send one last communication. It is growing dim and my paws no longer – wait, the door just opened, It’s the food lady! Please disregard the previous. Got to GO!!

Pledging 1966
Kate recently had a picture of her trip to Washington in her blog. It showed her standing on the ellipse across from the White house, with the White House in the background. It brought back great memories of my pledge trip to Washington DC in 1966.
At that time, there were three active social fraternities at Oneonta. Since I had managed to do so well in my first semester Freshman finals, I turn a “guaranteed” 3.8 grade point average into a 2.0, joining a fraternity in my Freshman year, seemed stupid even to my somewhat impaired brain. So I waited a year and “rushed” my Sophomore year.
Rushing involved lots of harassment, both physical and emotional. We were beaten with our wooden paddles, awakened in the middle of the night and dumped in the woods, forced to carry yellow buckets and recite ridiculous poems on demand. In general, it was three weeks of nonsense. But during that time, each of us was assigned a pledge trip to some part of the country to do some silly stunt. Someone was sent to a New York State Indian Reservation to get a picture of a teepee. Imagine the surprise when all they found were regular housing developments. Some one else was shipped to New York City to do something equally stupid. I was teamed with Paul “Rac” Lansperry and Tom Rabidue to steal a garbage can from in front of the White House. I think there was a fourth person, but for the life of me I can’t remember who it was. It might have been the legendary Vinnie White. At any rate, the trip to Washington in Rabidue’s car was uneventful. We stayed at American University on someone’s floor. We attended the coolest bar I ever saw, filled with Georgetown University students. There was a great band playing and I remember having a really good time. Then , the next day we buzzed over to the White House to snag a garbage can.
We got there, chatted up the guard who I noticed had a really large gun and a really small sense of humor. It was pretty evident that he would not mind shooting me to protect government property. SOOO we jumped back in the car, sped around the White House circle, and just at the point where Kate is standing, we snapped several pictures of what we thought were the Kennedy dogs still in residence at the White house. Since, unlike Kate, we were moving at about 40 miles an hour, our pictures were somewhat fuzzier. I spent two days going through the attic to see if I could find those pictures, but then I realized that even if I did find them, they would not fit in any of the orifices we put things into the computer, so I couldn’t share them anyway. But they do exist.

Walter the Cat and Mr. Neb
For anyone under 50, Walter Brennan was a popular movie star of the “old” generation. He often played crotchety sidekicks, or grandfathers. Part of his portrayal was a “hitch in his get along”, better known as a limp. I was astounded to see him at an awards ceremony and find out he did not have a real limp, it was just part of the act.
A few days ago, Bob, our older cat, developed a sever limp. Whether, she and Frankie, the little one, got into a fight, if she fell off something, if she tried to outrun a mouse, who knows, but the limp was serious. We took her to the vets, where she was folded, stapled and manipulated beyond belief by the vet during his exam. The result was a cat with a much worse limp, and the news that she has basically blown her knee ligaments. Better known as the Joe Namath Knee. The vet thinks the trauma of surgery would be harder on an old cat than the stress of the injury. I’m glad because the stress on the wallet of the owner would be worse than the trauma of seeing her limp. She seems quite fine with the whole thing. Since she sleeps 23 hours a day and since she does not need much athletic ability to catch her food dish, I think we will rename her Walter and forget it.
Last Monday I went to the Human Vet, to see if she could do anything about my cough. I started about six weeks ago and the cough has gotten steadily worse. By New Year’s Day I was starting to feel run down and found sitting on the couch doing nothing much preferable to getting up and doing anything – except eating Kate’s chocolate chip cookies, which did lure me of the couch way too often.
At any rate, the Dr. went over me thoroughly and decided I have asthma. Well, I never did, and I don’t think I do now, at least not what I think of as asthma, but a rose by any other name is still a long term cough so what the heck. She prescribed some new antibiotic and a nebulizer – MR. NEB. She warned me the Nebulizer might make me nervous and jumpy.
I went home, hooked up the wires, tubes secret medicine vials and blew drugs down my throat, all the time thinking where was this stuff in the sixties when I could have used it. Anyway, the first night, the results were really good. No side effects and the cough let up. The next morning I fixed a big cup of coffee and hooked myself up for the AM fix. Within an hour my arm took on a life of its own and started jumping, my heart rate was around 100 and I was pacing the floor. Somewhat alarmed I Googled the drug. One recommendation jumped out at me. “Avoid Caffeine while on this drug” Gee, couldn’t they have mentioned that?