Smokey the Cat Lands on All Fours--Back in Illinois

No one is really sure why Smokey took off. Ethel guesses it was on account of the vandal who smashed in the side window of the motor home.

You get used to things being a certain way--17 years is a long time--and a vandal in the motor home at night sort of throws things out of kilter. So Smokey bolted, not right away, (she was probably too shocked to do that), but sometime the next afternoon, at the sisters’ house.

The sisters are Mildred and Lois Shell, retired junior high school teachers in Fullerton. Ethel is Ethel Plieman, a friend formerly of Fullerton and now of Fox Lake, Ill. Ethel says she used to type for the Army and the Navy “years ago, when the war was on.” That would be World War II.

Smokey is Ethel’s cat. She’s gray, mostly, with some darker stripes. The white around her mouth makes her look like she started to lap up some white paint thinking it might be milk. Smokey is at least 17 years old, of indeterminate parentage. Ethel is 79.

Anyway, except for the smashed-in window on the smallish, secondhand motor home, Ethel’s trip from Fox Lake to Fullerton was pretty uneventful. It was the usual stuff: highways, parks, visits with friends and relatives, that sort of thing. A little over two months in all.

Ethel’s made the trip lots of times--just her and Smokey, and this year, Daisy, a 1-year-old mongrel. Skipper, another dog, recently passed away at the age of 17, so he couldn’t come. Ethel does all the driving herself.

Well, as I was saying, what threw things out of kilter was this business about the vandal and Smokey’s exit. This is definitely not the usual stuff. The motor home had never been broken into, and as far as Ethel can recollect, Smokey’s only left her one time before.

“She was young,” Ethel explains. “She didn’t escape; she got scared. It was the Fourth of July, in Minnesota. She got away from me a little.”

No one can say for certain at exactly what point Smokey decided to try it again at the sisters’ house. Mildred suspects that Smokey got bored just waiting in the motor home and decided to see the world while the three of them were having tea and refreshments.

The sisters and Norma and I were having tea and refreshments ourselves as I was hearing this story the other day. Norma, by the way, is Norma Cook, the judge’s wife, who lives across the street. (I suppose I should say the retired judge’s wife, except that the judge is working awfully hard these days and nobody really thinks of him as retired.)

OK, so Smokey got out somehow. Ethel discovers this en route to her sister’s place. Ethel turns the motor home around, back to Fullerton. By this time the Shell sisters have gone out, so Ethel leaves a note on their door telling them about Smokey’s disappearence.

“If there’s a camper around, she may go in it,” the note said. “. . . If miracles happen, I hope to find her.”

Not content with a note, however, Ethel picked another neighborhood home, willy-nilly, to alert. Providence, the ladies agree in hindsight, must have been guiding Ethel at this point.

Norma was home and took Smokey’s vital statistics. This was at the end of March.

Weeks passed and nothing. Norma finally untaped her note about Smokey from her cupboard door in the kitchen. There’d been no sign of any cat that fit Smokey’s description, although one evening, during one of her walks with her husband, Norma did wonder about a cat that seemed to single her out for a special meow, down by the corner.

Mildred and Lois, meanwhile, had been putting out table scraps on their back patio. They got lots of takers. None of them looked like Smokey. Then one weekend morning earlier this month, Norma opened her garage door and saw a gray flash heading toward the door. It looked like a cat. Norma started putting scraps out. In the mornings, she could see that something had been nibbling on them. This went on for a few days.

One evening, Norma and Jim, the judge, were on their way out to dinner. They were in a hurry, so Norma didn’t stop to investigate the gray flash she saw streaking from the garage. On the way back, however, she saw it again.

“It was a baby opossum,” Norma says. “Then I went around back and saw a second baby opossum, or at least it looked like a second one.”

Well, you can imagine, all this buildup for an opossum, possibly two opossums. Norma decided to get serious. She bought real cat food, and kitty litter.

And then she heard the cry. A cat cry, from the bushes.

Norma got cagey, moving the food, luring the cry closer and closer and finally, collaring a cat. Odds were good that it was Smokey. She had the white around the mouth, but she looked like she had seen better days. She was scrawny, and old-looking. Not good.

A little while later, Norma called the veterinarian who, years ago, had treated the family dog, now deceased. Norma was thinking humanitarian thoughts, like maybe Smokey should just be put out of her misery. No sense in telling Ethel about any of this, she thought.

But Richard Glassberg, the vet, resisted. He told Norma to bring Smokey in. The cat was fine, he said, although she seemed to have some sort of infection. Also way too skinny. She’d been on her own about five weeks.

Glassberg thought Smokey should definitely be returned, alive and in good health, to Ethel. Norma had to agree. She went home with Smokey and a week’s supply of cat antibiotics, which she administered twice a day.

Suffice to say, Smokey thrived. After a while, she was living in the house, with Norma and the judge. One time, Norma says, she came home from someplace and found Smokey curled up next to her husband’s head as he was reading in bed.

By this time, of course, Ethel had been called. She was so happy to hear the news about Smokey that she started to cry. She’d already shed plenty of tears thinking that she’d never see her again.

“It was just so hard to take, her being so old and all, out on her own,” Ethel says. “And she’d never been gone before.”

Norma made the travel plans--which ultimately involved her and Jim getting up at 4:30 a.m. to drive Smokey to the Ontario airport--and Glassberg gave Smokey free vaccinations. After some last-minute hitches, Smokey finally arrived in Fox Lake around midnight.

This was last week. Smokey’s doing great. First thing she did when she got home was visit the litter box and head to the kitchen to see what was to eat. Gave Daisy, her traveling companion, a nose kiss. Also met the newcomer, a puppy that Ethel’s grandson gave her in New Mexico on the trip back.

“I have great faith in miracles,” Ethel tells me over the phone from Fox Lake. “We’re all fine. Smokey’s right next to me now, curled up in this teeny basket.”

But back in Fullerton, Norma confesses to feeling a bit let down. She misses the little thing but reminds herself that the mission was to get her back.

Mildred and Lois opine that Smokey is an intelligent cat, independent, with lots of personality. Norma brought her over to visit once.

“But I don’t know what we would have done if it had decided to stay here,” Mildred says. “We are not cat people.”

That’s what Ethel tells me she said, too. Seventeen years ago.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.