John Street Cats and Thanksgiving and othereveryday food events.....

Thanksgiving has always been and exciting time for our family. I started making Thanksgiving dinner thirty-three years ago. Of course there are many memorable ones, my favorite however is the times when the kids were around the table on John St, waiting for the feast to begin. They never knew the time that was put into making this huge feast. Having a family of eight, two LDS missionaires for this dinner was costly. We never had much in the way of excess cash, so this was an expensive dinner for us, the kids never knew. I think children believe that this dinner just happens,but my sleak black cat, Licki new better. She had a sixth sense, she knew when the holidays were upon us, maybe because she would have to sit on my lap at Halloween to help me scare the kids who would come to our house for candy, of course one year Diane and I had this crazy idea that if we put vasline on her black fur to make it stand up, this would scare the neiborhood kids even more, well it did not. As we all found out, she took about a good week licking the vasline out of her fur, that was not such a good idea. She did not seem to mind this as she was one of the family. Sometimes she was one of the kids, and other times she was the assistant cook. We had two other cats at this time, Bub, her brother from another litter, and Buster who came from the feedstore. She was the Queen, no question. All others stood in line behind her at the catfood dish. They all loved people food, which was sometimes a problem, to me, but not to the kids. Bubby and Licki and Buster would sit under the table at supper time, because they knew that the kids, mainly Amber, would love to feed them some of the dinner they did not want.

Licki was born in my hand in the Attic bedroom, while six addoring kids watched, amazed with birth. None of the kids seem to think it was a mess, I had taught them about birth before Pussy, Licki and Bubs mother, gave birth. Licki was the most beautiful black cat I had ever known, even at birth. We all loved her at that moment and still do. Bub came from Pussys' second litter, she had a very hard time delivering her babies, I sat with her and helped to push them out with every contraction, when she was done, she had 3 gray kittens. I took Pussy and family to my bedroom, setting up her nest under the sidetable. No black cats in this litter, nothing special. The next morning when I got on the floor to check the new family out, low and behold...a fluffy stripped baby kitty was there with the others. Pussy was part Maine Coon Cat, this was dominate with Licki and now Bubby.

Back to Thanksgiving dinner...Licki knew it was Turkey day. Early in the morning she would come downstairs with me into the kitchen and sit on the stool watching as the turkey was prepared. Every year she would get her treat, the boiled liver, heart and other various organs from the turkey that we would not even think of eating. She loved this treat, leaving little for Bub and Buster. After many hours of preperation of the most wonderful dinner, with traditions from the Pardon family, meaning Orange rolls, and from my family, home made cranberry relish, Dad would summon the troops to sit at the wonderful table that Lila and Diane would set for the feast yearly, waiting for the Turkey.

Dad would help get the dinner on the table. To the Turkey and this of course is so Licki like, she would shimmie up my leg to get to the bird who laid on the old cutting board to sneak a taste. Many times that darn cat would be shook off my leg, with many a memory of the bottom of my foot as she sailed down the steps to the cellar. When all was on the table, the cats would sit under the table waiting for a morsile of food to hit the floor, which of course always happened.