In the beginning, there were cats

"Lassie," that Sunday night television show featuring the iconic golden-maned collie, was a ritual for kids of my generation. We'd all drop our baseballs and bikes and race indoors so we'd be sure to catch the latest installment of the best and bravest dog in the whole world.

I yearned for a dog as a kid. A collie, to be exact. But my dad, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, wasn't so sure dogs belonged behind a fence in South Bay suburbia. Besides, he said, dogs in the city have to be walked.

I begged for a few years, reasoning that a dog was a lot less trouble than the horse I'd asked for earlier. But it was no go.

We did, however, have cats. There was Smoky, who was the first pet I really remember (an earlier feline bolted and got lost when we moved during my preschool years).

Then there was Tom.

Tom was a big, rather wild, scruffy gray tomcat who sort of came with the house we moved into when I was about 9 years old. He didn't belong to anyone and he clearly didn't trust us very much. But he decided to hang around after we began putting out bowls of cat food for him. It took a good year, I think, before he'd venture (barely) inside our open kitchen door to eat.

Eventually we managed to gain his trust, my mom being especially fond of cats since she'd grown up in a house with a big yard in Iowa that always had several felines roaming about. Tom became a very comfortable house cat, often found lying on his back and sleeping long hours. He would get up and play, however, for catnip. 

Later, we acquired Liz, a very funny black-and-white kitten who had six toes on each front foot. Sadly, she died after we had her only a few months from what was then known as "cat fever."

Later came Nancy, the neurotic female cat left behind when our elderly neighbor died.

When they died, the cats were all mourned and buried by my dad somewhere in our rather large back yard, a practice that was acceptable in those days.

We got our first dog when I was about 15 years old and long over my Lassie phase. He was a shaggy little black poodle mix puppy who "adopted" us one year while my parents were putting up outdoor Christmas lights.

Figuring he had a home somewhere since he was wearing a red collar with a jingle bell (but no tag), we took him in to keep him safe, then spent the next several days asking around the neighborhood and running newspaper ads in hopes of finding his owners. No one ever claimed the little guy, which was just fine by us. Even my dad became a fan.

We named him Blackie since he seemed to respond to it.

After that came Snoopy, Chico and Queenie, a beautiful German shepherd, then Muffin and Fritz and Annie.

None of them quite as fancy as Lassie, to be sure. But all so special, all so loved and all so fondly remembered through the years. Cats and dogs alike.