I was very saddened when our cat Charcoal passed away during the Fall of 1977. In an effort to help me recover, my parents decided to get me a brand new kitten – another gray one – for Christmas that year. I first met Charcoal 2 (seen at left in late 1979) when he commenced meowing in the garage during breakfast on Christmas Eve.
Naturally, the curiosity got the better of me and I asked my folks if I could go out and see the cat that sounded like it was coming from the garage. My Dad warned me that my Christmas present was in the garage and that it would spoil the surprise if I went out there. This only piqued my interest more as I now had the opportunity to see a cat AND get a glimpse of a Christmas present. I didn’t quite put two and two together and realized that the kitten was the Christmas present. I asked my Dad if he had a name, and he said that I could name him whatever I wanted.
Me, Dad, and little Charcoal, not long after his Christmas Eve debut
Since he was gray and very similar looking to the first Charcoal, I decided to name this kitten Charcoal as well. I loved Charcoal and he was a very amiable cat, but unfortunately since I was just six years old, I wasn’t always very gentle with Charcoal, sometimes tugging too hard on his collar and flinging him across the room. I have never forgiven myself for these childish acts of stupidity.
But I quickly grew out of that phase and Charcoal and I became an inseparable kid-and-cat duo. Charcoal made the move with us to Winterset Drive in April of 1978 and was both an indoor and outdoor cat.
Unfortunately, Charcoal did not enjoy a very long life. We had not had a very good run of luck with our cats thus far and Charcoal 2 was no exception. He became very ill at some point around the late Spring of 1980. We had quarantined him to our laundry room for a few days and one Friday night while Mom and I were watching TV in the family room, we heard a thump sound come from there. Naturally I was concerned and had Mom peek in on him.
I’ll never forget her words as she looked down on him and said “Brad, I think he’s dead.” I wanted to go in and check but she made me wait a few minutes. Then I went in, knelt beside him and called out his name. No response. Through teary eyes, I said “he must be dead.” That night is still completely vivid and tearjerking in my head.
The next day, I couldn’t keep from crying and my Dad tried to cheer me up by telling me to think about something else…to think about The Flying Deuces, the Laurel and Hardy film that was going to be broadcast on television the next day and we were going to record on VHS.
Charcoal lives on in my head as a close companion during my childhood. After the bad luck we had had with cats, my parents decided that we weren’t going to get any more pets in the near future. It would be three years later before they finally changed their mind.
Return to Christmas 1977…
Aw, gee…very sorry to hear that you had cats who didn’t live too long. You never forget them, do you? I’ve had Fenworthy, Growf (that’s what he said instead of “meow”), Inky, Rerun, Tiger, Blackie, Shadow and Alger (who Hissed a lot). Honorary neighborhood cats who stayed around here sometimes were Dreyfus, Hobo and Pete. I have a friend in Phoenix who’s had several cats live close to, or even over, 20 years! Had one cat named Reprobate who lived to be 22. And I have a friend here in the LA area whose cat, Tex, just died at 21. I don’t know how they do it (the cats or their owners). I’m hoping that my cat, Shadow, who just turned 10, will stick around for another decade….he still acts like a kitten, so we’ll see.
Randy Skretvedt
January 25th, 2010