Our house is on the far northern edge of Silver City, at the end of a steep lane not far from the Storey County line. To the east and the north there are only a few houses, and they’re all homes to dogs. If a cat were to go on a walk about, ours would probably be the first house without a dog that he’d come upon. My husband says there’s something like a hobo sign on our house, but its for cats. In fact, the Depression era hobo sign for “kind lady lives here,” was a stick figure drawing of a cat.
One of the cats that came to our house over the years was a big, orange and white cat named Kato. He showed up one summer and tried to blend in with my own cats, who ignored him. I put food out for him and called “kitty, kitty” to him, which only seemed to alarm him. I posted photos of him at the local post office and soon got a call from a crying woman who said, “Oh thank goodness, I think it is my cat Kato. Can you go outside and call his name and see if he responds?” Outside I saw him sitting near the front door and asked, “Kato?” And this cat that had previously run away whenever he saw me looked at me quizzically and responded, “Meow?” as if to say, “how do you know my name?”
So then began a series of unfortunate events with Kato. His owner came to retrieve him – it turned out he’d come all the way from American Flat, a journey of several miles across coyote infested territory. However, when she tried to get him in her car, he bit her and struggled against being put in her car. By the next afternoon, he was back at our house. Next, the woman’s boyfriend came and put him in a cat carrier and took him back to their house at American Flat. By the next morning, he was at our house again, obviously determined to stay. At that point, his original owner stopped trying to convince him to come back.
However, my husband and I were at a loss for what to do with Kato. He was not neutered, and had odd behavior. He would beg to be petted, and then bite and scratch viciously whenever the petting stopped. Our kind neighbor Fred suggested Kato would be just fine if only he were neutered, and caught him in a live trap and took him to the vet for the operation. Sure enough, Kato was a sweet animal after that and spent his last many years cuddled up with my blue-eyed cat Widdershins, who became his best buddy.
This year we’ve had a number of feral or abandoned cat visitors, including one I’m calling Van Gogh. Van Gogh is one of the largest cats I’ve ever seen. He has long, dark gray hair and enormous, terrified yellow eyes and a neck wound that never seems to quite heal. He appeared last April and has been coming and going from under our house since then, but has obviously had either very bad experiences with people or none at all. He can’t be lured into a live trap, but will dart out and grab some food when he thinks no one is looking. After I’d seen him on and off for a few months last spring, I noticed that he had also lost most of one ear, in addition to having the stubborn neck wound. Thus, the moniker Van Gogh...Today I’m still trying to lure him into a live trap so he can get the care he needs.
Silver City is as tough as Kato and Van Gogh. No matter what adversity this community faces, whether its Comstock Mining Inc’s proposed huge pit mine in the southwest part of the community, or Art Wilson’s mining operations near homes in the east and north parts of town, or officials tasked with protecting Silver City’s best interests who do quite the opposite, Silver City perseveres.
Read about Silver City's victory in the Nevada Supreme Court below. It's a real David vs. Goliath situation:
https://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/04/12/one-less-hiding-place-government-communications-thanks-state-supreme-court-obermayr/512262002/
Comstock Residents Ass’n v. Lyon County Board of Commissioners (Summary):
https://law.justia.com/cases/nevada/supreme-court/2018/70738.html
Nevada Supreme Court Rules for Open Records in Comstock Mine Case by Susan Juetten
https://gbrw.org/2018/04/03/nevada-supreme-court-rules-for-open-records-in-comstock-mine-case/
No comments:
Post a Comment