Sounds of Hope

Cromwell CT is a “bedroom” community adjacent to Middletown and 15 miles south of Hartford.  It’s a wonderful place to live.  The people are community minded.  It has great schools.  There is plenty of shopping in town and you are a hop skip and jump from the interstate taking you within two hours to New York City, three hours to Boston and multitude of interesting stops in between. Cromwell also had Nooks Hill Road.  Parts of the “Nooks” fit the profile of Cromwell.  Other parts do not fit this profile.  We bought our first house near the corner of Nooks and Field.  A cluster of five houses was a colony of people who didn’t quite fit the more affluent profile.  We fit right in. We shared our driveway with two of the other houses.  Actually, we didn’t own our driveway, the owner of the other two houses did.  His name was Rev. Hodges.  Driving a big old station wagon, he was a familiar site around Cromwell.  However, his ...

I’ve already mentioned Nike, Smooth Chocolate, and Kisses.   Nike and Smooth Chocolate were brothers.   They were brought home by our then teenage daughters.   It had been quite a while since we had cats.   I wasn’t thrilled. It was 1997.   It was the kick-off of our year from hell.   It was December 10.   Nike and Smooth Chocolate were loved and cared for and were adolescent kittens.   My husband and I were shopping for his emergency trip to Pakistan.   His father was sick.   I was trying to be helpful as he bought gifts and necessities.   I was bracing for a Christmas without three of my children. As the cart grew with our purchases, my pager kept going off.   911 was the signal for a family emergency.   Using a pay phone (remember those?)   I kept calling and got no answer.   My husband kept ignoring my pleas to go home.   I knew something was wrong. As we approached our house, we were stopped by the F...

There is hardly anything as irresistible as a little beautiful little girl with that begging look in her eyes.  Almost as irresistible is a cute ball of fur, a tiny kitten.  Put the two together and only the toughest of individuals can withstand the pleading look from both the kitten and the girl.  They seem so natural together.  They seem to belong together.  If you can resist the kitten, you certainly can’t resist this duo of persuasion. Having had five daughters, I’ve melted away all resistance to yet another kitten by those warm pleading brown eyes looking at me so hopefully.  They plead with promises of cleaning the litter box themselves.  You weaken.  They hug you and tell you they’ll love you forever.  You now own yet another kitten. It was the mid-80’s.  The movie Gremlins and the toys were popular.  I wasn’t crazy about my children seeing this movie, but like the kitten, I gave in to their pleadings.  Soon we had o...

I promised I’d tell you some more cat-tales.   I thought of some other perhaps more meaty topics for this blog yesterday on my way to class.   I’m learning to write things down when I get an inspiration.   Perhaps that will mean more blogs.   But a promise is a promise.   If you know me, I will die trying to keep my word.   Not sure where I got that from but it is a huge thing for me.   I will do what I say I will do.   And if I use the word promise – that’s sacred. It’s a Sunday when I am writing this so it seems most important to write about the cat we had for a very short time, named Angel.   She appeared on the farm seemingly out of nowhere.   Now if you knew all the strange things that happened on that farm, you might not think she came out of nowhere.   Ultimately, I didn’t think so either. She was a black and white long haired cat.   She had been treed by our dogs when I first saw her.   We already had three cats...

Over the years we’ve had a lot of cats.   I thought I’d share some of our cat-tales for your amusement.   I am not a big cat lover.   I think there are cat lovers and dog lovers.   Although a bit afraid of dogs I don’t know, I would definite by a dog lover.   I’ve written before about our little dog Pebbles .   Maybe someday I’ll tell you more about some other notable dogs like Gilligan and Wolfie, Daisy, Canine, and the assortment of puppies we’ve had over the years.   Or my first experience with a dog, Duke.   But those tales are for another day, today we’ll talk about our cat Golden. Golden is a cat of notoriety in our family.   He looked like Morris the Cat.   I have no idea how we came to have Golden.   It was during a time where we had a lot of cats in and out.   Unfortunately, most were part inside and part outside cats.   While outside, they often would meet their maker on Nooks Hill Road.   If the time ever...