Blooper came into our lives as my two children and I were driving home from town one late August afternoon. As we came to the top of the hill by the Warsaw Town Hall, there was a small animal staggering down the center line, coming straight at our car. I wasn’t sure I could miss it and I didn’t want to hit it. I pulled the car over to the grassy shoulder. Since I had stopped, I decided to get out and see what kind of animal it was.

I have always been an animal lover. This little critter looked to be in serious trouble. It was not until I heard it’s whispered “mews” that I realized it was a kitten, probably not even six weeks old.

My first inclination was to snap its tiny neck and put it out of its misery. As heartless as this might sound, after living in rural Minnesota for two years, we were no strangers to stray animals. City folk seemed ignorant of the fate of the pets they “dropped off” in the country. During our two years on a hobby farm, we were the recipients of two litters of boxed, anonymously donated, kittens and new home for a starving, stray dog.

As I picked up this tiny fellow, ready to end his little life  my three-year daughter and six-year-old son were eager to save him, “Oh it’s a kitten, can we keep him! Mommy can we bring him home!” I didn’t have the heart to murder him right in front of their eyes and I didn’t have the heart to leave him in his miserable state.  I brought him back to the car and drove home.

The kitten was near death; skin and bones and distended belly with fur so matted that it looked as if he didn’t have any. His eyes were nearly swollen shut. His tiny nostrils  crusted with so much dried mucous that he breathed through his mouth. He sat quietly in my lap on the drive back to our three-acre hobby farm.

I cleaned him up as best I could. I was still working over him when my husband came home from work. We were already home to two dogs, several other foundling cats and a goat. “Enough is enough!” he exclaimed.

He  immediately whisked the kitten up and out of the house. When I asked where he had put it, Tom said he had deposited him about a quarter-mile into the cornfield across the road. I assumed that he had done what I hadn’t had the courage to do.

That night as we sat at the supper table, we heard  the noise of the faint scratching at our front door accompanied by almost inaudible “mews.”  That tiny kitten had walked the three blocks back from the cornfield, crossed our busy county road, and found his way back to our front door! Even my husband agreed that a kitten that had so much “heart” should be given a chance.

We coaxed the kitten (although it wasn’t too difficult) into eating some bread which I soaked in warm, sweet, goat’s milk. Minutes later, nearly every bit of it came out his back end, as if it were under pressure like a fire hose. Until his digestive problems were solved, we decided that the kitten would have to stay on our unused front porch, which could be easily hosed down.

We named the kitten “Blooper,” partly because of the way he “blooped” out his food and partly because it seemed like a mistake that he had survived at all. The cool nights of September  meant that Blooper needed to come into the house. We had wormed him, his digestive system had straightened out. Finally healthy, the kitten ate like there was no tomorrow.

On Blooper’s first night in the house, Tom dozed on the couch while  Blooper and I rested in the big recliner near the living room door. Blooper still had a respiratory problem and needed daily grooming to keep his fur from matting. While I was brushing through his hair, I saw something move near his left ear. Lice!

I looked over at Tom and saw that he was still asleep. I knew if he saw that Blooper had lice, he would insist on getting rid of him. I immediately scooped the kitten up in my arms and brought him to the back porch where we kept the pesticide, which we used on our milking goats. I sprayed some on my hands and then rubbed them over Blooper’s tiny body. Almost immediately, white lice began to surface, turning yellow as they died. I brought the kitten back to the recliner and proceeded to comb him, picking off dead lice as they surfaced and putting them in an ashtray.

Just as I was nearly finished, Tom woke up. “What are you doing to the cat?” he asked.

“Picking dead lice off from him,” I responded.

“How do you know they’re dead?”

“Because I killed them!” I grinned.

That was back in 1981.  We did keep Blooper. He spent  his days making us smile and eating like there’s no tomorrow. He lived to be 23, the oldest cat I’ve ever owned.