En cours de chargement...
The Saga of Oscar - the Tramp who was a prince (complete with numerous fetching color photos!)Once we humans finally showed up and (some 10, 000 years ago) and began settling down with our new invention, agriculture-felines once more brilliantly adapted to a new "environment" - us! Still retaining their ferocious independence (try "training" a cat!), they learned well how to create reciprocally beneficial and enjoyable relations with us "newcomers."A few years back I had the amazing good fortune to meet a particularly evolved member of that cat sub-species.
I was living at 4, 000 feet, in the rural "upcountry" hills of the Hawai'i's Big Island. Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps good karma ("Catma?"), but there, a cruelly-abandoned and bedraggled feline soul found his way to me. He was near-starving and well along through his nine lives, with his last perhaps ready to succumb to a horrific ear mite infestation. (Horribly enough, in tropical Hawai'i, such infestations, which burrow into and feast upon feline brains, are a major cause of feral cat death.)On arrival, this particular soul looked so beat up, such a "tramp, " I had no idea he would turn into a being of great physical beauty, as well as in every other way.
His is the story of basic human kindness paid first TO a deserving feline (whom I came to call "Oscar, ") but then of the many wonderful ways he far more than gave back that initial kindness to his so-called "owner."That brings to mind the best bumper sticker of all time: "Cats don't have owners - they have staff!" I became stupidly happy indeed to become Oscar's chef, valet, groomer and feline physician's assistant! Anyone who knows cats well, will resonate to and relish the saga of: Oscar - the tramp who was a prince.