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Everyone’s favorite cat guy, Paul Klusman, has some updates and news in this video clip, including the announcement of a new cat flatulence video coming out before the end of the year.
Unfortunately, Paul’s daytime job as a rocket scientist is really eating into the time he has available to make cat movies, so he is sending out a request that everyone send a letter to his employer, requesting that Paul be laid off (making him eligibile for unemployment) so that he can make more cat movies. Details are in the video.
Tom Cox, author of ‘Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man,’ recently wrote a piece in the Financial Times about walking with cats in Pembrokeshire, Wales. He visited Jackie Morris, a writer and children’s book illustrator, who regularly takes her ginger cats over hill and dale on walks of up to five miles.
Of course, in this wild rural landscape, there is no danger of speeding cars, just hillocks and heather and a path to the sea. Cox and Morris stroll with the orange tabbies Maurice, Kiffer, Martha, Elmo and Pixie following at a cat-like pace. These orange tabbies and the bucolic countryside are frequent subjects for Morris’ children’s book illustrations.
When they head back to Morris’ home, Cox carries Pixie across his shoulders like a scarf for more than a mile. Morris demonstrates how she has more or less trained Pixie and Elmo to jump atop standing stones or footpath signs just by tapping them. Cats run ahead, lag behind, or disappear altogether. That’s just the way cat-walking is.
Tom is no stranger to cat walking:
As surreal as it is to stroll along a coastal path with small felines at my heels, I am not a newcomer to cat-walking. In my teens, I would walk through miles of Forestry Commission land in north Nottinghamshire with my paragon of childhood cats, Monty. “It’s an activity that’s always felt very natural to me,” says Morris. “The first time was about 20 years ago, with my old cat Comfrey. I just walked up the hill behind my house near Bath one day, and he followed me. He would come to the shops with me.”
I’m no stranger to cat-walking, myself. My gregarious tabby, Tripper, follows us like a dog anytime we take Skeezix for a stroll or a walk. Unless we’re staying within the confines of our quiet neighborhood, this usually requires that we return home at some point and lock Tripper in the house. But if I, like Morris, lived in Pembrokeshire, I could see myself walking to the sea each morning with Trip shadowing me… a purrfect way to start a day.
This week, Kathleen Keane’s essay at Delaware Online describing the special relationship between a man and his cat brought both a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. It really is the best thing you’re likely to read all week. Grab a hanky.
Brutus and Hoppy: Two voices, one heart
This is the story of the ties between an ordinary man and an extraordinary cat
By KATHLEEN KEANE Special to The News Journal
WILMINGTON — This is a simple story, uncomplicated, and life-affirming. A story about an old man and his best friend, which happened to be a cat
Earl Hopkins Sr., or Hoppy as he preferred to be called, was an ordinary old man living out his days on the back porch of his house on a tree-lined street in Trolley Square, drinking non-alcoholic beer, watching John Wayne movies on TV, and listening to music on the radio his daughter bought for him last Father’s Day.
He saw nearly everything that needed seeing, done nearly everything that needed doing. His life, without digging too deeply, was ordinary. Married a few times, widowed, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, he spent his working life as a long-distance hauler, driving rigs from Florida up to Canada. He served his country as a Marine in the South Pacific from 1942 to 1946.
An ordinary 86-year-old man waiting for the end of days.
His days came to an end on July 15. Hoppy died of complications of a stroke. He will be missed by his family, his neighbors and his friends. He will be sorely and sorrowfully missed by his extraordinary feline friend, Brutus.
Though his pedigree is a bit murky, Brutus resembles a rather fat Siamese.
“We look kinda alike,” said Hoppy in an interview only weeks before he died. “We both have blue eyes and a big chunk of our ear is missing. He lost his in a catfight, and I lost mine to cancer.”
Brutus was a present to Hoppy from a daughter, who worked at Faithful Friends and took a liking to him.
“We figured he was about 6 years old, and he came into the house, and took over the place, and adopted me. He follows me wherever I go. Likes to be outside on the front porch, just sits there and watches folks go by when he’s not following me around.
“I was in the hospital a few weeks back, getting my blood pressure under control, and you would have thought the world had come to an end, as far as Brutus was concerned. He went around the neighborhood looking for me, crying and hissing, and generally making a nuisance of himself.
“I’ve always had pets, raised Dobermans for a while, and had all sorts of dogs and cats over the years. But this guy, Brutus, he is something else, almost human. Knows all the kids on the street, I call him the Mayor of Gilpin Avenue. Knows everyone, talks to everyone, and yeah, he goes out at night, and I don’t ask where he goes. That’s his business. When I call, he comes. That’s all that matters to me.
“People walking down the avenue call out, ‘Hey, Brutus,’ and he goes bounding off the porch to be greeted. He is so darn popular, I had my son-in-law erect a wooden stand on the corner with a beautiful picture of him along with his biography for the enjoyment of the neighbors. (see photo, right)”
“Brutus knows all the regulars who walk on this street,” said Hoppy’s daughter, Dot Nead, 63. “He knows the time of day each one comes by, and he actually waits on the front steps for them. A runner comes by daily and of course, Brutus is waiting for him. The runner stopped me one day and asked if he was special, because the cat always made such a fuss over him, and I told him, no, everyone is special to Brutus.”
Although Brutus’ lineage is unknown, Hoppy and his family have been in these parts for generations.
“I was born up in Forty Acres; do not confuse Forty Acres with Trolley Square. Trolley Square is a shopping center; remember when it was the old trolley barn. My grandfather delivered mail in the neighborhood, and my father was a city firefighter.
“Brutus eats the same food as I do, give him a filet now and then, and he loves the inside of my sandwiches.
“He’s my baby and my friend. We love each other. And sure, he sleeps with me. At 7 a.m. on the button, he puts his nose right up to mine.”
Hoppy will no longer be wakened by his pal Brutus. And Brutus is distraught. He either roams about the house looking for Hoppy, or sits likes a sphinx on the porch waiting for the master who will never arrive.
Brutus will still greet his neighbors on Gilpin Avenue. He is simply moving his perch several doors away to take up residence with one of Hoppy’s neighbors, who lives with her 8-year-old grandson Matthew and his bunny, Pichu.
But cats like Brutus don’t forget. Brutus won’t forget the days on the back porch with Hoppy. Or he nights they snuggled close.
Brutus is waiting.
Waiting for the day to come when they will again sleep together. Brutus and Hoppy, faithful friends, forever.
The Hopkins family has allowed this reporter to become Brutus’ new caretaker. Brutus has had no comment.
Mark Twain once said, “If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve the man but deteriorate the cat,” and I think that’s a good intro to today’s Thursday Thirteen: Photos of Famous Cat Guys.
PRIZES
The Grand Prize winner will get the following prize package:
50 zealies
A Cat’s Meow Travel Mug – custumized with yer mug ware my mug is in the image below:
HOW TO ENTER
Leave your entry in the comments field of this post and add a foto of you and yer dad if you can. Tell us whut makes YER Food Dude the best cat dad ever. Make shur to put in a valid emale/url when you sine in so we can give you yer prize if you win. Yoo are welcome to enter without leeving this info, but only entries that are sined in with a valid URL (i.e. Catster Profile page or blog address) and emale address will be eligible fur prizes.
ELIGIBILITY
All Catsters, Dogsters, and cats with blogs can enter. Multiple pet households may combine thare entries or submit seprit entries.
CONTENT
No limitayshuns. Can be fotos, text, poetry, anything that can go into a comments box. You can’t embed videos, but you can link to them if you like. Just keep it G-rated… cuz kittens reed this, you know. Restrain image width to no more than 550 pixels wide.
Use the following format to add an image to yer comment:
JUDGING
The Cat’s Meow staff will chooze the winning entry for the best entry submitted. Yoo’ll git points fur orijinality, humor, pathos, and execution. (I dunno whut pathos meens, but it looks good, duzn’t it?)
DEDLINE
5pm Catster time on Saturday, 20 June.
WINNER ANNOWNST
The winner will be annownst, and the winning entry published on Father’s Day.
Here’s a happy ending story for you: A man with a brain tumor arrives home to find his home in flames. His first thought is of his “therapeutic” cats, Boo Boo and Mew Mew:
When Glen Schallman got off the bus after work on Thursday, he gasped at the sight of his Rolling Meadows apartment building on fire.
Schallman, who has survived with a brain tumor, watched as all his possessions went up in flames.
“I just yelled, ‘My cats! My cats!’ I went into a major panic,” said Schallman.
The sudden and extreme stress apparently triggered a seizure and paramedics brought Schallman to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village.
While in his hospital bed, Schallman was relieved to learn that Boo Boo Kitty, a domestic black cat, and Mew Mew, a tuxedo cat, were actually rescued unharmed. They were brought to an animal hospital in Schaumburg for observation and boarding.
“Boo Boo Kitty was found under the covers and Mew Mew was found under the bed,” said a tearful 50-year-old, who works at Build-A-Bear Workshop in Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg. “It’s a miracle that they are still alive.”
Schallman was a resident of 12 Oaks, where a fire Thursday consumed most of the three-story building, west of Route 53 and south of Algonquin Road. The fire reportedly broke out around 3:30 p.m. and took roughly three hours to extinguish. Twenty-seven families were displaced. Many have been staying at area hotels or with friends or relatives.
Rolling Meadows police and fire officials said Saturday that the case remains under investigation.
Schallman has been a resident of 12 Oaks since last October, arriving here from Phoenix, Ariz., to seek more medical treatment for his seizures. He was diagnosed in 2002 with hypothalamic hamartoma, a rare benign brain tumor located near the hypothalamus.
After his diagnosis, the former travel agent went on disability. He also acquired Boo Boo Kitty and Mew Mew as kittens. As the cats grew up, he says, they instinctively laid across his chest or seemingly felt for a pulse when he was having health problems. “They are my therapeutic cats,” he said.
Schallman said he doesn’t know what he’ll do once he’s released from the hospital, possibly on Sunday. He’s arranging to stay with friends in Chicago until he can sort out what’s left, if anything, of his belongings. He then must find another place to live and start rebuilding his life.
One thing is certain. His beloved Boo Boo Kitty and Mew Mew are alive and he longs to be reunited with them, possibly as early as Monday.
“I’m really stressed out and very scared,” he said. “I’ve lost everything. But I just have to keep going. I love life and I’m not going to give up.”
First there was Butch and Sundance. Then, Batman and Robin and the Skipper and Gilligan. Now there’s a new dynamic duo: John Capriotti and Baby Cat.
John’s an electrician in Kankakee, Illinois and Baby Cat is his new sidekick, going on calls with John in the company van.
“We have two other cats and this guy seemed to prefer the garage to hanging around the house with them,” says Cat Guy Capriotti. “So one day, he jumped into the van and I said: ‘You want to go for a ride? Then let’s go.’ And I figured he’d jump out. But he didn’t, and he’s been going with me ever since.”
All winter, Baby Cat has ridden with Capriotti on house calls, waiting in the van during stops at hardware stores, and often cadging a bite or two of his buddy’s sandwiches.
“He’s a good companion, but not always under foot,” he added. “He might get out at the job for a little while, but mostly he likes to sleep on the dashboard while I work.”
And Capriotti always parks where Baby Cat can get some sun.
“I keep a litter box in the truck and some water, but he seems fine waiting for his meals at home when we’re done,” Capriotti said. “When it was real cold, I’d leave the heat on for him. But when it gets real hot, I’ll probably have to leave him at home.”
“We got him from a farm in Bonfield and they only had yellow cats. That’s not my favorite kind of cat, but he’s pretty good,” Capriotti said. Spoken like a true Cat Guy.
Everyone knows about Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger’s cool headedness and quick thinking that saved the lives of 155 passengers on the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson in January. But did you know that he’s also a Cat Guy and the hero to homeless cats in his Northern California community?
“Sully’s the cat person. I’m the dog person,” his wife Lorrie told PEOPLE Magazine in a recent interview.
Lorrie and Sully care for the kittens until they can be neutered or spayed for adoption. Like many who foster, they ended up adopting one of their charges, the 2-year-old calico, Kitty (right).
“(Sully) loves that cat,” says Lorrie. “He has a special affinity for that cat. He desperately wants her to be a lap-cat. Since the accident, she’s actually been leaning up against him.”
Today’s the last day to enter The Cat’s Meow’s 
Hey evrybuddy, Skeezix here. Wanna win 50 zealies and a really grate custum travel mug with yer mug on it???
When Glen Schallman got off the bus after work on Thursday, he gasped at the sight of his Rolling Meadows apartment building on fire.
Everyone knows about Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger’s cool headedness and quick thinking that saved the lives of 155 passengers on the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson in January. But did you know that he’s also a Cat Guy and the hero to homeless cats in his Northern California community?
