NOTE: Sammy contracted cancer and passed away in August of 2005. This page is kept up in memory of the best cat I ever had. I insist he's just a cat. He insists he's no different than you or me, even if he is entitled to be fed, petted, scratched, groomed, etc whenever he wishes. I still insist he's just a cat. He says "Prove it!"

His full name is Samuel Weller, after one of my favorite Dickens’ character, from the book “Pickwick Papers”. But he goes by Sammy. No one has ever actually called him Sam. I've asked him a few times if he would mind if we called him Sam; he usually gives me a blank look and then goes back to sleep.

When he first arrived to keep me company during my "hide in my rooms" days (I was living in an upstairs section--nearly it's own apartment though it had no kitchen--of my parents house, and my grandmother was living on the main floor), he was barely bigger than my hand. He had lost his mom and the rest of the litter (no one ever explained how or why, maybe they left him behind)--he was the runt of the litter and it was far too early for him to be on his own. But he's a gentle beast, and Nature loves the downtrodden, so he made it.

I had to keep Sammy locked up in my rooms for his own good, so all he saw for the first six months or so of his life was me. He's a strange cat in many ways, but one of those ways is that as long as I'm home, he's rarely more than three feet from me. He sleeps at my feet while I tap at the computer. Sometimes he climbs on the desk and complains that I spend too much time doing that (see pics below).

When he wants to see if I'm awake, he sniffs my eyelids. I have been woken up many a-morning by a cold nose in the eye. A couple of weeks after he came to live with me, he became interested in my cigarettes (I smoked back then, but not now), usually when they were lit. I'd shoo him away. But eventually he snuck up a took a sniff when I wasn't looking, which is why he has a small black spot on his nose (his only bit of color), from the scar.

However, sometime this last year (nearly 9 years after receiving the spot), the black spot suddenly began to fade and then disappeared. So he's all white again. Unless he gets into the basement, where he likes a good roll in the dirt, then he's gray. 

Sammy has only been outside once. He got out, fought a cat, ran and hid in the neighbor's garage, which was open at the time, and wasn't found again until the neighbors opened the garage 24 hours later. Sammy hasn't tried to go out much since then.

Sammy does not like big bugs. A big moth fluttering around the ceiling will cause him to find me wherever I am and complain loudly until I get rid of it.

ME: Say cheese. 
*FLASH*
SAMMY: What the Hell was that?

ME: Hey, Sammy, look up here!
SAMMY: Not that flashy thing again. All right, just one time. Then I get mad.

ME: Sammy, come and look this slug climbing up the chair.
SAMMY: You mean, come outside where the bugs could get me. I don't think so.
[NOTE: Sammy was sitting in the open window watching me the whole time. He could have gotten out at any moment, if he wished. The slug lived with us for 3 weeks. It was getting cold. But he started to go dormant so I put him out. He may have lived. I don't know.]

ME: You know if you keep sleeping there I might accidentally kick you.
SAMMY: You wouldn't like that. I can get mean when kicked. Quit laughing. I can too get mean. Just watch me.

SAMMY: See, this is my mean face.

ME at my keyboard: tapetty-tap-tap-tappety-tap.
SAMMY: Aren't you done yet? It's past time to pet the cat.

SAMMY: No, you weren't supposed to pick up the flashy thing. I said it's past time to pet the cat.

SAMMY: All right, just one picture, but after that I gonna get mad. Here, I'll even pose for you. Smile? What does that mean?

SAMMY: All right, now I'm getting mad. This is no way to treat the cat. I haven't been scratched behind the ears in at least 15 minutes and you've flashed me four times in a row.

(Note: Still has black spot on nose in this one. In the rest, black spot has disappeared)

[SCENE: Christmas box arrives from sister who lives on the other side of the country. Top of the box is packed with foam rubber which I toss on the couch while I go through the box.]
SAMMY: Hey, I just found a cat-sized piece of foam rubber. It's mine now.

[Nearly two hours later]
SAMMY: No, you can't have the couch back. At least, not until I get hungry.

SAMMY: ZZzzzzzzzzzz.

SAMMY: Hey, how do expect a cat to sleep with all the flashing going on? Put the flashy thing away!

Sammy really doesn't like the flashing. So I try to limit myself to 3 or 4 pictures per year. These pictures were taken over the last two years. Maybe I'll talk him into posing for a new one....well, later. He's sitting on the couch now giving me that “Go on, I dare ya!"” look.

Further note: I have more pictures of Sammy, and the other cats that came after, but I will post them later. The end was very hard, though you wouldn't have known it. Just as I know my own body, I knew Sammy's. I knew he was going. It was the hardest things in my life.

Sometimes, when I sing Karaoke, I sing a song to Sammy. It's a bit sappy, and not very manly, but I don't care. He once saved my life, by giving me something to live for. “On the way down, I saw you, and you saved me from myself; And I won't forget the way you loved me; On the way down, almost fell right through... but I held onto you.......”