The Greatest Years Of My Life: Brownie

I had a cat I found in my grandmother's bushes. He was one of four to a stray that she had befriended. We captured her when the kittens had yet to open their eyes and put them in a closet.

It was a large litter of 8 or 9 and her second batch; the first yielding only 1 pitch black male the year before. They would wonder out into the grass and die. So we tried to save them.

It worked. The five survived. Momma took to the closet in an open garage where babies stayed warm and corralled. Momma became grandma's pet and the rest were adopted around the neighborhood. 1 I took and named Brownie because of his little brown nose and face.

Brownies brother from the other litter stayed close by during the day. I tried many times to get him to come to me but he would always run just when I got close enough to touch him.

One day I decided I was going to catch that black cat. He would walk around meowing as if daring anyone. I'd sit in the grass and he'd come up to me and lay down just out of reach. Every time I'd move towards him he would distance himself and lay back down.

I finally just chased him. 😃 At first he out ran me, but then slowed down. We did that dance a few times until I ran right up on him like I was going to trample him. To my surprise and amusement, he then flopped on his back and started purring loudly as I reached out and touched him for the first time.

I pet him for a moment, then he ran off for the day.

From then on every time I saw him in the neighborhood I would run up on him and he would flop over for me. Otherwise he was utterly feral.

Brownie carried on this tradition even though he was very tame (to me.) The first year of his life he knew no one but me. We lived out of an '02 Buick Century parked around the corner of Walmart & occasionally in front of my grandmother's house.

To anyone else Brownie was a wild thing.

When we moved into a house he became feral. He roamed the street meowing at all hours. I'd call him in and some times he would come and flop before my feet.

Eventually he brought home friends. One had a litter of kittens near the same spot as the litter today, in an old shed. Most of those ran off or died. Some where adopted. But one decided the outdoors was not for her, as I found her sleeping in a potted planter inside one day (just as Brownie did as a kitten with his siblings.)

We named her Eliza.

Since then there have been several litters by strays born in or near that same spot. Some disappeared when discovered & some didn't survive the winters. Others grew and moved on or were likely killed by neighbor dogs or humans (we had a bit of a cat problem for a while.)

Each litter bares Brownies same striping, which isn't uncommon; but nearly every litter that survives spawns one who will roam the neighborhood meowing at all hours.

Brownie hasn't been seen in a few years, but every once in a while I still hear him crying as he walks past my front window. Most times I look and see nothing. But some times I catch a glimpse of a striped cat, a bit on the small side, with what I presume is a brown little nose just waiting to be booped.

I don't know what generation this is, but judging from the mother's size and temperament, and the curiosity I see in these little faces, I'd say Brownie's legacy of lives on in them. These five look very familiar.