Kitty Chronicles Volume Two

About the Book

This first volume of Kitty Chronicles, a factual first person account, opens describing childhood experiences in the late 1920's and early 1930's of an older sister's cats; following a hiatus of a few years, some cat problems of fellow university students are characterized. In San Francisco after a misguided attempt at keeping in his apartment two Siamese cats while the owner was on vacation, the narrator had only casual experiences of other people's cats until he was hired by an estate executor to take care of the dead man's surviving old Siamese tomcat. Of unique interest was the courtship of a Siamese female by a neighborhood tomcat and how the Siamese mother reared her one kitten, a look-alike daughter who matured to help with the education of a second litter of four. A Siamese female brought by a room-mate to Santa Rosa, ingratiates herself by clearly communicating with the man.

Rather than endure another season of mouse infestation in San Francisco's cheap hotels, the old man agreed to let his current room-mate provide him with a kitten. Upon seeing the tiny blue-cream three-week-old kitten, the man was so enamored that taking the kitten everywhere with him, he taught the kitten to walk with him without a leash and to climb trees. Finally discovering the kitten was a female, the room-mate suggested that because of her great beauty she be named Cassiopeia, a name to which the cat responded when pronounced with an accented long O of the antepenult.

Gaining more confidence in each other, the old man allowed CassiOpeia to stay outside all night in feral cat colonies to learn feline skills, like catching mice and coping with rats. Perhaps by exercising so much freedom to do much as she pleased, ('twas said she had the old man wrapped around her little claws), she broke her hind leg, and while she was still in a walking cast for weeks, her owner had to move with her to a temporary place because the hotel where they were living was sold. Continuing vigorously active in leading her aging owner on a merry chase, CassiOpeia seriously damaged her hip joint, but enabling her to walk without a limp and even to climb trees, the veterinarian constructed a false hip out of cartilage.

CassiOpeia played courtship games with an old orange tomcat who came into the yard; however, when walking with her owner, she met a black tomcat, ran off with him into a crawl space, and for the next few days had a romance. The veterinarian had advised that CassiOpeia not mate on her first heat, which fortunately occurred on the other side of town at Lake Merced near the zoo, where she stayed for four days and did not mate with any other cats in the area. In her next heat she persuaded her owner to take her out for a rendezvous with the black tomcat of her choice, and two months later CassiOpeia gave birth to six kittens whom she taught the skills she had learned. Though she tried to see her black mate again, the crawl space had been boarded over, and he was gone.

Keeping one gray daughter, Calliope, the old man moved onto Potrero Hill, where CassiOpeia mated again and had a litter of five. While in the midst of getting homes for the kittens, ten days after being struck down by an automobile, the old man came home from the hospital on crutches to mama CassiOpeia, Calliope, and little Marmosette. To prevent the birth of more kittens, both the mother and the older daughter were spayed right away. As the man regained his walking ability, and while CassiOpeia continued to expand her feline social connections, Calliope was entrusted with Marmosette's care and education. Harassed by complaints of a woman living downstairs that CassiOpeia was killing birds, the man hastened to complete the surgical treatment on his knee, also having maturing Marmosette spayed; while looki

About the Author

George Tanner (b. May 26, 1923 in Vincennes, Indiana) left home in 1940 for the CCC and a year later started studying religion in various schools, graduating (1948) with an MA in theology from the University of Chicago. Soon after coming to California in 1950, abandoning academic aspirations, he worked in factories and on farms and was involved in social protests. Although in the 1950’s he wrote an unpublished novel, in 1990 after living a decade with cats, he began to write a factual account of his experiences in "Kitty Chronicles."