Cats

Washington, D.C., circa 1924. "People's Drug Store group, 11th & G Sts." Including one People's non-person. National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size.

New York circa 1919. "Torpadie." The soprano Greta Torpadie and friends. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1938. "Patrick Brennan, son of the Minister of Ireland, and Mrs. Brennan." Or something like that. One of a series of photographs depicting children of various diplomats speaking from their homes to a radio audience. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1925. "Mrs. Thaddeus Caraway and cat." The cat's accomplishments are lost to history, but Hattie Caraway went on to become a two-term U.S. Senator, the first woman ever elected to that office. View full size.

This is my dad's cat he had in the early '60s. He said he was a very nice cat. He also said the carpet was an ugly shade of green. View full size

June 19, 1922. Washington, D.C. "Shelly & Jezebel." And that's all they wrote. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

Usually when my father and Kitty were in the same room she'd be on his lap. Or actually, on a newspaper on his lap while he read another section, forming a kind of cat sandwich. "You're full of hair," he'd tell her after she jumped up on him. Here he's reading the Marin County Independent-Journal bearing a headline about President-elect Jimmy Carter. At this point, you may be wondering if he was ever seen without a newspaper in his hands. Well, at other times, he'd have garden tools: trimming, pruning, cultivating, raking, watering. Or a steering wheel. Occasionally he'd be seen carving a roast. The reason this is a quiet time (around Christmas, as you can see from the decorations here and there) is that I'm not blasting my stereo, thus banishing him to the kitchen. I'd bought a Sony Trinitron to keep him and my mother company there at such times. That's my record collection on the rack behind him, and one of my Infinity Monitors is just visible peeking over the chair in the corner. My Kodachrome, lit by bounce flash. View full size.