Redi
While living on North 25th Street, I had lots of kittens. Our very first cat we named Jerry, a large tomcat.
The next cat was Redi which is the one I remember the most. Poor Redi didn't have a tail. One day Mom could be heard screaming clear to Holdrege Street. Poor Redi had gotten her tail caught in the motor of the old wringer washing machine. There Mom sat sobbing, holding the tail in one hand and the yowling cat in the other. Redi survived and the stub of the tail healed.
Redi had several litters of kittens. She chose very inappropriate places to give birth; for instance, on my mother's bed!
I always wanted to play with the baby kittens and Redi being a typical mama disagreed. She was constantly moving them. Our basement was mostly a hole under the house with a place for the coal bin and furnace. She would take them up on the dirt pile way towards the back completely away from where anyone could reach them.
Redi participated, but not willingly, in many of our circuses. She was the lion. I know, we had our genders mixed up but Redi was large and almost the right color. Our little makeshift cage was not one of her favorite places to be.
One day Redi disappeared. Mary Jo and I walked everywhere calling for the cat. We never found her. I learned when I was more grown up that she had been hit by a car and Mom and Dad just couldn't tell me Redi had gone to Pet Heaven.
