A JOURNEY OF LOVE

Written by Sharon Maier

	As a child I lived in Tampa, Florida.  We kids grew up hard and didn't have a lot of 
extras like some of the kids we played with in the old State Street Housing Project.

My brothers and I would walk along State Street, collect all the empty pop bottles 
we could find and return them to the local grocery for the three cents bottle 
deposit.  On a good day we could find up to thirty cents worth of bottles.  I know, 
that doesn't sound like much money to the kids today but, believe me, it was a lot 
of money for a kid in those days.  You could buy a loaf of bread for twenty cents, a 
bottle of Coca-Cola for a nickel.  Yes, it was a lot of money to me.

We would divide the money up at the grocery and each one of us would scatter through 
the store in different directions to the candy counter of his choice...usually.

For weeks I saved my pennies to buy, what I thought at the time was, the most 
beautiful, trained, pedigree feline of the century.  I have to chuckle at the 
experience now when I think of that old skinny cat and how I really got stung out of 
my seventy five cents.  Odds are the old cat didn't even belong to the kid who sold 
her to me but that's neither here no there to the story.

Though Mom protested the day I brought her home, she finally said I could keep her 
after a few provisions were agreed upon.  One, she had to eat only table scraps and 
two I, alone, would have to see to her everyday needs.

I was heart broken to learn weeks later we were moving forty miles inland and 
couldn't take Minnie with us because my dad didn't like cats and didn't want her at 
the new place we were moving to.  We left Minnie with a neighbor and made the move 
to the country but I was devastated.

It must have been more than a month later, as my brothers and I were playing in our 
new yard, we witnessed something unbelievable.

There, a few hundred yards away, came Minnie.  She was ragged looking and even 
skinnier than we remembered her. She recognized us immediately and came running as 
fast as her tired old legs would carry her until she was at our feet rubbing up 
against and in and out of our legs.  She was purring loudly and mewing repeatedly.

I couldn't help myself, I kept screaming her name over and over.

"Minnie!  Minnie!"  I wailed so loudly my dad heard me from the house.

"Well...I don't believe it...I just don't believe it"  Dad said in disbelief as he 
walked out to where we were.

"I'll tell you what...if that old skinny cat missed you kids so much she would walk 
all the way here to find you...well, she can stay."

With those words my dad turned and retreated to the house.  The old cat lived to the 
ripe old age of twelve years then died, peacefully, in her sleep.

My dad still doesn't like cats but he had a lot of respect for an old puss we kids 
used to call Skinny Minnie.