Subj : Cats [1]
To : Dave Drum
From : Ruth Haffly
Date : Sat Jun 24 2023 15:28:48
Hi Dave,
RH> To tell them apart, he designated them Able, Baker, Charlie and Dog.
DD> So it was a "convenience" name, not a personality one?
RH> Exactly! He served in the Navy during WWII and that was the standard
RH> phonetic alphabet at the time. Steve learned Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and
RH> Delta when he went into the Army; Nato uses that version. I learned it
RH> from just listening to him use it--comes in handy when I have to spell
RH> my last name on the phone--if people are familiar with it. We've heard
RH> a lot of varients over the ham radio airwaves in the past few years
RH> tho.
DD> I still use it in my work. the letters B,C,D,E,T and Z are homonyms
DD> and easily mistaken for one another - especially over the telephone. I
F and S, M and N are common "mishearings"; we've had I don't know how
many times people have mixed up them up, especially the former. When
Steve was in the Army and I'd have to make medical appointments on the
phone, it was so much easier to use the phonetic spelling of our last
name. At least I knew people on the other end would know it that way!
(G) Our girls fussed at me but I think they eventually saw the wisdom of
my doing so--and still do so from time to time.
DD> spell things using my own "made up on the fly" phonetic alphabet. A
DD> may be DD> "Adam", "Alpha", or "AutoZone" and so on. As long as
there is no doubt DD> as to which letter I mean. It helps to prevent
misteaks. Bv)=
If you live near a military installation, probably a lot of people would
know the NATO alphabet. I didn't set out to intentionally learn it; just
sort of picked it up thru hearing it enough times. (G)
name. RH> She RH> went on to have a litter at the start of the Apollo
11 moon RH> shot so for RH> designators we used Neil, Buzz, Michael
and Diana RH> (Roman goddess of the RH> moon).
DD> Darwin was right, you know.
RH> They were all good cats--hired for the mousekeeping.
DD> When I was running the satellite shop we had a cat that one of the
DD> techs brought from an installation. She was a very friendly kitten,
DD> just old
DD> enough to be weaned. She's catch a mouse and play with it until it
DD> died. Probably from sheer exhaustion. Mom cat was a barn cat - but
DD> apparently had not had time to teach her daughter how to hunt. So, in
DD> an effort to show Callie that mice were "food" I took one of her
DD> victims and placed
DD> it on top of her bowl of kibble. She batted the dead mouse out of the
DD> way and went to crunching her Friskies. Bv)=
I don't know if Jenny-cat ever caught a mouse--she was abused as a
kitten and put into a shelter, then adopted out from there. I think her
abuser must have been a man because she was a lot more skittish around
them, than women, tho she was quite skittish around most of them also.
With me, she was a lap cat.
DD> But she did keep the mouse population at a minimum.
Doing what she was paid to do. Maybe something about the taste of dead
mouse was a turn off.
DD> gravy from DD> the spaghetti. She licked up all of the sauce and
left the meat. DD> Pretty odd behaviour for a cat.
RH> Quite so. We had a kitten and Sam who were both popcorn lovers.
DD> Spot was the first (and only) cat I ever saw who would leave meat in
DD> her bowl.
RH> Jenny-cat left lamb and rice in her dish--she actually pushed the dish
RH> away and refused to eat it. Vet had perscribed it as we were trying to
RH> figure out some health issues so she said to put her back on what she
RH> was used to eating.
DD> Never try to out-stubborn a cat.
For sure!
DD> I used to half-open the cans of packed in oil fish and let it drain
DD> over the kitty kibble. The cats loved it.
RH> Kibble disappeared rather fast when topped with fish oil. (G)
DD> You betchum, Red Ryder (and if you remember that comix strip you're
DD> older than I thought.
I've seen references to it but never saw the strip, itself.
DD> This is from a cookbook I published (wish I had a copy) when I wore
DD> a younger man's clothes called "Advice For The Newly Single". It
DD> was for freshly graduated, living away from Mom & Dad for the
DD> first time. Or newly divorced man on their own with no house
DD> keeping chops nor cooking skills.
DD> It was first printed in my newspaper column, "The Dim View"
RH> Put out a call for it on your neighborhood group; somebody may have a
RH> copy or know of someone who knows someone with a copy.
DD> I've been looking for years. I "rescued" many of the recipes by going
DD> through the archives of the college I was attending at the time. That
DD> to put ourselves through to degrees on the revenue from the Spectrum.
DD> John, to a Bachelor's in Literature and me to a Master's in Public
DD> Affairs.
DD> That school, which I was in on the founding of, is now the University
DD> of Illinois at Springfield.
RH> Sounds like it started as a Baby Boomer school and just grew from
RH> there. The college I graduated from became a university last year; it's
RH> not that big but they had their reasons. Like Fort Bragg is now Fort
RH> Liberty; I'll always think of Houghton College and Fort Bragg.
DD> I'm not sure that I'm on board with all the "politically correct"
DD> renaming that has been going on. Especially the military bases. The
DD> people for whom they were named were leaders who fought for the
DD> principles in which they believed and were true to their cause ....
DD> which even if it was wrong, or has fallen out of favour are still core
DD> values that soldiers/sailors or wing wipers should practice.
I know, and I'm hoping that with some of the re-names, that someone in
the not too distant future will have the sense to change them back to
their original names. I know Fort Hood was another of the re-names but
it will always be Fort Hood to me. Had my first taste of real real (not
restaurant or Tex-Mex) Mexican food while we were stationed there--went
on a mission trip to Eagle Pass, TX, Piedras Negras, Mexico and the
ladies of the church down there cooked for us one day. Taco Bell has
never been the same since. (G)
---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net FIDO 1:396/45.28
... I am positive that a definite maybe is probably in order.
--- PPoint 3.01
* Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28)
