Memories

Last week my mom texted me that Uncle George had called her to say that Hiccups had died. It’s funny what memories one cat can bring back…

I suppose we decided once upon a time that if we had to move so often, then we needed to make it non-monotonous. I mean, there’s only so many times you can pack everything you own in brown boxes, put it on a huge truck, pack your own suitcase, load up in a car and everything arrives in a new state at a new home to be unpacked. And if having eight kids wouldn’t make it a bit more exciting, my parents thought we could have pets, too. Like fish, and turtles, and guinea pigs, and rabbits, and cats, and dogs. They drew a line at trying to put a horse in our van (although many siblings asked).

Sometimes you have to wonder if your parents love you very, very much or they’re just insane. When we move from Massachusetts to Texas in 1996, there’s probably good argument that the latter was true. After all, not many parents would load eight kids ages one to sixteen up in two cars with a Beagle, two rabbits, two cats and three kittens (fondly named Hiccups, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Freckles). And my siblings can correct me if there weren’t more pets…it’s easy to get this move mixed up with the equally adventurous move back to New England three years later.

To add to the insanity, we decided to include within this a week-long conference in Knoxville, Tennessee and a brief stop to see family in Nashville before we actually made our way to Texas. (It was during this road trip that I had one of my training sessions on how to be a good wife. I was the navigator for Dad in the red, Nissan Stanza. This was in the days before GPS, Google and a smartphone. I used an atlas, TripTick from AAA and AAA’s travel books of all the states we went through. And so looking for a hotel in Memphis during greyhound racing season at ten at night proved to be a learning curve. Let’s just say I almost decided then and there that being a wife was not in my future.)

Among the many adventures of the Sturm family during this trip was a visit to a vet in Virginia (I think) for our Beagle’s horrendous cough. I nearly lost one cat who slipped the leash. There was a Basset Hound convention at one hotel with Basset Hounds dressed in every costume imaginable. Some of us got sick with a bug we decided to share. And never open a water bottle that uses a straw with coke in it. The stain never came out of the ceiling of the Stanza.

Yes, it all sounds like a good plot for a reality TV show…

Anyhow, we managed to survive the trip to Knoxville and somehow got through the exhausting conference (but not without the hours of choir practice giving me nightmares in my sleep every night). Then off we went to Nashville. It is very fuzzy to me now which uncle’s or aunt’s we stopped at for lunch, but everyone was there. And my cousin Rachel fell in love with the kittens who were just ready to leave their mother. She begged and pleaded with Uncle George for one…and in the end, Hiccups became a member of their family.

We went on to Texas, crossing the border in Texarkana with tears at the 100 degree drought in May. Three years later, we would give that trip a very promising sequel!