First, it was Tenacious Bongo

I recently received an email from a person I was friends with many many years ago, in the first days after my escape and being taken in by the old people. Which has me thinking back to those early days of my humanizing.

I remember in that first year with the old folks, they enrolled me in the little country school. The teacher, one day, wrote a list of vocabulary words on the chalk board and assigned us to looking them up in the dictionary, and then writing the name of a class mate who personified the word next to the definition. The entire class wrote down my name next to the word "tenacious."

I remember the old folks would point out traits I held that were similar to traits of their own family members. I've always appreciated their efforts to reinforce to me that I am part of their family.

The old folks were also fiercely protective of me in those days. I was, of course, too young to understand the impact my presence alone would have on the humans around me. They did an admirable job of shielding me from the hurts I could have felt --- as well as from being aware that insults were even being flung in my direction.

My old friend still lives in the community we all lived in once. She is married, has children of her own, and pursues work of great importance -- the education of the most vulnerable of children, special needs kids. In many ways, we both are similar in the kind of humans we grew up to become. Perhaps that is the greatest compliment to the rearing abilities of the old folks -- that they could accomplish a rather dull, normalish human from a frightened, way-ward monkey. I'm sure there are human parents who would trade a perfectly boring adult for the dramas some children inflict upon their parents.

Update: the tomkat has produced the kitten - a girl. Now I can finally move on to more important issues, if such exists.

Update: Hank (remember Hank?) refused to eat, drink, run, jump, or play. Hence, he has now shrunk down to the size he was when I first, um, acquired him. I am going to see if I can recreate the growth medium and give him a second try. I'm not terribly optimistic -- having seen the movie "Multiplicity" and knowing that a copy of a copy isn't always as good as the original.