Alfie

I want to feel better. I keep telling myself I should feel better but it's not yet working. A week on and the absence of Alfie still feels raw. As much as his presence in the world was loud and very physical with his in-your-face ways, the sudden withdrawal of all that energy is just so noticeable. I am sitting in the office as I type this and for some time I have been expecting him to trot into the room and jump on the desk, parading in front of the screen until I give in and attend to him by pushing the keyboard out of the way, laying him down and stroking him while he purrs and purrs. When I wiped the counter tops in the kitchen, Alfie would try to catch the cloth or sponge I was using as if it was a game I had invented with him. And his love of the laser pointer was unbounded: he never tired of running after that red dot and even two days before he left us, he was still chasing that dot.

He was our little panther, our sweet little boy cat and I miss him terribly. I hope there are laser pointers over the Rainbow Bridge.

I Nearly Stole a Cat

Cats are sociable animals. I know many will dispute this fact thinking them to be stand-offish, sly and, often, confrontational balls of fur and in many ways I would have to agree: they have their moments when they can be anything but sociable. However, even the most difficult, feisty cat will, at times, need a stroke, a cuddle and gentle words accompanying scritches under the chin. Feral cats can be won round to appreciate that purring next to a human is infinitely preferable to spitting and hissing at them. I know this to be the case from personal experience. Many moons ago when my late dad worked at Gatwick Airport, there was a colony of feral cats on site. Eventually, the airport management decided that the cats needed to be 'cleared out' (i.e.  rounded up and killed), so the guys that my dad worked with decided to rehome at least some of them. Thus, my dad brought home Pushkin, a tiny tortoiseshell kitten. When he opened the box and put his hand in to take her out, she turned into a land-based piranha lacerating his hand and forearm with her tiny teeth and claws. Throughout her early years she remained very much a loner and didn't really interact with us or with our other cat. However, little by little, she decided that ignoring or fighting us was a lot less fun than getting strokes and being fussed over and the second half of her life was entirely different: she would jump on my bed a night for strokes and cuddles, all the while purring her little head off. Love won through in the end.

Not all cats need such a long term approach to winning them over, The fact that Pushkin was feral made it a more difficult job but most kittens, coming from cats that are already house cats, are ready to receive love from day one. Ninety-nine percent of cats want to be adored and, in receiving that love, they will love their owner back. That's why it breaks my heart when you hear stories of people moving house and just leaving their cat behind with no arrangements for someone to take it in. Or kittens left in a sealed box by the side of the road who, only by some miracle of chance, were found and rescued. How many others were not found? From the moment you take on a pet of any kind, you are responsible for that little life, not only in terms of feeding it, but also in terms of its welfare, its wellbeing. Just keeping a dog or a cat alive is not enough, you also need to ineract with it, to show it love and allow it to show you love too.

I was visiting my mum this week. She has recently taken on a cat that was being ignored by its owners and had taken to hanging out at her place. She did the responsible thing and spoke to the owners and asked if it was OK if she took on the role of 'owner' of the cat (though I'm not sure that anyone ever 'owns' a cat: I think they probably own us) and they were happy for her to do so. He was a little cautious at first, but her constant takling to him led to strokes and purrs. He's by no means a lap cat but he has come on so much in a relatively short space of time. He now realises there is more to interacting with humans than just getting fed.

Anyway, I digress slightly. Mum's next-door neighbour has a small ginger tom cat which is probably still classed as a kitten as it is probably around 9 months old. Again, this is a cat that is fed and watered but is seemingly not given anything else. There is no one home during the day and he is locked outside and he is often alone outside in the evening. I just don't see the point in having a pet if you are not going to pet it. I was taking stuff out to the car, getting ready to leave and the little ginger chap was making little forays into mum's hallway, rubbing up against my shins, miaowing and purring, then rolling over for strokes and belly rubs. He was such a little love sponge and it just depressed me that most of his life was spent on his own without the love he deserves. And for one moment, as I opened the door of my car to throw a coat on the back seat, I found myself thinkng "If he jumps up into the car, I'm just going to close the door and drive off with him!" (Full disclosure, we had lost our beautiful cat, Alfie, the previous Friday so my catnapping urges and, indeed, this whole blog, is probably motivated by the still raw emotions surrounding loss). In the end, the cat didn't jump in, I didn't steal a cat and I left him with his rightful owner. I really, really hope he gets much, much more love in his life. It's the one thing I can say, hand on heart: Alfie never went short of love, not even for one day of his nine years with us.

The Lincoln Highway -Three and a third thousand miles: Part 3

 Well, that intermission was a little longer than I intended! Anyhow, let’s get back to the job in hand.

Lost in America

Most people are aware of this thing called 'Route 66' even if they are vague on the details: where it starts; where it ends; how long it is. Many people want to drive along Route 66 because it is somehow understood to be an experience that is quintessentially American. That was one of the factors that made me want to "get [my] kicks on Route 66": seeing the US up close and personal rather than as a blur passing by at 85 mph in a soulless rush along an interstate.When I heard that there was an older transcontinental road, the Lincoln Highway, that was truly coast-to-coast and, therefore, even longer, I knew I had to experience that too. Another chance to engage with small town USA sir? Don't mind if I do! Unfortunately, the romantic notion in my head was to get lost somewhere along the huge meander that constitutes the Lincoln Highway.

About half way into our Lincoln Highway drive we had a shared moment of revelation: we had probably set ourselves too tough a target and, in doing so, had rendered the ‘holiday’ less enjoyable than it could/should have been. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to have completed the drive, to have travelled (for 85-90% of it) on the original LH route(s) and to have enjoyed a version of the US that many who visit places such as New York, LA, San Fran and Miami will never see. But what we realised half way across the continent was that, when we drove Route 66 five years ago, while that trip contained its own challenges, it was mapped out for us in a turn-by-turn guide of the original route, it included a greater concentration of attractions along the way (a tribute to the great marketing that has been done on behalf of Route 66 in recent years) and it was a thousand miles shorter drive but done in the same 12 day period. The LH, although older than than 66, is pretty much forgotten or at best, only just on the verge of being rediscovered. As a consequence, there are no turn by turn guides although there are books that will detail the history of the road whilke other books list some of the diners along the way and one even gives you an idea what it was like in  to drive it in 1928 (the latter book is a bit of a favourite: a reprint of a driver’s guide from that time detailing the towns en route, their populations and garage and hotel facilities (some are still there!). As a consequence, the LH requires a greater degree of *work* to drive: work by the driver (3,300 miles) and by the navigator who has to try and recreate a turn by turn guide for each day from a combination of an LH phone app and Google Maps. Every night in a new motel, I was knackered and Elaine had to plot the route for the next day. On top of that, stretches of the LH are unmade road and when you’ve agreed via signed agreement not to drive your hire car on gravel roads, it meant that alternative routes were constantly being researched on the fly. All in all  a tough drive.

Along the way - and even more so reflecting afterwards - I realised I’d engaged us in a task, a chore. Rather than embarking on an adventure, I’d sent us out on an endurance test. Consequently, we have made a pact: any future fly/drive trips to the US, indeed anywhere, will be concentrated on a much smaller area with a chance to stay in places for more than one night. I’m not sure that there are any more US road trips based on historic roads but, even if they do exist, we will not be driving them. In future the rule will be no more than four hours driving in a day. That allows for plenty of mileage to be covered but also plenty of time get out and explore places properly rather than worrying about getting to our next destination in daylight!

Bucket list-wise, it is now ticked off so we can finally put the need for marathon drives to bed. That said, I recently heard about the Pan-American Highway that runs from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina, a distance of around 15,000 miles. Should I mention it to Elaine? ;) 

The Lincoln Highway: Three and a third thousand miles at 65 - Part 2

The thing I really like about driving in the US is seeing so much that is odd or intriguing, just so much stuff generally! I know that driving in any country that is not one's own is going to throw up things that look alien to our eyes but the US just seems to contrive to be different, to have things along the highways and byways that command your attention and make you stop and engage in some way. Of course, I'm talking about the small towns here, the backwaters, the US of 1940s films, towns like Bedford Falls from 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Sure, big cities have things that will make you catch your breath, things that make you goggle in amazement at their sheer size, height or cost. Likewise it is a country packed with natural sights that are beautiful, astounding and literally awesome like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Monument Valley and so on. In the little towns across the country, by and large, they don't have attractions such as these to draw in visitors or make those passing through pause their journey for a while (and maybe spend a little cash too!). Instead, they come up with all sorts of strange attractions to put their hometown on the map, so to speak. It is similar to those people who seem to live on social media, Instagram in particular. It is as if 'likes' and 'follows' are the validation of a person's existence: it communicates their existence to the wider world in life and, assuming that those platforms will still be around in the future, it says "I was here and I was someone" to future generations that might find their published content. Similarly, having the 'World's Largest Knitting Needles' in your little town of around 2,800 souls (Casey, Illinois) puts you firmly on the map. In fact, in Casey, they got so into having 'The World's Biggest...' things, they now have 12 things that are Guinness World Record-certified biggest including a garden fork and a golf tee. It doesn't have to be record-breaking to draw the tourists, however, it might be just downright odd. On Route 66 we came across The Bottle Ranch - why build that? Why not? - and this time, we had two houses that are modelled on everyday objects - a boot and a coffee pot.

While the Coffee Pot House would be seen by a fair number of people as it is right on the Lincoln Highway on the edge of the town of Bedford and it stands at the gate of the local speedway fairground where race meets are held, the Boot House lies quite a way off the beaten track and has little around it save for the next door farm and fields. It is the exception that proves the rule: a quirky attraction that might pull a few sightseers away from their route but not to give a town something to hang onto as 'their'attraction, something no other town can boast. It is available to rent and, looking at the photos of the inside, the weirdness stops at the door and it is very tastefully decorated making it a fab place to stay for a week of relaxation.

Slightly tangentially, on the subject of how we are to be remembered, we noticed that in nearly every town we passed through there were banners attached to lamp posts or telegraph poles on the main route through town which commemorated those who had served and died in the US military. All we could think was that they were left over from Memorial Day in May. The fact that they were still there neary four months later and in so many towns makes me wonder if this might become a more permanent memorial to the fallen. It also made me think about the way in which the military is never too far from the surface in the US, like the random display of a warplane, tank, field gun and helicopter that we encountered in the small town of Dixon. It is a Veterans' Memorial with a list of all those from the county who gave their lives in WWII. The list I get: nearly every town in Britain has a memorial somewhere that lists the fallen. The military hardware, however, just felt a bit odd. The lamp post banners and Memorial Park did go to show the strength of pride in service that exists in the midwest where everything is just that little bit more...conservative.

Once we had cleared the urban sprawl of New York, New Jersey and we were in the post-industrial areas of Pennsyvania and beyond, things definitely changed. The proliferation of 'Don't blame me - I voted Trump in 2020' posters on the sides of barns and pro-Life billboards told you we were now a long way from the Godless hellhole that comprises the Eastern seaboard in the eyes of many. These were the towns where, if politics came up in conversation, we would be claiming to be strictly apolitical as "they are all as bad as each other". I realise that I am making a sweeping generalisation (it's my blog, so I can do what I like!) and, of course, there was plenty of evidence to show that not everyone was a cross-burning reactionary, it just felt that it was more 'in your face' here. It was thoroughly depressing to see so much support for a former President, currently the subject of 70+ indictments and who did so little to keep any of his election promises. They'll probably vote him in again regardless, so tight is the stranglehold of the death cult that comprises the majority of the GOP currently.

INTERMISSION

The Lincoln Highway: Three and a third thousand miles at 65 - Part 1

Pre-lockdown, I did pretty well for a while at keeping a regular blog going. It wasn't focused on any particular aspect or interest of mine. It was more general, more about how I happened to feel that day: maybe ranty, maybe poetic. The main thing for me was trying to write something on a fairly regular basis. Isn't it ironic (as Alanis probably wouldn't have said as she patently didn't understand what constitutes irony) that, during lockdown, when I had all the time in the world each day to write a blog, to try and make some connections, however few, with others in the same boat, that was when I chose to write hardly anything. This is a very long way of saying "You've probably forgotten but, five years ago I wrote a four part piece on my impressions of driving, as far as practicable, the original roads that made up Route 66". Well, I did write those blogs and I'm back now to write about our recent trip to the US of A to drive the orginal long-distance highway, the one that truly ran from cost-to-coast, the Lincoln Highway. If Route 66 styles itself as the Mother Road, then the Lincoln Highway is the Daddy, both older and longer than 66.

We had researched different methods of getting from JFK airport to our hotel in Manhattan. The subway seemed impractical (wrangling luggage on potentially busy stations via escalators, plus a 1 hour journey time with changes), a shared minibus at $40-ish per person, plus tip worked out about the same as a yellow cab and a pre-booked private hire (minicab equivalent) was convenient, but expensive. We went with a yellow cab and the journey was great. We chatted with our Turkish driver all the way to the hotel as we negotiated the frankly alarming New York traffic. It must be getting on for 20 years since I last drove in New York and that was ...memorable. What I was observing now, however, was a whole new level of crazy. Cars appeared from the left, from the right, stopped suddenly in front or tailgaited at an overly intimate distance. I suddenly felt fear: when we picked the car up, the amount of driving in Manhattan would be fairly minimal but it still suddenly felt as if it might be far too much. I had visions of pranging the car before I'd gone ten blocks. I then realised a Feature of Ageing (TM) was kicking in: a diminution of confidence in one's ability to breeze through things in a way that one once did. I suspect there may be more age-related musings to follow. You have been warned!

As we did with the Route 66 trip, we began our stay in the US with three nights in the city that is the starting point for the roadtrip: Chicago in the case of 66, but New York this time as the official beginning of the Lincoln Highway is Times Square. There was one major similarity to both starts: our list of planned activities in both cases got a little spoiled by torrential rain. In Chicago, low cloud had made a trip to the top of the Sears Tower pointless ("Look at that great view of...the inside of a cloud!") but it also delivered the rain that ruined the waterway tour of city architecture and limited the 'walking around the city' discoveries that we like to do. This time, in New York, the rain's arrival was rather more physically painful for me. Dodging the biblical downpours, we had managed to get to Grand Central Station, a cinematic icon, a thing of architectural beauty and home to the poshest Apple shop in the world. In another break in the weather we set off to walk back to the hotel and a misplaced foot on a slippy piece of metal resulted in a fall and a fractured rib for me. Did I go to hospital to confirm the injury? Not likely! I've fractured enough ribs to know what I'd done and, painful as it was, I could still breathe, so no punctured lung. They would have only provided pain relief for me and an outrageous invoice for my insurer, so there was little point. Unfortunately, it did mean I didn't feel upto dining out at Gallagher's Steakhouse that evening. A burger from a wannabe upmarket burger place near hotel was okay but not quite the same level of steakiness! The way the fries were put in the bag to transport back to the hotel really upset Elaine: they were in flat, open trays so they a) spilled out in transit and b) cooled down quicker. Thinking forward to picking the car up, I started to worry that driving might be beyond me, certainly for long periods. At least, with a left-hand drive car, the seat belt would not be sitting across my (very) tender left-side ribs.

The day following my breaking news (ho ho) we had tickets booked to go to the top of One World Trade Centre/Freedom Tower. Now, the cancellation of the meal at Gallaghers had cost us nothing, but not using the One World tickets would have been an expensive waste, so it was time for me to grit my teeth and get on with it. Luckily, the grim weather had finally broken and the low cloud had gone! When I'd booked the tickets for the visit, I hadn't really thought about the date but the penny dropped a bit later - 9/11. The morning news covered a rememberance ceremony from the WTC site where, movingly, surviving family members read out the names of the victims of the terror attack. It added an extra resonance to the experience of looking out over Manhattan Island from a point not too far from where we would have probably been standing had WTC1 and 2 not been destroyed 22 years earlier. A stone's throw from the One World Tower stands St Paul's Chapel, the oldest church in Manhattan dating back to the colonial era and modeled on St Martin-in-the-Field in London. It is amazing to think that, as the gigantic structures of the Twin Towers collapsed, this tiny 18th century building avoided serious damage and was actually used as a place for emergency services personnel to rest in the aftermath of the disaster. Also in the shadow of as well as under the One World Tower site is the Oculus, a massive shopping centre, a structure that starts on the surface looking like a graceful wing composed of multiple arches that then continues down into the ground into an enormous white space that gives the impression of being within the ribcage of a giant animal. A breathtaking cathedral to Mammon. Post-Tower, we had a wander around, another couple of subway rides and we bumped into the home of the Ghostbusters. I recognised the building even before I saw the Ghostbusters signs. Even though it's not a film that means that much to me, even I felt a little fanboy thrill!

There were some things that we didn't get done, the Highline being the main casualty of the weather/rib combo, but there are always going to be things that fall off any list of 'to-do' items in somewhere as vast and varied as NYC. We look at it this way: we'll just have to come back and do those things we missed out on! Anyway, it is now Tuesday, 12th September, we are sat in our car (a reasonably-sized Hyundai Tucson this time) and ready to head out across America.

INTERMISSION

Heartwrenching

Yesterday morning, our beautiful, big ginger furball, Chester, had to be put to sleep. He was a lovely cat: in his younger days he was described as "too pretty to be a tomcat" and he was huge. The vet tutted over his weight and we vowed to try and do something about it, but, in the end, Chester always ate extra, whether it was muscling in on the other cats' food or snaffling anything that we were careless enough to leave on the side in the kitchen. He was a master thief and he could unwrap a packet of butter enough to help himself to a few licks before we knew anything about it! Whereas some cats might let you stroke their tummies, that was not an area to be approched on Chester: one or two kicks from his hind legs quickly let you know that that area was off-limits. Chester knew exactly what he liked and didn't like. He was a big solid unit of a cat.

About two years ago, he started vomiting at ramdom times during the day. It might be after food, but it could equally be hours after eating. A trip to the vets and a couple of blood tests later revealed that everything was apparnemtly 'normal' and they just put it down to his having developed a problem with some foods. We then embarked on trying every type of 'sensitive stomach' food, fresh poached chicken, raw foods - anything and everything was tried. We just wanted him to be able to keep his food down. His weight dropped from a rather portly 6.5kg to 4.5kg, but it held there and, much more importantly, he remained the happiest of chaps, purring loudly at the merest touch and showing no signs of reduced energy. And so things went on this way, he still had a big appetite, he still vomited and his weight remained constant. It wasn't ideal, but he was definitely happy and still the Chester of old (apart from being a slimmer version). All chairs and sofas in the living room were 'his' places and we were soft enough to work round him if he had already occupied a spot we wanted to sit on. One of his best tricks was his ability to jump into a seat one of us had briefly vacated to get something from another room and, in the 20 seconds we were absent, he would curl up and feign being fast asleep as if he had been there for hours. Again, we often let him get away with that! In summer, he would join me in sitting out on the bench in the front garden, either on the bench itself beside me or to lay in a warm spot and soak up the sun, the pupils of his bright yellow eyes mere slits in the sunlight and a most contented look on his face. His absolute favourites though were cardboard boxes: any box, once cleared of its contents, became a place for Chester to inhabit, sometimes just to sit proudly as the master of his new castle or sometimes, to curl up and go to sleep. The expensive cat beds were never graced by Chester's furry bum.

Then, over the course of the last fortnight, he seemed to start to lose energy. He'd still jump up onto his favourite stool in the kitchen, but he'd stay there for extended periods. He was still eating and still purred when we stroked and cuddled him, but his weight had definitely dropped. We didn't discuss it, but we thought that things might be moving towards the moment that Elaine and I dreaded. Last weekend, we went away for a couple of nights to the Lake District and the cat sitter sent photos to us of feeding time each morning and evening. Chester was still first the bowl and looked bright-eyed. We came back on the Sunday afternoon and that evening, while he seemed OK, he wasn't interested in food. The next morning, he was listless on his stool and, after investigating the food we had put down for him and his fellow mogs, he ate nothing and lay in the middle of the kitchen floow. We had put tinned tuna down for him, the thing he always begged for whenever we opened a tin for our own meal. Licking the tin was alway Chester's treat and yet now, he had no interest. When he similarly refused to drink any milk, another thing he begged each morning as we made tea, we knew things were bad. We stroked hime there on the kitchen floor and he purred. That turned out to be the last time he would do so.

Around 12 years ago, we took in an older cat, Hobbes, a big ball of fur with only three legs. We had no idea how old he was - the vet guessed he was between 9 and 12 years old. His owner had taken him to be put to sleep because he was supposedly vomited everywhere. The nurse in that vet practice saved him with a view to finding him a new home. We couldn't resist taking him in and he had 4-and-a-half happy years with us during which time he vomited in the house on only one occasion. The end for Hobbes was similar to Chester's - weight loss and a loss of energy - but happened a lot quicker. The last day we were with Hobbes, he laid down in the litter tray and had no energy. His eyes, once bright, were now unfocussed. We took him to the vets and were told that he could still pull through and were given some tablets for him to take. We then took him to the cattery because we were flying to Canada. On our first night there, we had a phone call at about two o'clock in the morning from the cattery to say that they had had to take Hobbes to the vet because he was so poorly and he had had to be put to sleep. I tell this story because I - we - still feel a sense of guilt over what happened with Hobbes: we both knew it was his time, but we allowed the optimism of one vet to avoid doing the right thing and be there with Hobbes when he was put to sleep.

Owning a pet is, of course, about the happiness, joy and love that they bring to our lives, but we also take on the responsibility of looking after them throughout all those good times, but also through the bad. We failed Hobbes at the end of his life because we weren't there to hold his paw, to stroke him and to provide the sounds of those people that he knew from home. We had Chester for nigh on 13-and-a-half years and all the happy memories he gave us throughout that time required us to do the right thing for him at the end. He deserved to go in a dignified way, with those that he loved and who loved him in return. It is a really hard thing to do, even when it is 100% what has to be done. We have been the ginger boy's whole life and he has been a massive part of ours. Losing him is heartbreaking and I am typing this through tears, but I am glad we got it right this time and were there to comfort him as he passed. Run free, Chester boy. You are already greatly missed.

Freedom!

I have just been able to enjoy a pint in a (sort of) pub setting for the first time in what feels like an age. Meeting with friends across a table with a pint to shoot the breeze, talk shite and, generally, put the world to rights. It was *so* good! Okay, in reality, it was slightly less than perfect: we had to sit outside and it was pretty cold; masks had to be worn when going to the loo or moving to or from the table; and - the biggest ballache - we were lucky enough to share the table with a mask denier. Don't get me wrong; there were plenty of low-level breaches of rules goingh on around me that were making me feel a little uncomfortable as people, experiencing the natural joy of spotting people that they have not seen in a while, moved maskless between tables to shake hands and hug. All perfectly normal. What I didn't enjoy was having the mask denier encouraging people to shake hands (and having a go at my obviously lily-livered sensibilities for not doing so), laughing at me for following the pub's rules over wering a mask to the loo and generally decrying the usefulness/efficacy of masks in combatting Covid-19. This was not the nice return to some semblace of 'normality' I was looking forward to. People, can we get something straight here: your definition of 'freedom' may not exactly correspond to my definiotion of the same word. While you may think that not wearing your mask strikes a blow for your personal freedom and strikes a blow against the 'system' (getting one over on the sheeples, right?), I think that you could be jeopardising the pub being able to operate by flouting the rules. In addition, regardless of your personal take on disease transmission, just please wear your mask as requested: while it might not make any difference in your mind, it will make your fellow pub-goers feel a bit more protected. I'm not a fan of wearing masks. My glasses steam up and, in a nicely heated shop. everything gets a bit sweaty. However, if it means we can continue to move towards getting rid of masks completely, I'll put up with the discomfort for a bit. If mask-wearing is such an imposition, I'll gladly sacrifice my personal freedom at this moment in return for the long-term freedom of those who have shielded, isolated or have generally missed out on people in the past year. If it is genuinely about 'freedom'