Joan Vanden Heuvel

3205 Stevens Street

Madison, WI 53705
608-233-1526
jsandman@terracom.net

Cat On The Hat

In 1937, my grandparents moved to Indiana to work as caretakers at a thoroughbred

racehorse farm near Westville, Indiana. In June, we made plans to visit them.

“Can Fluffy come with us?” I begged. Fluffy, my cat, was the most recent addition to our

family, “Please, please Mama? I begged as pitiful tears puddled in my eyes. Mama reluctantly

gave Fluffy permission to travel.

While Mama packed our clothes, I tried to decide what wardrobe Fluffy and my doll

would need for the trip.

“Hold still, Fluffy,” I demanded. “Don’t you want to look pretty?” Fluffy growled deep

in his throat as I struggled to dress him in a ruffled doll dress and bonnet. I wrapped him into a

blanket and arranged him in my doll buggy. “R-e-e-e-a-o-w,” Fluffy yowled, leaping out of the

buggy. In a Gypsy Rose Lee minute, he shed the ruffled bonnet and dress. Trailing the blanket

behind, he scooted up the tree to safety.

Great Aunt Zelpha asked to ride along as far as Janesville. When Great Aunt Zelpha was

born in 1898, she weighed 2 ½ pounds. Her mother put her into a small box lined with mason

jars filled with warm water and fed her with an eyedropper. She is my grandmother’s half-sister

so my mother and her brothers teasingly call her “Half-Aunt Zelpha.” As we pulled into her

driveway, Bobby and I cleverly maneuvered for window seats. With Great Aunt Zelpha wedged

between us, I imagined myself and my brother as big, blue mason jars.

Zelpha, dressed in a tailored suit, wears a large, picture hat that takes up most of the
space in the back seat. Her loud, irritating voice grates against our small, sensitive ears. Fluffy

crouches behind her on the back window ledge and bats the brim of her hat with his white paw

each time her head moves.

While driving down the long Baraboo hill, Fluffy emits a deep-throated “Meeeee-ow,”

gags, and vomits on the large, wide brim of Great Aunt Zelpha’s hat. Great Aunt Zelpha screams

and my brother and I burst into tears. My father swears all the way down the hill and into the

nearest farmyard. Above the din, we hear the disgusting sound of a sick cat.

Mama consoles and cleans-up Great Aunt Zelpha., whose hat, no longer a pretty picture,

is thrown into the trunk of the car. For a price, the farmer agrees to keep Fluffy until our return.

We continue down the highway, windows wide open to freshen the air and the hatless Great

Aunt Zelpha.

“Are we there yet?” asks Bobby, breaking a long silence.

Daddy answers, “Not for a while, honey. ” He is in a kindly mood. Perhaps he feels

guilty about his loud shameful language. Daddy sings, “Red Sails in the Sunset”and soon we all

join in. We deliver Great Aunt Zelpha to her destination in Janesville and Bobby and I spread

out in the roomy back seat. Daddy says we will be in Indiana in about five hours.

Outside Chicago, I look out my window and see tall, smoke-spewing chimney stacks

rise from the flat prairie. Fascinated, I watch a large ship balance on the horizon of Lake

Michigan. Restlessly, I prod and poke Bobby with my foot and a wrestling match ensues.

Daddy yells, “Someone isn’t going to like it if I stop this car!”

“Are we almost there?” Daddy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and I decide not

to ask any more questions.