"Kitty Gets a Name" by Joel R. Stegall
– Anything that poops in my car has my attention.
Picking up a small, wet, scared, beautiful, black ball of fur changed three lives.
Joel R. Stegall’s start in graduate school was cut short by an invitation from the U.S. Army to help save the world from Communism after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. After serving two years as a lieutenant, he taught music in junior high school, which he discovered was much more difficult than commanding troops. Moving into higher education, Joel held teaching and administrative posts in North Carolina, New York, Florida, and Virginia. Since retiring to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he sings in two choirs and writes on occasion.
Author’s Talk
Joel R. Stegall
I did not grow up around animals, certainly not the kind you keep in the house. My family lived in the country. Most of my friends lived around lots of animals: hogs, cows, pigs, chickens, and perhaps a few dogs for hunting. Some folks had cats, but they stayed in the yard most of the time. It was hard enough to keep a farmhouse clean with all the dirt family members brought in on shoes that had spent the day in the fields, walking in dirt, mud, and manure.
Although my family lived in the country near my farming friends, we were not farmers. My daddy was a preacher. He spent his days visiting church members, attending to church business, and preparing sermons. We had no need, or space for, the usual barnyard animals most of my friends took for granted. Mother and Daddy had come from farm families and appeared to have little interest in dealing with the animals they had grown up with. More directly, Mother was fastidious about household cleanliness and was not about to tolerate furry critters inside the house, no matter how cute.
All that is to offer at least a partial explanation of why I grew up with no knowledge of pets and had little interest in learning.
With this paltry prior experience in dealing with little animals, no matter how cute and cuddly, it was a shock for me to find myself rescuing a wet, shivering kitten almost certainly about to be crushed in a busy intersection.—Joel R. Stegall
