Byl the Cat

Byl was short on years but big on impact. His time on Earth marks a unique time in my life, starting with graduation from high school and ending with moving out of the house. I remember him by the above picture. Mostly outside, hunting for snacks.

Set your time machine back to 1982. Some people remember it as the height of a recession that started in the late 1970s. Others are too young to remember it all. Then there's the rest of us: The Brew Crew of `82, finishing high school in an era when it was still okay to carry an empty beer keg - painted in high school fight colors - to school sanctioned events. A time when schools had smoking sections for the students. Washington license plates were white with green characters. CDs were really new. MP3 music format was unheard of. And face-book was something jocks and bullies did to guys in the A/V department. In June of that year, a litter of kittens was born on Queen Anne Hill and advertised for free in the Little Nickel three weeks later.

While my parents were on vacation, friend Vern Sherman and I picked up a little grey and white kitty from that litter. Vern held him the entire way home. He was named - spelling intact - after a friend from high school, who by the way has no recollection of me now when I contacted him on Facebook (that's a whole other story). Byl traveled well, and wasn't much for meowing.

When the folks got home, my Mom wasn't sure what to think of Byl. But it wasn't long before this furry little kitten was making her into his new friend. One night when he was still very little, he managed to get outside. The next morning he was at the back door, tail fluffed out bigger than his torso and waiting for me to let him in. Another day I saw him cowering on the back porch...as a cat-sized rat was eating his food. He got fed inside from that day forward.

He was a sleeper and a midnight hunter. When I worked the evening shift, he would be standing at the back door at 12:30am ready to come in. Sometimes he would have readied a mole or mouse by the slider to show that he had been busy. For that he would get milk. In fact, if I wanted Byl to come inside for any reason I would simply have to yell "milk!" out the back door. He would come running no matter what.

In 1987 my parents relocated to Chicago. That meant I also had to move out. While I was moving my stuff to a homey little log cabin in Bothell, Byl found a puddle of tasty anti-freeze in the neighbor's driveway and succumbed to the poison not long after. I'm told that anti-freeze is mixed differently now, and tastes bitter to any animal; for the sake of pets worldwide, I hope that is true.