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The Legend Of Fluffy The Manx Cat

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date December 22, 2021

Merry Christmas to all of my friends all around the world. I wish you God’s abundant love and everlasting peace on this day and on every day.

Today it’s the return of a Christmas classic that’s been featured on my blog before in various forms. It’s the story of the greatest Christmas gift ever – the arrival of a cat.

It started out as a morning like any other, but just a few hours later it would become a morning that forever changed the lives of me and my little brother, and our Mom and Dad.

Exactly 38 years ago tomorrow morning on Friday December 23RD 1983 me (age 16½) and my little brother (age 8½) looked out our living room window at the snow and the ice on the ground of our backyard. It was a bitter cold morning in McLean Virginia 2 days before Christmas, and we were happy to be warm and comfortable inside.

But there was a creature stirring outside that was not warm and comfortable. It was a lonely young cat with no tail that was wandering around aimlessly on our ice-covered backyard patio deck, and it was shivering in misery. Me and my brother decided rather quickly that it did not belong in the harsh elements of the outside at that moment, so we opened the door and she walked right in to our more sheltered screened-in ‘Florida Room’.

We gave her some milk to drink. She loved us for it. We gave her some love. We heard a strange sound coming from her that we hadn’t heard before. It was the friendly and inviting sound of her purring. We let her in to our warm and comfortable home. She never looked back. In fact she refused to leave after that. We pretty much named her ‘Fluffy’ that day, and she instantly became an important part of our family – the missing link if you will.

That’s a young me in 1985 holding a young Fluffy. I was about 60 pounds lighter than I am today.

She was the 5TH member of our family, and she was the start of nearly 30 years of felines in our family. Fluffy loved us all, but she clearly adored me the most. During her younger years she anxiously awaited me to open the basement / laundry room door for her first thing in the morning so that she could run (and beat me) to my bedroom upstairs for a long round of petting and purring. During her later years in Jacksonville Florida when she was slowly dying she literally came back to life over and over again and jumped and loved on me and ran upstairs to my parents’ guest room whenever I arrived for a short visit. She lived a long, happy, and healthy life (until April of 2001), and she provided lots of love to our family starting with that very first Christmas of 1983.

There have been other cats and dogs within our family over the years since then. Fluffy eventually gained a feline roommate with Barney (also known as “the cat that never liked me”). After Fluffy’s death Barney eventually gained his own feline roommate with Pumpkin. Boots was my own loving cat and housemate for 12½ years here in Homestead Florida until his (expected) death on May 17TH 2007. He was the coolest cat that ever lived.

But it all started with “Fluffy The Manx Cat”. She was the Matriarch of all of our family pets (to this day). She was the Queen of her castle. She was the stability of our family. She was our family’s common denominator. She was the center of attention. She was the most lovable cat that ever lived.

Fun Fact: This WordPress blog is a spinoff of my former hit music based massivesmash.com web site that I created in 1995. That web site grew out of a previous web site known as “MANx On The Net”. That first web site was a spinoff of “MANx Cat BBS” (1993-1997) – a dial-up bulletin board system run via MS-DOS typical of its time that was inspired by and named after Fluffy.

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Happy Thanksgiving Day

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date November 25, 2021

Tags Thanksgiving

1970s Blogging Church Driving History Home Life Photography Scripture Travel

Lanham Maryland

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date October 7, 2021

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit the unincorporated Washington D.C. suburb of Lanham Maryland – my childhood home from 1975 to 1980. It was my favorite childhood home. The biggest mistake that was made by my Dad back then was when we moved away to Northern Virginia in November 1980. It changed my life forever. I lost all of my friends. My run with Scouting ended. My education suffered in that I entered a much tougher school system than the one I grew up with. I probably would not have joined the military 4 years later if we had stayed put. I probably would have gone to college (likely my Dad’s alma mater – the University Of Maryland). I may have embarked in a career in Meteorology or Radio Broadcasting. But we moved away in 1980, and my life took a different turn.

Via Redfin I recently viewed 35 photos of the house that me and my family lived in 41 to 46 years ago. (I love modern technology.) It was quite eerie yet fascinating to look inside and outside of that house – all modernized all of these years later. It looked gorgeous. It looked like it went through a massive HGTV makeover. When I saw my old bedroom I reminisced about all of the memories in that room (good and bad) as a 7 to 13-year-old. (I’m 54 now.) The backyard still has the original railroad ties landscaping done on it by my Dad back then. We bought the home brand new just after construction was done on it early-on in 1975. I think we paid about $59,000 for it. (It sold for $450,000 a year ago. Its current Redfin estimate is $534,153.)

Our house was located in a neighborhood right behind our previous apartment complex neighborhood of 1969 to 1972 (about a half-mile away). My Grandmom and Granddad lived exactly a mile away. My Aunt, Uncle, and many Cousins lived a mile-and-a-half away. My elementary school (Kindergarten and 3RD through 6TH grades) was imbedded within my neighborhood. I could literally walk up my street, cut-through a yard, climb the fence, and be on school grounds within a few minutes.

6 summers ago me and my family returned to Lanham Maryland as part of a vacation to drive-through our old neighborhoods. Here’s our family Catholic church from the early-to-mid-1970s. It’s where I attended 1ST and 2ND grades from 1973 to 1975. It’s where I observed my First Communion on February 15TH 1975.

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.

They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear. You will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap. (Proverbs 3:23-26 NLT)

Tags Lanham, Maryland, Travel

Blogging Career Driving Home Military Nature Photography Scripture Travel Weather

Home Sweet Homestead

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date August 26, 2021

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit my hometown of the past 34 years – Homestead Florida. The United States Air Force brought me here at the age of 20, and I’ve been working at the airbase next to the city for most of these past 34 years. Hurricane Andrew tore through the city and the surrounding area exactly 29 years and 2 days ago, and almost everything was in ruins. I left the area 4 days later, and I returned to my original home-of-record – the Washington D.C. area (both Maryland and Virginia).

19 months later (in March of 1994) I returned to a partially-rebuilt Homestead, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ll be here for a few more years until I retire and move away about 3 hours north of here.

Homestead (the city limits) is about 5 miles wide (west to east) and 2 to 4 miles long (north to south). Homestead (as an area) extends not too far east and south (due to water), not too far west (due to the Everglades), but well to the northeast.

West to east street numbers begin in downtown Miami at Flagler Street. It’s the “zero street line”. Street numbers increase both northward and southward by 1 every 330 feet. Every 16 street numbers is a mile (5,280 feet). Homestead is located in the lower-300s. 304TH, 312TH, 320TH, and 328TH Streets are all major thoroughfares in the city. Technically that’s about 20 miles south of downtown Miami, but you can’t drive due southward from Miami to Homestead. You have to drive southwestward along Florida’s Turnpike or U.S. 1. It’s about 30 miles, and it’ll take you about 45 to 60 minutes depending on traffic. The Homestead area generally begins south of 232ND Street. Over 175,000 residents live here. New home construction continues to boom.

Homestead is actually located closer to Key Largo than Miami. The “18-Mile Stretch” between the mainland of Florida and the “Overseas Highway” (U.S. 1 through the Florida Keys) begins just 2 miles south of Homestead.

We have lots of local tourist attractions here in the Homestead area. Some of my favorites include Monkey Jungle and Fruit & Spice Park. We are also located in-between 2 National Parks – Everglades and Biscayne. I’ve spent quality time at all of these places over the years – more so recently than previously. I volunteered inside Everglades National Park as a docent at a partially-restored NIKE Missile Site. About a million people from around the world visit Everglades National Park each year.

That’s my 2015 Honda Civic (at the time) parked in front of the Missile Launch Barn with the restored Nike Hercules Missile on display inside. That was taken at 3 PM on New Year’s Eve of 2016 as I was wrapping-up a busy day of tours.

Of course our # 1 product here in Homestead is our fine weather – especially in the wintertime when it’s freezing cold elsewhere in North America. A typical December or January day consists of sunny skies with highs in the mid-70s and lows in the low-60s. We actually experienced one of our chillier winter seasons in years in 2020 into 2021 with 9 days when we were stuck in the 60s all day long and 9 mornings when we dropped to the (gasp) 40s !

We’ve experienced rapid population growth here in the Homestead area over the past 20 years. Most of the long-timers don’t like it. They miss the “good old days” when Homestead was a sleepy rural town surrounded by vast farmland. A lot of long-timers have moved away to smaller towns elsewhere that remind them of the way Homestead used to be. Of course the long-timers of those respective smaller towns don’t appreciate their own population growth.

I like the Homestead of today – more so than the Homestead of yesterday. All of the new rooftops have created new stores, new restaurants, and new opportunities – all within about 3 miles of my home.

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.