The McManus Dam in anticlimatic

The only thing left of this bad boy is some odd concrete rectangles in the grass, just off the bike path between it and the thin strip of forest growing along the riverbank. It was the first dam built on the river, created by a missionary to help the local natives process grain. It would go on to become one of several hydro electric dams that used to power the entire town during the era A Christmas Story is set in, but by the 1970s the relentless stress of the river finally claimed the last (not this one), and within another decade they would all be razed and removed.

Cats are lucky that they live their entire lives, birth to death, under the care of their human providers. I write here from a massive antique desk- the kind that locks with a skeleton key and has a typewriter ejector- and on the left corner of this desk, next to my monitor, is an old baby blue suitcase from the 1930s, propped open, and made up into a neat little bed that my cat Charlotte hangs out in when I’m here.

Occasionally she will get up and ram her face into my chest for comfort, and I always provide out of principal. Like most men, I didn’t want these cats here, but now that they are and have nowhere else to go, my inner Provider has shown up. Unfortunately for me I cannot help but constantly and vigilantly look out for the care and comfort of smaller people and creatures within my orbit.

I envy this cat. When she’s old and grey (in the proverbial sense, she is already literally so) she’ll still have her “dad” to nuzzle for comfort.