#29 Pets
Title
#29 Pets
Pets Part II
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"Growing up in the Bronx, I believed that Jewish families didn’t have pets."
Date
2006
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Coverage
1952/1962
Identifier
PETS
Text
# 29 PETS
Growing up in the Bronx, I believed that Jewish families didn’t have pets. The one exception were cousins in Brooklyn that had a small, hairy, dog. As a kid, I wondered how it was able to see because its hair covered its eyes. My cousins, Anna and Sigmund Moskowitz, had an older daughter, and I always confused the name of the daughter with the name of the dog: one was Mitzie and the other was Bootsie. I could never remember which was which. After a few minutes into the visit, it became clear who was Mitzie and who was Bootsie, but when we returned home, I promptly forgot. I didn't care for the dog. It wasn't friendly and made a high-pitched yapping sound which I guess was the best it could do in place of a real bark. I didn't care one way or the other about the older daughter.
There were lots of dogs and cats in my neighborhood, but I had no idea where they came from. They certainly didn't belong to anyone I knew. I assumed that if Jewish families didn't have pets (with the exception of the Moskowitz's) then all the dogs and cats in the street must belong to Christian families.
The question of pets was not something I thought about.. I never really wanted one: not a dog, not a cat, not a gerbil, not a hamster, not even a goldfish. I went through the first 25 years of my life oblivious to the pleasure and companionship of a pet.
In the fall of 1952, Sylvia and I had been married for less than a year. I was working as an organizer for Local 38, ILGWU, and carrying 12 credits at NYU in order to keep out of the Army. I would leave for work around 8 AM, work a full day, and then go to class in the evening. Sometimes I would leaflet a shop in the morning, leaving the house before 7 AM. At other times I would make home visits, when I didn't have class, coming home quite late at night. It was a demanding schedule, but I was young and had lots of energy.
One evening, walking home from the Longwood Avenue subway station, a kitten began to walk alongside me for the entire block between Southern Boulevard and Fox Street. It rubbed up against my leg; it purred; it meowed. It practically asked me to bend down, pick it up and take it home. Which is what I did.
When I entered our apartment, I called to Sylvia that we had company. She protested that she wasn’t dressed for company. I told her it wasn't that kind of company, and handed her the kitten. It was cute, tiny, gray and playful. Sylvia was delighted. But neither of us had ever had a pet before. We knew that it needed a place to sleep, a place to go to the bathroom, and food. Over the next few days, we went to the library and took out a book about cats, found a pet store that provided us with the necessities, and acted like parents with a new baby.
The kitten needed a name. One of our favorite pieces of music was the Siegfried Idyll. We concluded that the cat's life was totally idyllic and decided to name him Ziggie. As the months progressed, Ziggie thrived, and remained cute, gray and playful, but was no longer tiny. We brought Ziffie toys, catnip and made him a scratching post, but I don’t believe the cat had done much damage to the furniture.
In the spring of 1954, I gave up the fight to stay out of the Army. I notified Draft Board 19 that they had won. I left NYU and my job at Local 38, and on June 1, I was inducted, and was sent to Ft. Dix New Jersey for basic training, leaving Sylvia and Ziggie to fend for themselves.
By this time, Ziggie was almost two years old, and had the run of the house. He would frequently sit on the window sill looking out the window. We lived on the sixth floor in an apartment facing the courtyard, at right angles with the adjoining apartment. When the weather got warm, we kept the windows open, and Ziggie would continue to sit on the window sill. On several occasions we came home and couldn’t find Ziggie. Noticing that our neighbor’s window was also open, we figured that Ziggie had jumped from our window to theirs. We rang their bell and asked if our cat was in their house. To their surprise, there was Ziggie.
After a while, we grew nervous about his apartment hopping and kept the bottom windows closed whenever we remembered, but it was hot and there was no air conditioning.
Through the month of June, I struggled with basic training. At 26, I was the oldest GI in my company, having fought off induction for over eight years. I was also the only married man in my company. After the first four weeks of basic, we were entitled to have visitors on Sundays. Sylvia would take the subway to the Port Authority Building and get a bus to Fort Dix, arriving around 1 PM. Those visits were the high point of the week. For the first three weeks, everything went smoothly. Sylvia arrived on time, and we had wonderful afternoons together. On the fourth Sunday, the 1 PM bus arrived but without Sylvia. What happened? She could have missed the bus. They came every hour or so. I assumed she would be on the next bus. She wasn’t. We didn’t have access to a phone and I had no idea what the problem was. It was around 4 PM that Sylvia arrived. She looked shaken and distraught.
That morning, she was getting ready to leave and was closing the windows. She looked around for Ziggie. He wasn’t in the apartment. She went next door. Ziggie wasn’t there. From the courtyard she heard a crying sound and, looking out the window, she saw Ziggie on the ground. Sylvia rushed down, picked him up, found a cab, and took him to a veterinarian. She was told that there was nothing they could do, but "put him to sleep." Broken-hearted, she left him there, and made her way to the Fort Dix bus. It was a terrible, painful loss. We had really come to love that cat. We sat together, holding each other until it was time for Sylvia to return home to our apartment without Ziggie.
PETS Part II
Fast forward eight years: I completed basic training, was assigned to Camp Gordon Georgia where Sylvia had joined me, and where our first child was born. I was discharged February 29, 1956, we returned home, I went to work for Local 99, and then for the Jewish Labor Committee, and then in 1962 for the Amalgamated Laundry Workers. We had moved from the Bronx to 960 Sterling Place in Brooklyn and had two more children.
And history repeated itself: I found another cat. It was a cute stray, like Ziggie, but older and more worldly wise. It knew its way around the street. We gave it a home, my kids liked it, and it was no bother. Even though we lived in an apartment house, we would take it downstairs, let it run around, and it would find its way back in a day or two or three. One of us would spot it and bring it upstairs. It was part of the family, though a bit more footloose.
About a year after it started living with us, I developed a strange cough. Almost every night around three or four in the morning, I would wake up with a hacking cough that would go on for close to a half hour, totally exhausting me. Nothing I took relieved it. My doctor examined me and had no explanation. As a last resort, he suggested I see an allergist. I was given a series of tests, and when the allergist reviewed the results, he asked me if I had a cat. It turns out that the cat was the cause of the cough. I thought that if you were allergic to cats, your eyes would itch, or tear, or you would have trouble breathing, but you would not develop a cough. In my case, that is what happened. I was highly allergic to cat dander, and must get rid of the cat at once, and clean everything that the cat had been in contact with.
I explained the situation to my family and they understood. We tried to give the cat away, but could find no takers. I didn't know about the ASPCA. In retrospect, if I had brought the cat to them, they would have "put it to sleep." My solution: I drove to another neighborhood with the cat and let it out to make its own way. Would you believe that several days later, it had returned to our apartment house. When I saw it, I fed it, and then drove it several miles away to a lovely section of Flatbush where I hoped it would start a new life, meet other cats, and people who are not allergic. I want to believe that is what happened.
Ever since, I have been allergic to cats with the traditional allergic responses. And my oldest daughter is allergic to cats as well.
Growing up in the Bronx, I believed that Jewish families didn’t have pets. The one exception were cousins in Brooklyn that had a small, hairy, dog. As a kid, I wondered how it was able to see because its hair covered its eyes. My cousins, Anna and Sigmund Moskowitz, had an older daughter, and I always confused the name of the daughter with the name of the dog: one was Mitzie and the other was Bootsie. I could never remember which was which. After a few minutes into the visit, it became clear who was Mitzie and who was Bootsie, but when we returned home, I promptly forgot. I didn't care for the dog. It wasn't friendly and made a high-pitched yapping sound which I guess was the best it could do in place of a real bark. I didn't care one way or the other about the older daughter.
There were lots of dogs and cats in my neighborhood, but I had no idea where they came from. They certainly didn't belong to anyone I knew. I assumed that if Jewish families didn't have pets (with the exception of the Moskowitz's) then all the dogs and cats in the street must belong to Christian families.
The question of pets was not something I thought about.. I never really wanted one: not a dog, not a cat, not a gerbil, not a hamster, not even a goldfish. I went through the first 25 years of my life oblivious to the pleasure and companionship of a pet.
In the fall of 1952, Sylvia and I had been married for less than a year. I was working as an organizer for Local 38, ILGWU, and carrying 12 credits at NYU in order to keep out of the Army. I would leave for work around 8 AM, work a full day, and then go to class in the evening. Sometimes I would leaflet a shop in the morning, leaving the house before 7 AM. At other times I would make home visits, when I didn't have class, coming home quite late at night. It was a demanding schedule, but I was young and had lots of energy.
One evening, walking home from the Longwood Avenue subway station, a kitten began to walk alongside me for the entire block between Southern Boulevard and Fox Street. It rubbed up against my leg; it purred; it meowed. It practically asked me to bend down, pick it up and take it home. Which is what I did.
When I entered our apartment, I called to Sylvia that we had company. She protested that she wasn’t dressed for company. I told her it wasn't that kind of company, and handed her the kitten. It was cute, tiny, gray and playful. Sylvia was delighted. But neither of us had ever had a pet before. We knew that it needed a place to sleep, a place to go to the bathroom, and food. Over the next few days, we went to the library and took out a book about cats, found a pet store that provided us with the necessities, and acted like parents with a new baby.
The kitten needed a name. One of our favorite pieces of music was the Siegfried Idyll. We concluded that the cat's life was totally idyllic and decided to name him Ziggie. As the months progressed, Ziggie thrived, and remained cute, gray and playful, but was no longer tiny. We brought Ziffie toys, catnip and made him a scratching post, but I don’t believe the cat had done much damage to the furniture.
In the spring of 1954, I gave up the fight to stay out of the Army. I notified Draft Board 19 that they had won. I left NYU and my job at Local 38, and on June 1, I was inducted, and was sent to Ft. Dix New Jersey for basic training, leaving Sylvia and Ziggie to fend for themselves.
By this time, Ziggie was almost two years old, and had the run of the house. He would frequently sit on the window sill looking out the window. We lived on the sixth floor in an apartment facing the courtyard, at right angles with the adjoining apartment. When the weather got warm, we kept the windows open, and Ziggie would continue to sit on the window sill. On several occasions we came home and couldn’t find Ziggie. Noticing that our neighbor’s window was also open, we figured that Ziggie had jumped from our window to theirs. We rang their bell and asked if our cat was in their house. To their surprise, there was Ziggie.
After a while, we grew nervous about his apartment hopping and kept the bottom windows closed whenever we remembered, but it was hot and there was no air conditioning.
Through the month of June, I struggled with basic training. At 26, I was the oldest GI in my company, having fought off induction for over eight years. I was also the only married man in my company. After the first four weeks of basic, we were entitled to have visitors on Sundays. Sylvia would take the subway to the Port Authority Building and get a bus to Fort Dix, arriving around 1 PM. Those visits were the high point of the week. For the first three weeks, everything went smoothly. Sylvia arrived on time, and we had wonderful afternoons together. On the fourth Sunday, the 1 PM bus arrived but without Sylvia. What happened? She could have missed the bus. They came every hour or so. I assumed she would be on the next bus. She wasn’t. We didn’t have access to a phone and I had no idea what the problem was. It was around 4 PM that Sylvia arrived. She looked shaken and distraught.
That morning, she was getting ready to leave and was closing the windows. She looked around for Ziggie. He wasn’t in the apartment. She went next door. Ziggie wasn’t there. From the courtyard she heard a crying sound and, looking out the window, she saw Ziggie on the ground. Sylvia rushed down, picked him up, found a cab, and took him to a veterinarian. She was told that there was nothing they could do, but "put him to sleep." Broken-hearted, she left him there, and made her way to the Fort Dix bus. It was a terrible, painful loss. We had really come to love that cat. We sat together, holding each other until it was time for Sylvia to return home to our apartment without Ziggie.
PETS Part II
Fast forward eight years: I completed basic training, was assigned to Camp Gordon Georgia where Sylvia had joined me, and where our first child was born. I was discharged February 29, 1956, we returned home, I went to work for Local 99, and then for the Jewish Labor Committee, and then in 1962 for the Amalgamated Laundry Workers. We had moved from the Bronx to 960 Sterling Place in Brooklyn and had two more children.
And history repeated itself: I found another cat. It was a cute stray, like Ziggie, but older and more worldly wise. It knew its way around the street. We gave it a home, my kids liked it, and it was no bother. Even though we lived in an apartment house, we would take it downstairs, let it run around, and it would find its way back in a day or two or three. One of us would spot it and bring it upstairs. It was part of the family, though a bit more footloose.
About a year after it started living with us, I developed a strange cough. Almost every night around three or four in the morning, I would wake up with a hacking cough that would go on for close to a half hour, totally exhausting me. Nothing I took relieved it. My doctor examined me and had no explanation. As a last resort, he suggested I see an allergist. I was given a series of tests, and when the allergist reviewed the results, he asked me if I had a cat. It turns out that the cat was the cause of the cough. I thought that if you were allergic to cats, your eyes would itch, or tear, or you would have trouble breathing, but you would not develop a cough. In my case, that is what happened. I was highly allergic to cat dander, and must get rid of the cat at once, and clean everything that the cat had been in contact with.
I explained the situation to my family and they understood. We tried to give the cat away, but could find no takers. I didn't know about the ASPCA. In retrospect, if I had brought the cat to them, they would have "put it to sleep." My solution: I drove to another neighborhood with the cat and let it out to make its own way. Would you believe that several days later, it had returned to our apartment house. When I saw it, I fed it, and then drove it several miles away to a lovely section of Flatbush where I hoped it would start a new life, meet other cats, and people who are not allergic. I want to believe that is what happened.
Ever since, I have been allergic to cats with the traditional allergic responses. And my oldest daughter is allergic to cats as well.
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “#29 Pets,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed April 25, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/37.