| This is the story
of Marlin's Big Adventure, as told by his mom.
Marlin came to us in September, 1985 on my husband's first day back at school
as a high school chemistry teacher. Mike caught sight of the new principal
taking a little red kitten to the door and just dropping him outside. The
principal had his arms outstretched as far from his body as possible, as
though even touching this tiny kitten was going to contaminate him! My husband
already knew this principal was an unfeeling clod but this just confirmed
it. So Mike went outside, picked up the kitten, who was about 9 weeks old
and asked the cafeteria workers to hold onto him for the day.
When Mike arrived home, Marlin was sitting in the car on the front seat between
Mike and my daughter who my husband picked up from her first day at college.
It was a very hot September day and Marlin was panting from the heat. Those
are my first images of that little red kitten.
Right from the beginning, he was very personable. Later on, as a grown cat
he had many human friends. Everyone liked him very much because of his outgoing
personality. He was named Marlin after Marlin Perkins from the "Wild Kingdom"
TV show because he sometimes would act so crazy and wild. Actually his name
was supposed to be Marlon after Brando in the "Wild One". But we had a perverse
friend who kept calling him "Mr Perkins" so the name Marlin stuck. Marlin
had many nicknames one of them being, Wally.
I have a photo of Marlin wearing sunglasses that depicts him perfectly...he
was a pretty cool cat. Once Mike went out for pizza, and he was up the street
about a quarter-mile mile from our house when he stopped at a stop sign and
some kids called out: "Mister, there is a cat on the roof of your car!" It
was Marlin ... very cool about the whole thing, just sitting on the roof
taking a ride down the street. We were very lucky the kids spotted him as
it was getting dark out and the pizza place was another mile up the road.
When Mike told me the story, I always imagined Marlin sitting on the roof
with sunglass and a scarf blowing from around his neck. |
