Cat Lovers: Willie Morris


       Willie Morris, a writer and a journalist, is a great cat lover. His way to this love was not easy, he used to hate us! Willie Morris grew up in a town of Jackson on the Mississippi. Everybody he knew were dog people and cats were considered unmanly (what a strange misconception!). Nevertheless he was forced to overcome this stupid feelings by his wife, JoAnne. He wrote a book about his experience with his cat. Its title is My Cat Spit McGee. I recommend it to everyone: cat haters will change their views, and cat lovers will just enjoy this true story . 
      The book starts with the author emphasizing how he loathed cats and how shocked he was when he married a Cat Woman. Then the story gets interesting. A she-kitten (Spit's future mother) is found on highway 51 and is presented to Willie Morris and the Cat Woman as a Christmas present. Willie Morris never gets to fully love this present, whose name is Rivers Applewhite, until she gives birth to Spit. When he is born, Spit is almost strangled by his own birth sac but the author saves him ("Live, boy! Live!"). Spit's life is in danger for a second time when he is only a week old (he is attacked by fleas and has anemia) and again Willie Morris pulls him through (sadly, Spit's siblings  die). After this the writer could hate cats no more. He and Spit become the greatest of friends. Willie Morris saves Spit a further three times, once from a motorcycle hit and twice from an opossum. Together they also make numerous visits to places of the author's past. Willie Morris believes that Spit is his dog Skip reincarnated. This is in fact possible: all creatures who are very good become cats after they die. I'm sure Willie Morris will become one (he died in 1999) and then Spit and he will get reunited.

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