Noname got in a race with a 60-mph bus. Noname lost.

It was a typical spring morning in Eastern Idaho. The sun was rapidly chasing the cool of the night away, but the air still offered the not unpleasant sensation of tiny pinpricks on the skin.

The 8 o'clock run of site buses was at its heaviest. The buses were carrying engineers and technicians west to the Atomic Energy Commission facility some 50 miles distance from Idaho Falls.

Dad had already been at work for an hour and a half. My dad was the proprietor and operator of a blacksmith and welding shop. He was a physically powerful man. Years of shoeing horses, sharpening plow shears, and the daily wrestling with heavy farm equipment kept Dad in top shape. His wrists were the size of most men's forearms. But even with his size, you could tell by looking at him that he was a gentle man.

I only describe Dad here so that the contrast between him and Noname can be appreciated.

Dad saw that the kitten was on a collision course with the bus. I guess calling it a race lends the wrong impression as to what actually occurred. The kitten was very small, most likely not even six weeks old yet. Its legs were very wobbly, Dad said, and it was certainly not capable of running. Dad didn't see the kitten enter the roadway. He just saw the little black and gray striped fur ball in the path of danger an instant before the bus went over the top of it. The kitten rolled about 30 feet as a result of the impact. The kitten was silent. Not so the traffic as the roar of the diesel engine headed away and there was the roar of more diesel engines approaching fast.

Miraculously, more than twenty more buses, cars and trucks had managed to avoid hitting the kitten as it lay perfectly still in the middle of the highway, only its fur being blown this way and that by the wind from the vehicles. Dad waited until the traffic cleared enough to safely remove the kitten's body and dispose of it properly. Dad told me later that when he picked the kitten up, it just didn't feel dead. It showed no signs of life, no visible wounds and no blood -- it just didn't feel dead.

Dad took the kitten into his office and placed him on a bed made up of the few clean shop rags he had left. Dad kept checking on the kitten throughout the day. He kept touching the kitten and the kitten "just didn't feel dead."

At about 5:30 p.m., a half an hour before quitting time, Dad detected the kitten's chest rising and falling ever so slightly. Dad brought the box with the shop rag bed and the kitten home with him for the night.

As we discussed the kitten and the occurrences of the day as we sat at the dinner table, I asked Dad what he named it. "No name," Dad said, "Don't know if it's going to live even, so, I'm giving it no name." That was when Dad, quite unknowingly, named the kitten Noname.

The next morning, Noname's eyes were open. He made no effort to move and Dad didn't force the issue. The kitten didn't mew. He just lay there. Dad managed somehow to get Noname to take drops of milk from his fingertip -- a fingertip that was easily half the size of Noname's head.

With Dad's care, Noname flourished. He stayed in the shop rag bed all of the time except to get up to do nature's necessities in the litter box right next to his bed. Dad was still uncertain of the extent of Noname's injuries, and taking him to a vet was, unfortunately, not an option. So Dad would not let anyone handle Noname until Noname ventured out into the world by himself. This turned out to be a very wise decision.

When Noname had been with Dad for about 8 weeks, he wandered out of his bed and into the shop area for the first time. He ventured into every dirty nook and cranny of the shop, exploring his domain curiously. Noname appeared to have recovered completely. Dad had long since resigned himself to the fact that he had indeed named the kitten Noname.

About a month later, it became evident that Noname had suffered a very serious injury in his encounter with the bus -- his back had been broken. Although Noname could walk with no discernible difficulty or impediment, when he tried to run, he ran in circles. He quickly learned to compensate for this and in no time was able to catch the mice in the weeds surrounding the shop. Upon close examination, you could see a definite kink in Noname's spinal column -- in relationship to his hind quarters, his front quarters veered off to the right a bit. The tracks left in the snow by Noname puzzled those not familiar with him.

Noname lived his eleven year life as "the shop cat" keeping the shop rag bed as his own personal property. He kept the mouse population under control at the blacksmith shop, thus pleasing Mom well. He never wandered too far off, and I never ever saw him cross the highway again or even look as if he wanted to. Whenever Dad was at his desk doing paperwork, Noname would be there patiently waiting to be petted and cuddled.

Noname had passed away one night while sleeping in his shop rag bed. Dad lost a good friend that night.

Copyright © Henry Christensen, 1998
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