RIP, Clyde

Remember those cats I was sitting around the end of August - a couple of very old guys, whom I was afraid would pass under my care?  One did finally pass, today, at the age of about 20, in his sleep of natural causes.

Clyde belonged to my parents, and my father was his person from day one.  I first met Clyde when he was dumped at the barn where I was boarding a horse.  A lady who kept a pony there for her granddaughter had adopted Clyde from a shelter and was HORRIFIED when he persisted in jumping on her kitchen counter.  (Um, it's a CAT.  Cats jump on things.)  So she brought him and an even younger kitten, a little girl tortie later named Bonnie, to live at the barn.  I almost immediately talked my father into adopting them.

Clyde was a cool guy, one of those cats with enough personality for several.  He was always a prodigious jumper and loooooved to climb the Christmas tree.  First year with my father, he took delight in breaking every ornament on the tree, which my father took with good humor.  As he aged Clyde went deaf and later developed feline dimentia, but he was otherwise robustly healthy and lived a long and happy life.  He'll be missed.