Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995 TAG: 9508290028
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIS LENGTH: Long
Tootie the cat knows this firsthand. Curled up in a small yellow ball, the tailless Manx cat was fast asleep Monday, with both eyes shut. A peaceful sleep now that she is finally home with her owners, Richard and Marian Smith, in Willis.
Our story begins April 6, 1995. Richard, Marian and Tootie are on the road again from their annual winter stay in St. Petersburg, Fla. They're heading home, back to greet the campers at Daddy Rabbit's, the Willis Campground they own and operate.
Near Jacksonville, it happens, the beginning of a CAT-astrophic chain of events. The radiator in the camper-topped pickup truck overheats. The Smiths pull over and go for help in another vehicle.
Tootie stays in the camper snoozing - no need to disturb a cat nap with human problems beyond feline comprehension. The Smiths return after summoning a tow truck - just in time to see a Mack truck collide with their broken-down pickup. Just in time to see their camper top fly off as the pickup rolls 40 yards down an incline. Just in time to see Tootie CAT-apulted through the air.
Although Tootie disappeared into the nearby woods, the Smiths grew hopeful when they saw there wasn't any blood or fur among their scattered belongings. For nearly seven hours, the Smiths combed the area but found nothing. Like the Cheshire cat in "Alice in Wonderland," Tootie was there one moment, then gone in the blink of an eye.
The Smiths sadly resumed their trip home, without their furry friend of five years. All they could do was run a lost-cat ad in a Jacksonville newspaper. That and a lot of "hoping and praying," according to Richard Smith.
In May, Richard Smith received a call from a woman who had seen Tootie in Florida and was going to try to catch her. Unless it was a different little yellow cat without a tail.
Four months went by without another lead. On Aug. 9, Marian Smith heard a mewing from the heavens. The ghost of Tootie, a spirit returning to say a final goodbye to loved ones?
Nope, it was the flesh-and-blood Tootie in a tree by their bath house. A lot less flesh, actually - Richard Smith thinks the cat lost about half her body weight on her incredible journey. Other travelers - ear mites and worms - had hitched a ride on the yellow cat that Richard Smith describes as "skin and bones" on her homecoming from the sunshine state.
A reporter is always skeptical. Had the Smiths watched one too many Disney movies? Where was the proof?
Richard Smith pulls out old pictures of Tootie. Looks like the same cat. "Same stripes, same markings," Richard Smith points out. Then there's the paws. "The pads are cracked," he says. They are. On close examination, the cat feet are pretty beat up.
"It's beyond me," Smith says. "I can't fathom it." He isn't sure how Tootie made the trip.
"Did she go through the cities or bypass them because of dogs?'' Smith wonders. "I even thought somebody might have given her a ride, but how would they know where she lived?''
Smith laughs as he imagines Tootie waiting along the shoulder of Interstate 95 with a cardboard sign: "To Daddy Rabbit's or Bust," but he's pretty sure she didn't follow the highways for the entire route. Of course not. Where would she carry change to pay the tolls?
Although Tootie had made the trip by camper four times, it's hard to imagine she memorized the route. "She had to cross [Interstates] 95, 26, 85 and the Savannah River," Smith says. "How could she do that?''
Smith speculates Tootie had to adapt to the threat of new predators along the way, from diesel trucks to alligators. Perhaps that's why she was found in a tree. The cat may have learned to find safety high above the ground.
As soon as Tootie's paws hit the green, green grass of home, she pounced on a cricket and devoured it, proving her resourceful survival skills.
Marian poured a big bowl of milk for the prodigal cat, and Tootie has been gaining weight ever since. As Tootie slumbers, Marian Smith explains, "She doesn't want to go anywhere now. She's tired of walking."
Still the reporter's face looks unconvinced.
"We know it's her," Marian Smith says.
"Is it really you?'' the reporter asks the cat. An eye opens and closes, a paw stretches out and rests on the reporter's leg. She is a cute cat. You want to believe the story.
"I wish she could talk," Richard Smith says. "She'd have some stories to tell."
If only Tootie had dental records or there were a way to run a DNA analysis. Or perhaps the family veterinarian could get at the truth. A call to Dr. Chris Harman in Floyd would clear this cat tale up once and for all.
"Mr. Harman, do you think this cat really is Tootie?''
He replies quickly:
"I can't say it isn't."
by CNB