sneaker cat

My mom was funny about the gifts she bought for us.  She was not known for buying something on the fly to achieve a quantitative goal, she was more of a qualitative type of lady.  The gifts we received were well thought out, humorous, memorable, and most of the time, interesting.  Do you remember your first bicycle?  I do.  My first bike was pink.  It was a hand me down from my sister Danielle.  The only reason I remember it is because I remember the bike that Danielle received to enable her to hand me down the pink one.  It was Christmas, and she got a purple Huffy.  The handlebars were an enigma.  To this day, I have not seen a bike with handle bars shaped like Danielle's purple Huffy, they resembled the handlebars commonly seen on chopper style motorcycles.  Her Huffy had a banana seat, we spent many hours cruising around town, she drove, I rode.  I did everything Danielle told me to do.  It was my duty to listen to Danielle, follow Danielle, want to be like Danielle, and hope that she would get into trouble before it was time to spend the night at her friend's house so mom would punish her by making her bring me along.  When Danielle decided it was time for me to learn how to drive the pink bike, then it was time.  So...she taught me.  She taught me good, I learned quick.

Enough about the bikes, let's talk about sneaker cat.  For Christmas one year, mom got Danielle a new comforter.  The comforter had an image of a cartoon cat wearing sneakers tiled all over it.  This was dubbed "sneaker cat".  This blanket was almost as much a part of our family as each of my sisters were.

Like all other gifts, this one was chosen for it's uniqueness among a sea of solid colored bed spreads.  We all loved sneaker cat.  We fought over this blanket, it was part of our lives until it was worn to rags....literally.  It is funny how something made from cotton grown in someone's field could be turned into an object of extreme comfort, security, and happiness.  I don't know what became of sneaker cat, it was a part of our family for well over a decade, now...long gone.