For a time we lived in an interesting old house in New Jersey. We called it the Lambertville House. A memorable part of our family history was lived out there.

The house had been built sometime between 1860 and 1880. The ceilings were high—about 10 feet, and there was a certain grandeur about the structure. There were wide halls and spacious entryways; open stairs and servant garrets; French doors, several fireplaces, and many unused chimneys. There was also a horrifying afterthought of knob and tube wiring, fused in some incomprehensible fashion. Replacing a fuse required a trial and error procedure because no one fuse seemed to control a single circuit. The plumbing was also an afterthought, but an early one, because the cast iron pipes were pitted, and there were still some runs of lead pipe. Fortunately the latter were all on waste lines, so that the drinking water was not contaminated with lead. The floors had taken a decided sag, although the floor beams were in many cases 3x10’s, and appeared solid enough. We had remodeled one of the bathrooms, and some of the circumstances of that event bring us to the story of the cats.

There were three cat residents in the house for a time. One was Mitzi, who belonged to our daughter Jackie, but was being cat sat by Mom and Dad while Jackie went out into the world to establish her career. The other two were Alias, a Siamese with a low self-concept, and Yousef Lateef, a thoroughly self confident animal of unknown ancestry. Yousef has six digits on each paw, and he uses them all with practiced skill. They had both come east from Seattle with Rick and Wendy, but not in the same conveyance. Yousef rode in style, in a box on the back seat of our plane for much of the way. He went to sleep as soon as the plane reached a minimum cruising altitude, and stayed that way until we landed and he found a hanger or a motel room to explore. Alias, on the other hand, made the trip as a passenger in Rick’s little British sedan, and was sick most of the way. When he arrived at the house in Lambertville, he made a bee line for the darkest part of the old basement and stayed there for at least three days. We put food and water down there for him, which he consumed, but he didn’t decide to trust any humans for quite awhile. Yousef explored most of the house quickly, and made himself at home. He even ignored Mitzi’s angry snarls. But he did miss one particular spot until somewhat later.

When the bathroom was remodeled, it had been necessry to reorient the plumbing considerably, because the old tub had the shower coming in from the side rather than the end. No production tub enclosure was designed that way, so it became necessary to reroute the plumbing. This rendered the plumbing trapdoor, opening into the bedroom next door, useless, because there was now no plumbing within reach of it. The trapdoor had disappeared before we bought the house, and a temporary curtain covered the opening.

Curtains are not cat proof. The kitchen, which was directly below the bathroom and bedroom, had had extensive remodeling before we bought the house. There was a large hole in the old horsehair plaster that had once covered the ceiling. Rather than attempting to repair it the previous owners had opted for a dropped ceiling with flush florescent lighting and some kind of special sound absorbing panels that were quite flexible. Because the ceiling had been so high in the first place, there was still a full standard ceiling height. Although there was a formal dining room, as well as a living room and a parlor, we still liked to eat informal meals in the kitchen. The table was in the center, right under the wall between the bath and the bedroom. My particular place was at the end of the table right under the bathroom. About the fourth day after Alias arrived, he finally got up courage to come up stairs and explore a little. I was sitting at the kitchen table at my usual place when suddenly I was hit on the back of the head by a ceiling panel with Alias on top of it. It slid to the floor and I turned quickly to see Alias recoiling in utter panic. Before I could move, he darted for the basement and didn’t come up for another three days. We surmised that he had pushed past the curtain in the trapdoor, jumped down the hole in the plaster, and when the ceiling panel took his weight, it buckled and slipped out of its rails. We replaced the ceiling panel, which didn’t seem too badly damaged, although it was even a little more flexible.

Some people learn slowly. There were other cats in the house. A day or so later, I was again sitting at the table, when again I was hit on the head by the ceiling panel, this time with Yousef on top of it. He gathered himself up, glared briefly at the panel, and then stalked nonchalantly away as though the matter was not worthy of further consideration. We replaced the panel again, and this time I closed the trapdoor with a piece of plywood.

I mentioned earlier that there were unused chimneys in the house. One day we discovered a bat flying about in the bedrooms, either looking for a way out or a place to sleep. That situation was decidedly unpopular with the women of the house, and I began an attempt to catch the bat with a butterfly net. Its radar was too good and I only succeeded in chasing it down the hall toward the women. They both tried to get through the hall door at the same time and wound up in a heap on the floor. The bat flew overhead and down the open stair through the dining room to the kitchen. Here Yousef decided to get involved. The bat was near the ceiling, but Yousef gave a helicopter leap and clapped it between his paws. He needed to let go to land on the floor, but the bat had no fight or flight left in it. We found a dark and protected place for it outside, but we doubt that it survived. Yousef isn’t exactly a stealth bomber, but he had no trouble eluding the bat’s radar.

The Lambertville house was the scene of a number of other adventures. They will have to wait for another time.

October 31,1990