By: Marlene Oxender
What do you do when you are the owner of two newborn kitties you believe are both female? You refer to them as “the girls.” You name them with feminine-sounding names.
When you take your two kitties to the veterinarian’s office for the little surgery that all cats should have, and they give you post-op instructions for your female cat, you wonder why they’re speaking about your female cat as if there’s just one female.
You have a few seconds before they move on to instructions for your male cat. And when they do, it’s hard to pay attention. You’ll interrupt and ask the question they’ve heard many times: “We have a male cat?”
It all makes sense now – there was a size difference. Vivi weighed 5 pounds 5 ounces. Marshy weighed in at 7 pounds 7 ounces. Their personalities and tendencies were just different, and now we notice it even more.
As my husband and I drove away from the office, we laughed as we thought about changing Marshy’s name to Marshall. Or Marvin.
Marshy had received his name from our grandsons who’d proposed “Marshmallow” because of his four white paws. These are the same grandsons who’d named the mother cat “Jimmy” before we knew Jimmy was a girl and would become the mother of five little baby kittens.
My oldest sister Marcia, who passed away over twenty years ago, had been nicknamed “Marshy Marshmallow” by our younger brother Stevie who had Down syndrome. I’ve found Marcia’s signature on letters to Stevie where she’d signed her name as “Marshy Marshmallow.”
So there we were – with a boy named Marshy. Since the kitties had been born on August 19 during the supermoon, I searched online for a male name meaning “moon” and found “Mani.” With the word “man” right in the name, we felt it’d help us remember our little kitty is not a girl.
Stevie’s annual summer vacation trip to Cincinnati meant he’d stay at his niece’s house for a few days and play with Max the Chihuahua. Stevie thought Max’s name was Mani.
One thing we knew about Stevie, if he decided your name was something other than your name, that was your name. And Stevie stuck with it. There was no correcting him.
So, the playful chihuahua named Max answered to “Mani” when Stevie was around. The two were great buddies. Our grandchildren learned there was no need to correct their Uncle Stevie – just go along with the name “Mani” during Stevie’s visit.
I look back at the decades of my life and realize I had something to write about all along. I’d love to relive some of those moments through reading about them once again.
I wasn’t there back in 1959 when the Edgerton High School boys’ basketball team won the State Championship title. But the citizens of Edgerton had something to write about. They took plenty of photos. They saved ticket stubs, brochures, and newspaper clippings. Their scrapbooks tell a part of the story.
Those who watched the players grow up together and play ball together knew the whole story. They knew what it was like to be a fan of the championship team. To be a cheerleader or a classmate. To be a player on a path referred to as the “Tournament Trail” that led them to their final game in Columbus.
Their coach, Mr. Shoup, was only 34 years old in 1959. Mrs. Shoup once told me their neighbor babysat for their two little girls during the games, so she was free to be the coach’s wife.
There’s a song about having the time of your life. It’s safe to say the players, and those around them, were indeed having the time of their life. Even the bus drivers would have to admit it was great fun.
Each time they won a division title, there was a celebration. A ladder was placed below the gymnasium hoop. The players took turns climbing it in order to reach the net and claim a piece of string they’d keep forever. There were flashes from cameras. There were group photos. No one had to tell them to smile. They were smiling.
If only we could hang on to that kind of joy all the days of our life.
Stevie had been told he was a champion, and he was happy to live up to that title. In his eyes, those around him were just as good as he – even if they were no good at basketball. Even if their feeble attempt at making a ball go through a hoop gave him the opportunity to yell, “Air ball.” Stevie was having the time of his life.
Maybe the only requirement for living a good life is to be the best we can be. To recognize the champion in ourselves. To help others know who they are and how great they are.
If life were like a Tournament Trail, we’d know the ball doesn’t always bounce in the direction we’d like. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for others to holler, “Air ball” at us, and we may as well laugh about it.
We are the author of our life story. We are in charge of the lyrics. And if we don’t like the tune that’s stuck in our head, we can search for a different one. The one about having the time of our life.
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Marlene Oxender is a writer, speaker, and author. She writes about growing up in the small town of Edgerton, her ten siblings, the memorabilia in her parents’ estate, and her late younger brother, Stevie Kimpel, who was born with Down syndrome. Her two recently published books, Picket Fences and Stevie, are available on Amazon. Marlene can be reached at mpoxender@gmail.com
