Garrison Keillor and Frederica von Stade * (no joke, really!) *
recorded in 1991 an updated version of the very old song
"The Cat Came Back," which included this new verse:
"He sent him to a lawyer who asked for a commission;
Then he put that cat through a day of deposition
And hearings and trials, six weeks in court,
And that cat was extinguished by the legal sport--
But the cat came back the very next day.
They thought he was a goner but the kitty came back
'cause he wouldn't stay away."
BTW, the album/cassette/CD on which that song is found was "made possible by
the sixteen point-six million dollars that the late Phoebe Peabody left to
her cat ten years ago, a legacy that was upheld finally last fall by the
U.S. Supreme Court in _Peabody et al. v. Puff_ (U.S. 2fC:38), a
bitterly-fought case brought by Phoebe's six jealous children who insisted
that their late mom must have had a screw loose. Puff, they alleged in
lengthy depositions, was a stray, a cat-come-lately to the vast Catskills
estate where the tiny dowager dwelt in lonely splendor in her sprawling
Gothic mansion "Wyndermere." The children's team of New York lawyers argued
that Puff actually slept in the woods, was ill and possibly rabid, bit
Phoebe twice on the wrist, never came when Phoebe called, that the word
"Puff" in Phoebe's handwritten codicil might actually have been "Russ,"
which she might have pronounced "wuss" which would have referred to her son
Charlton, and that Puff, a tabby, could easily have been confused with one
of any number of tabbies, especially by Phoebe, who existed on Diet Pepsis
and Nut Goodies and may have been, so to speak, crazier than a bedbug."
"All of this the Court dismissed as 'so much hogwash and hooey,' and as
one of Puff's trustees, I certainly don't need to re-argue the case, but I
must say it was the height of arrogance for the plaintiffs--children who
*never called, never visited, never so much as lifted a finger to write a
postcard* --to pick on a poor little cat who was *there* for that old lady,
rubbed her ankles, lay in her lap, heard her complaints, amused her, shared
her bed, accepted her affection, and who naturally became the beneficiary of
her gratitude and largesse. The children, whose vicious greed and squalid
personal habits caused their mom untold heartache, inherited some dress
shoes, a set of onyx bookends, a croquet set, and the cocker spaniels. Call
me a radical but I say justice was done."
--Liner notes from: "Songs of the
Cat," c1991, Garrison Keillor.
____________________________________________________________________
Alva T. Stone
Law Library Internet: atstone@law.fsu.edu
Florida State University fax: 904-644-5216
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1043 tel: 904-644-2881
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