July 4, 2023, Simi Valley, CA: The occasion for my visit was to attend the unveiling of the beautiful Sally Ride statue at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. More about that in a minute. First, a bit of background on the scene.

From the time you drive up Presidential Drive to the main entrance, the setting for the Library is impressive, and beautiful. Vistas abound as you walk up to the buildings houssing the permanent and traveling exhibits. On this day, the 247th birthday of our nation, there was a special festive atmosphere. Children and grownups alike sported red white and blue outfits, and spangly silver as well as red white and blue stars on their faces.

A band did a lively rendition of a Johnny Cash song, and various characters from our country's past were on hand to greet visitors and talk history.

There were also games for both kids and grownups, and the exhibits. Before the unveiling, we had time to visit one of the permanent exhibits, the Air Force One Pavilion, what friends have called "The Wow Room." That's the one where you can see and board Air Force One, tail number 27000, the plane used as "The Flying Office" by seven U.S. Presidents in all from 1973 to 2001: Presidents Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush. Astonishing how small it seems inside, compared to what one would expect. But what a sight, standing under its appropriately huge wings. Inside a building!

Also in the Wow Room: one of President Reagan's presidential limousines and Secret Service suburbans (later referred to as "The Beast(s),") part of the permanent exhibit on presidential motorcades. Plaques you can zoom in to read tell us that the Secret Service began driving presidents in 1945, previously following presidents' limousines in separate vehicles.  Also that to insure presidents' safety, beginning in the 1960s the Beasts were flown to countries the presidents were visiting for official business.

At the time we visited, there was a major traveling exhibit about the Holocaust: Auschwitz, not long ago and not far away, to which large numbers of schools have been sending students for educational purposes. The exhibit contains 700 horrifying artifacts, objects from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum as well as more than 20 institutions and museums all over the world, and tells the story of "perpetrators as well as victims who lived inside."   The exhibit is to close August 13. If you wish to see it, you can buy tickets at the link above in this paragraph.

If Merlin had the brains, Misty had the brawn. Fully grown, but still young, Misty was sitting on the floor of the dining room. Eight feet above a fly bounced against the ceiling. Misty’s head swiveled back and forth as she tracked this annoying intruder through its random flight. Suddenly, from her seated position, Misty leaped up and grabbed the fly as it bounced along the ceiling. Back on the floor, and with a very satisfied expression on her face, Misty tongued the fly to her teeth. Crunch! The fly met its swift demise.
 
As I said, Misty was a great athlete. If there had been a Kitty Olympics Misty would easily have taken the Gold.
 
Kittens grow quickly. Soon it was time for them to be introduced to the great outdoors, under supervision, of course. Near the house Sarah and I supervised. Later, as the cats became accustomed to the outside world, Sunny took over their training, leading them into the wilderness, teaching them how to survive the predatory hazards that abound there.
 
As expected, the kittens made mistakes. One day I was uncovering the swimming pool when Merlin hopped onto the free remnant of the cover and started strutting around, amused by its oscillations beneath his feet. I tried to warn him off that dangerous place, but Merlin ignored me and walked ever closer to the cover’s drooping edge. Suddenly, he started sliding. Frantic, he tried clawing into the material, but the fabric resisted and he slid, backwards, right into the deep water.
 
I was ready to jump in, clothes and all, to rescue the drowning cat. Except, this cat was not drowning. Not a bit! Merlin looked at me with an expression of pure joy, and started paddling around the pool as if he had been born to it. Now, I had long been aware of a Bengal’s affinity for water. This breed loves to play in the tub with a couple of inches of water to splash around in. But swimming in a pool was not even rumored. Yet, there Merlin was, happily swimming around without the slightest sign of distress. After a while he found the steps, climbed out of the pool, shook off sprays of water and came trotting up to soak me, as well.
 
Though Merlin never showed fear of the water, Misty, by way of contrast, kept her distance from the pool. Merlin often quite casually walked along the very edge of the pool, never concerned about falling in. Once in a while, when he was thirsty, he would lean far down and take a drink, much as do the larger wild animals around here. Of course, as I had discovered during a close examination of his paws, Merlin had webbed feet. Maybe an ancestor of Merlin and Misty had acquired genes from an Asian Fishing Cat — a wild cat that dives deep in lakes and rivers to catch the fish that it feeds upon. Such cross breeding would explain the very large size of our kittens’ dad, as well as Merlin’s webbed feet.
 
Merlin was remarkable in another way. He did not meow, like most cats. His voice was a wonderful musical instrument. It had the resonances of a bassoon’s upper register. His greeting was a fragment of a symphony. Charming! To this day I still hear Merlin’s voice when a symphony orchestra is playing.
 
For the fast-growing kittens the wilderness proved to be fun. The wilderness was also a happy hunting ground, part of the fun, no doubt.
 
Their greatest delight was chasing squirrels. Now, squirrels love trees. They feel nice and safe high up within the protective arboreal thicket. Oddly enough, so, too, do Bengals. Perhaps this is the legacy of another of their wild ancestors, the Leopard cats who hunt in the trees of Asia. In any case, Merlin and Misty had good sport merrily chasing the squirrels right into their lairs deep among the branches. “Okay,” a squirrel would respond, “see how you like this move.” Whereupon the squirrel would dash right out to the bendy, whippy end of the limb and leap to another, many feet away. Misty, in the lead with Merlin close behind, would chase after the squirrel, but not quite so far out on the branch since Misty was heavier than the squirrel. Much to the squirrel’s astonishment, and evident dismay, Misty, too, would make the long leap to the other branch, Merlin leaping after her. Don’t get me wrong, this was pure play for the fast-growing kittens — nothing malicious intended. It took some time for the squirrels to recognize this and relax — somewhat. Still, the squirrels never let Misty and Merlin get too close.
 
The serious hunting was done on the ground. At the time the neighborhood was suffering from major infestations of gophers and their predators, rattlesnakes. Misty and Merlin took care of the problem. First they went after the gophers. With their primary food supply gone most of the rattlers subsequently went missing. The few, hunger weakened, vipers that were left were easily dispatched by these lightening quick cats.
 
Hunting gophers required precise coordination. First, the kittens used their keen hearing to locate the two openings to each gopher den. While Merlin attacked the entrance with furious digging Misty waited patiently at the exit to catch and dispatch the panicked gophers as they fled from the security of their nests. The lawns in the neighborhood were soon blessedly free from their myriad gopher holes.
 
There was something uncanny about the way these two worked together. On occasion I would see them walking side by side, in perfect step, their ears swiveling in unison, their heads swinging back and forth as one, their tails switching side to side, together. The two looked for all the world like a single organism with eight legs. Sarah maintained that, in that state, they really were one for they were communicating telepathically.
 
Sarah’s theory was that these higher level animals communicate by exchanging pictures rather than words. Sarah apparently could do some of this herself for I often watched her easily taming wild animals. She said she simply told them that she was one of them. They evidently believed her. There were incidents from her past which made her theory at least somewhat plausible: One summer she worked as a Forest Ranger watching for fires from the top of a mountain. Living near the lookout tower was a bear. This momma bear, together with her cub, would, every week, walk close by Sarah’s side as she made the long trek down to the base camp to pick up supplies. Sarah’s affinity for wild animals attracted the attention of Ella, the Shaman of the Nez Perce Indian tribe. Ella trained Sarah to be a tribal shaman and then adopted her. That was how Sarah became a member of the tribe. Having learned her lessons well, Sarah said that Ella knew far more about wild animals and how they communicate than any academic biologist.
 
Whether Merlin and Misty’s communication was telepathic or by some other means, it was fascinating to watch them at work, or at play, always strangely synchronized.

Please do visit again to see what happened next with Old Merlin (our First Merlin Cat).

© 2023 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.
#cats #Merlin #hunting #stories #catstories #ChesterLRichardsBlog #memoirs #kittens

Miracle Kitty Part 1  │   Miracle Kitty Part 2  │ Miracle Kitty Part 4

NOTE: The Miracle Kitty stories have just been included in my new book, "The Trek Continues." It drops Oct. 7. Available for pre-order now!

Embark on a mesmerizing journey with Chester and Ina as Chester recounts a unique musical experience during an expedition in Ethiopia. Chester shares a captivating story from his expedition down the Awash River in Eastern Ethiopia, a region known for its rich paleontological history.

Out of darkness comes hope, and out of hope comes an unexpected passion and renewed sense of life ... if he can keep himself alive long enough to enjoy it. Rocket scientist/Star Trek writer/safari warrior/author Chester L. Richards asks: Is nature out to kill us? Maybe not. But someone is.
-Ed., The Mensa Bulletin, March 2023

I’m like a pinball in a pinball machine. I get knocked about a lot. I have been highly entertained and challenged by this, engaging in near-impossible tasks as an engineer on the aerospace frontier. Even better, bouncing around my somewhat eccentric career, I have met some of the most extraordinary people.

But sometimes being a pinball hurts — a lot!

Read more in the March 2023 Mensa Bulletin. A huge thanks from Chester for the delightful graphics they created to illustrate perfectly how his life has ricocheted through adventures personal, professional, and both mind- and soul-expanding.

Welcome to Adventures with Chester L. Richards. Join us as we go on a pioneering adventure. Get inspired by the tale of how my pioneering great-grandfather built part of the I 5 freeway -- while he had a double hernia! You can find the full story, “Great-Grandfather’s Hernia,” the story of the Battle of The Band video -- “In the Mood” -- and many more adventures in my book, From The Potato to Star Trek and Beyond: Memoirs of a Rocket Scientist. Available in print and eBook on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Print available everywhere online. Or ask at your favorite bookstore. We're also pleased to announce the eBook will be available at your favorite online store soon. Check our books page to find out when.

Periodically Dad Cat would be allowed to roam the neighborhood. Most of the people there were fine with this. But there are always the complainers and they kept pestering the city about Dad Cat. The city fathers put pressure on the breeder to close down his operation. As I say, his difficulty was our opportunity.
 
We reentered the house to see the kittens. There were only two six week old kittens left from this last litter. The breeder brought out one, a reddish-brown striped male. His littermate, a female, was sleeping in the safe room. The breeder told us she hadn’t been weaned yet. Sarah fell instantly in love with this little boy; he was instantly in love with Sarah. While the two of them were communing I had a surprise. Up onto the dining table jumped a little gray ball of fur, who turned out to be the boy’s sister. She immediately pranced up to me and began a romance. I was hooked.
 
We had intended to bring home one kitten. We brought home two. The breeder was concerned about the female, since she was still nursing. He gave me instructions about how to wean her, using a special milk substitute that I could get from the pet store. I wrote down the particulars and we prepared to leave.
 
Consider what that good man must have been feeling. These were the last of his kittens. He clearly was in love with them and this showed in their sweet spirits. It must have broken his heart to let them go. He had done this before, it is true, but these were the last, the end. There could be no more. I hope he saw in us the kind of happy future that was in store for these precious little beings. That would have helped.
 
We installed the kittens in the TV room. This was a small room adjacent to the kitchen which could be closed off to keep the kittens safely confined when we were not present. This was to be their nursery room for a few months. We had no trouble weaning the little female. Really, she weaned herself.
 
“What shall we name them?” I asked Sarah. “Don’t worry,” she replied. “They will soon tell you their names.” And so it was. Misty told us first. Her silver gray coat, and lively disposition, made this name inevitable. Merlin was the only possibility for the little boy, given his incessant curiosity, boldness, and obvious high intelligence. Was there an element of magician in him as well, which is what I associate with the name?
 
How intelligent was he? He was a kitty genius. I am not exaggerating. His creative understanding of spatial relationships is typically seen in a human child only around the age of ten. Let me give one example.
 
It is necessary to know the physical layout confronting Merlin to understand just how incredibly bright he really was. Between the nursery room and the kitchen was a long sight line that gave a view down the hallway to the bedrooms. The kittens in their early exploration could look down this corridor, but they never ventured in that direction. On the other side of the kitchen was the dining room facing the back of the house. The dining room had a sliding glass door that led out onto the patio. Extending to the left from the dining room was the living room, with a fireplace at the far end. The chimney for the fireplace projected out onto the patio and blocked the view down towards the bedroom section of the house.
 
After a few days the kittens began their exploration of the house – very cautiously at first. They poked their noses out of the nursery and advanced a short distance into the kitchen, each day exploring further. Then, one day, at the far end of the dining room, a racoon passed by right on the other side of the glass sliding door. Misty hid from this monster. Bold Merlin galloped through the kitchen and dining room to see what this curiosity was. But by the time he reached the slider the racoon had disappeared around the side of the house. Merlin swiveled around and, for his first time, looked into the living room. Without hesitation he jumped up on the windowsill and continued to track the waddling raccoon. It was his first time up on a windowsill, too. Amazing for him to figure everything out in an instant.
 
But Merlin wasn’t finished. The racoon disappeared around the chimney. Merlin tried leaning up against the glass to see, but it was no go. The raccoon was gone. For a moment Merlin sat thinking about the marvelous apparition he had just seen. He turned to me with a quizzical look on his face. “What was thing, Daddy? Where did it go?” Then the light bulb flashed on! He dashed down the hallway, into the bedroom and up onto the windowsill there. Merlin watched as the raccoon ambled the rest of the way across the yard, climbed the fence and disappeared.
 
I said Merlin was a kitty genius. Consider his astonishing intellectual accomplishment. In a glance he had figured out the layout of the front part of the house and instantly exploited that information to track the passing animal. But more than that, after a moment’s reflection he intuited that there had to be a room down the mysterious hallway, on the other side of the chimney, which would have a window where he could continue to follow the raccoon. Having suddenly realized this he immediately acted. This complex sequence of thought is a classic illustration of a flash of creative insight. And, he was less than two  months old! Merlin truly was intellectually gifted.

Please do visit again to see what happened next with Old Merlin (our First Merlin Cat).
Miracle Kitty Part 3 │ Miracle Kitty Part 1 │ Miracle Kitty Part 4

© 2023 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.
#cats #Merlin #hunting #stories #catstories #ChesterLRichardsBlog #memoirs #kittens

NOTE: The Miracle Kitty stories have just been included in my new book, "The Trek Continues." It drops Oct. 7. Available for pre-order now!

Times were tough. I was barely able to make the mortgage. Four years before I had been fired for refusing a direct order to lie to our customer, the government. The sudden loss of income really hurt. But I already had substantial experience free-lance consulting so somehow I survived. My income was now much less but at least I had retained my self-respect, my honor and my dignity. Those days I was working a sixty hour week, filling the occasional contract, developing new clients and increasing my technical skills.
 
My dear Sarah had an idea. She had been keenly observing my struggles and concluded that I needed refreshment. Without telling me, she had been doing some homework. And she found the perfect answer. One day she announced that tomorrow we would be driving up the coast to bring home a kitten. Not just any old rag-tag kitten would do. She had in mind that the perfect companion for me was a Bengal Cat.
 
Sunny, Sarah’s orange tabby cat, a gift of our marriage, had grown feeble with age. One day, while I was working with a client, I came home and Sunny was gone. Sarah had saved me the grief of that last trip to the vet. In the years since then I had really missed that small bundle of cantankerous joy and her practical jokes.
 
In those long-ago days there was a thing called a newspaper. In its back pages were classified ads placed by the common folk. Sarah found one from a cattery an hour’s drive away. Due to complaints from his neighbors he was going out of business and was hoping to find good homes for his latest batch of kittens. Not any kittens, though; these were Bengal cats. What a find! Just what she had been searching for. Sarah leaped on the opportunity and the next day we drove north.
 
Bengal cats are a newly developed hybrid between the wild Asian Leopard Cat and domestic American Shorthair. It takes five generations of cross breeding before they are recognized as domesticated. Bengals are big, smart, athletic, affectionate and downright beautiful. For a long time the cat establishment refused to recognize the breed – they were just too darned attractive! This new breed was threatening to become too popular. The day of our excursion Bengals had still not been officially recognized. We were on our way to acquire an outcast.
 
The cattery was located in a typical California middle class neighborhood – and that was the breeder’s problem, and our opportunity. The owner welcomed us into the house and escorted us to the backyard. There, in a large cage, was an enormous cat. Male Bengals can occasionally get to be the size of a small bobcat. This fellow certainly was bobcat size.
 
The cat was sitting on a ledge in the back of the cage. I walked up close to get a good look at him. He jumped down and propped himself up next to my nose, opened his mouth, and let out an enormous deep throated roar! Involuntarily I jumped back a couple of steps. The cat’s owner laughed. “He likes you. He really likes you.” Still recovering from the shock, I didn’t understand. “He only greets people that way if he very much likes what he sees.” I wasn’t convinced then but now, with more experience, maybe I have figured it out. This breed is very vocal. They talk incessantly, and are very loud when they are happy. But when they get really angry watch out, they can be truly scary! He certainly scared me with his too enthusiastic greeting. In this case, though, it seems that Big Dad was happy to see me.
 
But that unexpected greeting also explained the problem the breeder was having and why he was going out of business. This was not a creature to be kept caged. The breeder knew this and let him roam under the condition that he stayed out only for specified brief periods. The cat knew the rules and obeyed. Bengal cats are eminently trainable. Small European circuses often prefer Bengals to dogs as trained animals. That trainability is something we later very much valued.

Please do visit again to see what happened next with Big Dad.

© 2022 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.

Miracle Kitty Part 2  │   Miracle Kitty Part 2  │  Miracle Kitty Part 3

NOTE: The Miracle Kitty stories have just been included in my new book, "The Trek Continues." It drops Oct. 7. Available for pre-order now!

Come fly with Chester L. Richards as he reveals behind the scenes adventures of how fan fave Star Trek episode 'The Tholian Web" came about. Learn how he and his friend Judy A. Burns conceived the original story, and wrote the script for what became the on air version of "The Tholian Web," including fascinating twists and turns as the script evolved. Ah, Hollywood!