Fifty years later I may be down to 161 pounds off my Marine Corps high of 205 when I was 21 but the cats outside that I feed are all looking good with happy bellies and good size. Winter isn't over yet but this may be another winter in which no outside cat I care for has died or needed vet care.

Yup, down below is the robust Nasty Mom. She won't come near me but she's up close with the food I bring out every day. Some mornings she's hunched up against the fence waiting for me. Mid-left and looking away is the orange Bosco. He's sleek and lean and one helluva athlete. That cat leaps onto the garage roof from the top of a cat condo. He is a grandson of Nasty Mom.

Dead center is the little girl Catty Patty. She wasn't going to live by her first winter as a scrawny female runt but she wanted to live and she made the deal happen. She's small as an adult but she eats well and will come up to me for pettings once Garfield and Tuxedo mob me for rubbings.