“Kitty go yow-yow! Kitty go yow-yow!”

One of our sons, as a toddler, used to delight in seeing the barn cats over at the farm. He would point a tiny finger and proclaim to us: “Kitty go yow-yow!”

And so, when a particularly vocal kitty started hanging out with us back in March, Gary and I resurrected the phrase.

Here’s a photo I sent to James, still at college:

It was nice to see such a handsome fellow cross our path (our deck, actually) a few times a day. We never knew where he was going to – or coming from – as he cut a diagonal path into the woods. (Farmer Gary mentioned more than once that he hoped the cat was a groundhog-hunter, as those critters are making an all-you-can-eat buffet out of this summer’s soybean crop.)

Our occasional visitor was, unfortunately, quite skittish. Gary decided he must be feral. I had a sad feeling the fellow had been abused and dumped. (Farms are popular dumping grounds for unwanted felines.)

Despite not coming near us, this cat loved to talk. Constantly. And not “meow,” but a distinctive “yow.”

We started putting out food. (Let’s clarify: Gary bought some cat food and refilled the bowl behind our garage daily. The kitty never ran up to the bowl when Gary was about, but supervised from under cover of a bush or tall grasses. “Yow! Yow!”

James tried to coach me from afar, hoping there’d be a purring cat to sit on his lap when he was home from school in late May. Kitty was having none of it, though. “Yow yow!”

The two months James was home this summer post-graduation didn’t seem to change much. The cat – now universally called “Yow-Yow Kitty” – would sit on the front porch, back deck, and by the side door. But once any of us came within yow-ing distance, he dashed off in a flash.

Grandson Cameron was disappointed with each visit. “Goose – is that kitty around? Can I pet him?”

The evening before James headed off to his new job, we sat around the fire pit to roast a few hotdogs, followed by s’mores. Yow-Yow Kitty was never far away.

When he started circling us slowly, with each circle growing smaller, we got our hopes up. Maybe this time …

We kept very quiet. (I wondered silently if Yow-Yow Kitty might be a witch’s familiar, hoping the circle would provide protection rather than a curse.)

Alas, the closest Yow-Yow Kitty came to any of us was rubbing up against the bag of marshmallows.

As James pulled out of our driveway the next day, I stepped onto the front porch to wave goodbye. Yow-Yow Kitty was there, ready to dash into the shrubbery. “James is going away,” I told him, with a catch in my voice. Yow-Yow quickly changed direction and ran toward James, yow-ing his farewell.

The very next day, Gary headed out to the porch to read. When he returned to the living room a half-hour later, I guessed out loud that it was the heat and humidity that drove him back inside.

Nope.

“Yow-Yow Kitty won’t let me read. After he sniffed my hand, he jumped up on my lap. That was fine, but then he crawled up between the book and my face.”

I looked out the window a bit later and Yow-Yow Kitty was still on the porch. Talking to himself.

Cameron, here for two days before heading back to school this week, was delighted to hear he might finally get to pet our elusive feline.

Cam and Papaw sat side by side on the porch and waited. Before long, Yow-Yow Kitty appeared and yowed out a long greeting. When he hopped up on Gary’s lap (no book this time), Gary scooped him up and placed him on Cameron’s lap.

Of course, Gary suggests we nickname Yow-Yow Kitty with the throwback Y2K. And James thinks Y²K works, too.

No matter what we call Yow-Yow Kitty, he’s here to stay. And his sweet voice is music to our ears.

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