Where I Live Now

And I quote: “Smokey, a large gray 18-month old house cat, escaped his home at 219 N. Locust St. September 30 and wound up having quite an adventure.”

That, folks, is the lead of an article that ran on the front page, above the fold, of the community where I live now.

Each morning, I wake up and read the online versions of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, a necessary addiction of my role as Writer at Large for Philadelphia Magazine. Stories from Philly run the gamut, but rap sheet material—allegations and investigations—dominate the news diet.

These days, each Thursday, I also run out to a local coffee shop, grab a cup, and buy a copy—for 35-cents—of the weekly Lititz Record Express. This last week, on Oct. 9, the aforementioned story on Smokey, a large gray house cat, really caught my eye. Smokey, you may already have guessed, climbed up into a tree, and that’s when the drama really began.

Now, it’s true, I probably qualify as somewhat jaded. Years of covering often violent stories will do that to a guy. But I haven’t lost the capacity to whistle through my teeth at items like these two, fresh from Philly, about an alleged plot to steal a deceased woman’s house, and a recent accusation of gay bashing. And as I marveled at Smokey’s plight—the Fire Department here has stopped rescuing cats from trees, calling the practice “inordinately dangerous”— I realized I was about to learn something about myself: Just how does a city reporter like me react to a story about Smokey?

The item served a couple of purposes for me. It helped me geo-locate myself here, in Lititz, where stories on the family cat claim the most precious real estate—page one, above the fold—in the local paper. My wife and I made this move for all the things families usually move for—a little more real estate and good schools for the kids. Smokey forced me to reflect on something else, too. Cats, and dogs, and all manner of cute, furry things, move newspapers. And if you’ve read thus far, you’re probably hoping I’ll reveal what happened to Smokey.

Well, let me tell you, he was in that tree for three days, and then… . Wait. I’m not going to steal the Lititz Record‘s thunder. If you want to know what happened to Smokey, you’ll have to click here.