
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 30, 1990                   TAG: 9007020159
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A WORDLESS CONTENTMENT

THE OTHER week when we celebrated our wedding anniversary, we realized we've had these two old cats almost as long as we've had each other.

All four of us are getting right set in our ways.

Already, the man of the house and I can finish each other's sentences. We can converse in that shorthand way that really old married folks have.

"You remember that time . . . ?"

"Yeah."

"That was . . . "

"Jean and Larry."

And then we'll both laugh, and know for absolute sure we're laughing at the same joke. Pretty soon we're going to start looking like each other, too. Big black hairs are sprouting from my chin.

Sometimes I see our old gray cat take a swat at the calico, and I know it's just for old times' sake. Or the calico will jump out of the gray cat's way just a hair's breadth before he swats, and it's for sure she's known what's coming before the old tom has even decided to take the swipe.

We were sitting on the front porch, on our anniversary night, creaking the swing back and forth, back and forth, when the tom came up and wanted a lap. We could tell. He could tell we could tell.

So he just stood there and didn't say a thing while we decided which lap he was going to get. Both of us knowing all the time the only lap he really wanted belongs to the man of the house, but both of us considering, for just the barest second, making him take my lap instead. And then thinking better of it.

So the man of the house moved his hand and the old cat climbed up on him. And none of us said a word. And the swing just kept going back and forth, back and forth, while the cat timed his leap to our swings.

Well, life gets like that after a while. So quiet you might almost call it boring.

But, in our case, I'd have to say it's not. Not at all.

Sometimes when all four of us are watching the old "Star Trek" reruns, we just look at each other. The man smiles. I smile. The cats flip the tips of their tails. We're thinking, every last one of us, "Live long and prosper." But nobody says a word.

by CNB