I love guys.......

I didn't know you had that bad of an experience with a member of the cat family.
You must have an interesting synaptic pattern process to befriend and champion the species after that.

I had a friend like that. Lived next door to my grandmother (where I spent after school hours and summers). We used to tell folks we had known each other since we were 2 years old, and it was the truth.

That neighborhood was one of those that got to be somewhat unsafe to be in if you didn't live there. He was a bit more of a bad *** than me, and didn't take any crap from anyone. Sadly, right before I moved to FL, one of the punks he didn't take any crap from decided that running him over with a truck was a good way to even the score.

He was never the same after that. Physically healed just fine, but the fight was gone from the dog.

Sometimes parts of my youth seem like someone else's life that I remember as if I read them in a book.