THE OWL & THE PUSSYCAT

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Yesterday I drove to Aptos near Santa Cruz with my cousin Clae Styron to go to a holiday party at my cousin Jim Wylie’s and his lady friend, Nancy Leis, a retired professor of anthropology, whom he met in South Africa about a year and a half ago.

Of course, we brought my cavaliers Rose and Rupert along for the ride. Last year it was raining and they wore their Barbour coats Dennis had bought for them. (They also have yellow slickers.) But this year the weather was very pleasant, though chilly in San Francisco. Had I known it was going to be so warm in Aptos (in the low 80’s) I wouldn’t have taken them. But I hitched them to the circular firehouse staircase on the patio in the shade and they had a great time.

Jim’s wife, Marge, died tragically three years ago, the month before Dennis and I went to Venice for the last time together. She was run over by a truck at a gas station in Bend, Oregon on their return from visiting their two children over Christmas and New Year’s. She had just gotten out of the car to use the rest room, when a truck came around the corner and knocked her down. She suffered severe head injuries and died a few days later.

The last time I saw her was on election night 2004, the night before Jim and Marge’s 50th wedding anniversary. They took Clae, Dennis and me to dinner at an Italian restaurant near St. Francis of Assisi Church. We had a special service that night, which they attended before taking us to dinner. Dennis, Clae, my nephew Sheridan, and I went to her funeral before leaving for Italy. Dennis did not look at all well at the funeral or the reception. I have some moody shots of him at the church reception in Aptos. Yet he still looked elegant and dashing in his grey chalk-stripe Brooks Brothers suit.

On Saturday we were the first to arrive. With Jim Wiley, we had one cousin from three of the four Bell families. I hadn’t remembered how many first cousins there had been. It turns out, fourteen. Jim is the oldest surviving (since Martha and Virginia are gone) and I have always been the youngest cousin on the Bell side.

And I think I was the youngest person at the open house again this year at Jim and Nancy’s. She moved from Michigan last year. Nancy Leis is a petite, delightful woman and I’m very happy for Jim. They both seem very active. Jim still flies his plane. James Renwick Wiley IV is twenty years and a month older than I – seventy-nine! – and in great shape. He swims several laps for about forty-five minutes each morning in his indoor lap pool (the only part of his house to survive the 1989 earthquake.) Jim’s 80th birthday is coming up next March 17th.

I didn’t get any photos of Jim or Nancy. But at the end of the party, Jim recited the poem The Owl and the Pussycat, so I’ve included an illustration of that.