Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Quite often young cats, especially wild ones, carry a virus under their claws, and when
they play as yours obviously does, they deposit these viruses which infect human beings. I
know this, as my wife had it.”
“Oh, good heavens! I had no idea. I've never heard of such a thing. Is there anything I can
take for it?”
“Strangely enough no, there is nothing in modern medicine that will speed up the recovery.
My wife had these symptoms for months. Some people have it for years even. In most cases
it lasts for a week or two. I will give you some tablets that will ease the symptoms, but you
must just take it easy with that cat: no more scratching, or it will keep occurring.”
I took the pills and Susan, who was chatting to the receptionist, smiled as I walked in.
“Well, what did he say? Are you going to live?”
“He's got cat scratch fever,” said the doctor, just coming out of his office. He explained it
to her; she had never heard of it either. Susan took me back to my boat, and I went straight
to bed. She kindly offered to come down from time to time and, between her and sweet
Dee, I finally recovered. It took a while, and it left me very weak and pale.
One day, not too long after the cat scratch incident, I had a visit from Green Gene, the Lanai
Service Station Mechanic, as I named him. I always had to remind myself not to say, “Hi
Gene” when greeting him. He said the joke was getting old. I always said “hi” to people; it
came naturally, but I had to say “hello” to Gene.
He told me he was going back to his home in Maui in a few days and wondered if I would
like to buy his little car. I leapt at the chance, as I sorely needed transport, especially now
that I had work coming up. This could not have arrived at a better time. He wanted $300
for a nice little Mazda, which I thought was very reasonable. My remark of, “Can I have
my mechanic check it out first?” had him cackling with laughter, and within a day or so, I
was the proud owner of my first Japanese car. Now I was able to get around and explore
the island a lot more. It opened up new doors for me; it was an absolute godsend.
Certain memories in our lives will always remain in our minds regardless of the passage of
time. One such memory I have of Lanai occurred on a late Friday afternoon. The sun was
not that far off from setting but still cast a beautiful, colored light around. I was in my car
and had driven to the top of the island on the southeast side where I had first seen the herd
of wild horses. I was very tanned at that stage; I recall looking into the rearview mirror and
was quite shocked to see how brown my face was.
I had parked near the edge of the cliff on a little red dirt track and had a great view far out
across the shining, blue sea. It was very dry where I was; being the leeward side of the is-
land, not much rain fell here. I had come up to see the horses I knew to be here. My arrival
