A Stone for Miss Emily
I had a place in Florida for a while until the Jersey Shore reeled me back in. Every morning down there I would ride my bike along Hollywood Beach, and in the evening I would walk the same path there, which is like the cement promenades at Sea Isle City or Rehoboth Beach.

The north end of the walk leads through heavy, twisty, impenetrable underbrush, and it is there that the various colonies of feral cats live and thrive. The reason they thrive is because of an outfit called Cat Pals that looks out for them, feeding and watering them and even running a neuter and release program. (They have a cool website - www.catpals.org - where they have photos of many of their cat clients.)

In the mornings, where I parked to start my bike ride, an older woman was usually feeding the cats, calling them by name and making her own form of goo-goo talk with them, like most cat-lovers will. After a while, we started to chat briefly about the cats and I'd give her a couple dollars toward cat food and then go zooming off into the glorious sunshine. Cats make me happy.

The other Cat Pals people called this woman simply "Miss Emily" and it fit; there was a Mother Courage look about her; Katie Hepburn with heavier bones. You could see that she'd once been striking, but now she went about in rolled-up men's khaki pants, faded old tee-shirts that said things like "Meower Power" and "Cut Stress - Pat a Cat," a big-brimmed straw hat and flip-flops. Yet she was the doyen of the Cat Pals, the quiet arbiter of all things feline.

Take the raccoons. Personally, they creep me out: they walk like their backs are broken and behind those cutie-pie baby bandit faces are mean, aggressive, fearless, well-armed scavengers who can gut a cat in a whisker-flick with their talon-like claws. Raccoons are not nice. The first time I saw one there I actually jumped back. Then I saw that there were a bunch of them, all chowing down at what I thought were cat bowls.

Nope. Miss Emily had come up with the idea of giving the coons their own bowls so they wouldn't keep driving the cats away. It worked, and I used to get a kick out of watching her - from a safe distance - wading into a bunch of raccoons and shooing them away with her bare hands so she could fill their bowls. I still skieved the coons though.

One morning, we took our conversation further than cats, and I mentioned to Miss Emily that my year-round home was up here. When I mentioned Wildwood specifically, she gave me a quick, deep look and the next time I saw her, after some polite cat chit-chat, she invited me to her home for tea the following afternoon. "I have a surprise for you," she added, giving me a pale blue piece of stationery with her name and address in fine script in the upper left-hand corner. I noticed that her last name was Whitney.

Her house was a small Bahamian cottage tucked away on a quiet side street. It actually took me a while to find it. It was lovely, with a small side garden with a pink and blue striped tent in which there was a small table where she would serve the tea and small, delicate scones. Before we sat down, though, she took me on a tour of her beautiful, meticulously kept garden, pointing out the various flowers and shrubbery: Caladiums, their floppy pale green leaves streaked with pink starbursts; floppy white Pentas; gray Dusty Millers, softly curling like some strange undersea vegetation; bright yellow five-leafed Portulacas, and orange Crossandras, their yellow stamens peaking out like bashful children. It was bright and charming, a soft oasis only a bock or two from the honky-tonk midway of the beach strip.

She sat me under the striped tent and presently brought the tea and scones on an exquisite silver service, and we sipped and chatted to the background of birdsong and the soft buzzing of the bees among the flowers.

She was a versatile and gracious conversationalist; her voice was low and well-modulated, clear as well water, and she used it like an instrument, enhancing the smallest observation with a meaning and portent beyond her words.

"I was married in Wildwood, you know," she said at one point. "John, my late husband, was a lifeguard there. I had just graduated from high school in upstate Pennsylvania and was working for the summer as a waitress, and I had fallen head over heels for him. The day after Labor Day, the town was almost deserted, and he asked me if I'd like to go for a ride with him in a lifeguard boat. When we were out beyond the breakers, just listening to the water and looking back at the empty Boardwalk, he suddenly jumped overboard and dove underwater. After what seemed hours, he popped up on the other side of the boat. When he climbed back in, he said, 'Look what I found down there, Emily,' He handed me a small case and inside was this very ring that I have never had off my finger." She held out her hand and I admired the ring's brilliance and perfection.

"How did you come to be down here?" I asked. "Well, John was simply mad about being a lifeguard, and at that time several of the guards from Wildwood had come down here to work year-round because they would receive the same good benefits as the police and firemen, plus the salary was enough to raise a family on, although we were never blessed with children. So right after our marriage, we made the move, and this is where we spent our lives.

"By the same token," she went on, "we never forgot Wildwood. It was where we met and fell in love and it had magical memories for us, and for many years we would spend our summer vacations there. Oh, it was marvelous! I can still shut my eyes and see the Boardwalk on a summer night, the people happy and smiling and the rides whirling and the moon shining down over the ocean like our own private lantern."

She was interrupted by a rustling in the garden and out popped a beautiful calico cat, who trotted over and rubbed against Miss Emily's legs, and then cautiously approached me and thoroughly smelled my hand before letting me pet her. "Say hello to Ingrid," Emily smiled. Ingrid was totally striking: white paws at the end of legs the color of orange Pekoe tea, a pure white bib, and a face that belonged in a cat fashion magazine: a wide deep gray mask that extended from her nose on one side of her face halfway up her cheek, giving her a look of perpetual curiosity. But it was her pale green eyes that sealed the deal; they were carefully underlined by a small strip of tan fur, like the eye-liner on the busts of Nefertiti. It was hard to take your eyes from that face.

Our tea finished, Emily rose, said, "Now for the surprise," and led me into the house, which was quietly and tastefully furnished in tones of beige and tan and gray with various highlights and accents of rich blues, greens, and reds. It was cool, even in the semi-tropical heat, cross-ventilated in true Bahamian fashion, and I could see no air-conditioners in any of the windows as she led me on a leisurely tour. At the back of the house, she gestured toward a closed door and said, "Now for your surprise." She opened the door and motioned for me to enter. It blew me away. It was a small, well-kept museum - a Wildwood museum. "Wow," was all I could say, which brought a chuckle from Emily.

"Help yourself. Look around," she said. "Some of the stuff is from even before we were there. When our friends and relatives found out about our passion for collecting Wildwood memorabilia, they kept on the lookout for us. John's hobby was woodworking and he made the cases. Whenever I have the blues, I go in here and I always feel better."

The cases were exquisite: blond oak with deep blue felt coverings on which the various items were laid out like in an expensive jewelry store. Around the perimeter of the top of the walls were hung various pennants from Wildwood, which gave a festive air to the room. In one case were a collection of meticulously hand-painted plates, adding their dash and color, and in another was a small collection of coffee mugs, including a pink plastic Mr. Peanut model and one from SkilO, on which was emblazoned "Home of the Big Winner." Wildwood serving trays had their own case, as well, one with a photo of the Hereford Lighthouse and another bordered with hand-tinted seashells. Another display was of various rougedcheeked kewpie-like dolls from the Boardwalk: one with a checkered suit like a Picasso harlequin, another a little yellowed sailor figurine that had "Wildwood, N.J. Aug. 10, 1946" in black letters across the base, and yet another with splayed legs and a plaid top and polka dot bottom with a small striped beanie perched precariously on its noggin. In a kind of miscellaneous display were a plastic fudge knife from Douglass Fudge, a circular Baby Parade gizmo whose round face bore the face of a Gerber-like baby and a faded date that looked to be in the late fifties. Incongruously attached to the bottom was a small bell.

It all was so corny it was beautiful, and as I made my way around the room, Emily stayed quietly at my shoulder, a polite tour guide making brief comments on some of the more bizarre items, like a square yellow poster with a picture of a braying jackass with the words "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!" hanging in space over its head and the admonition "If You Don't Come to Wildwood The Laugh Will Be on You." There was even a small collection of matchbooks from places Like Ed Zaberer's late, great Anglesea Inn.

At the end of my tour, I was actually winded from the sheer magnitude of the souvenirs in the mini-museum, and as I drove away they sort of danced in my head, like the remnants of a dream.

In the time before I came back up here, I saw Emily most mornings and had tea with her every few weeks.

The next year, I didn't see her at her usual cat post for my first week, and when I asked one of the other Cat Pals people about her whereabouts, his face fell and he said, "Miss Emily passed over the summer. She had pancreatic cancer, you know."

I didn't know, and I was shocked and deeply saddened. I wanted to pay my respects and asked where she had been buried. "Up north," the man said. "Near Wildwood, New Jersey, I think. She loved that place. Did you ever see her museum?"

I nodded and asked him if he could find out exactly where she was buried. A week or so later he told me that it was at the cemetery by the Methodist Church on Route 9 in South Seaville. That year was my last in Florida, and when I got back up here I drove to the cemetery, which was quiet and lovely, smooth dirt roads winding past stately old headstones under low hanging trees, flanked by the white clapboard church. A tall stone angel presided over the scene, looking blindly homeward. It was a good place and I felt better for Miss Emily.

A pleasant sexton led me to the grave, which was marked by a black granite stone on which was engraved the birth and death dates of both John and Emily Whitney. Under their names was this brief inscription: "Love those Wildwood Days."

I picked up a small stone and placed it on the grave, an old Jewish custom that I borrowed for the occasion.

"Sleep well," I whispered, "And may all your nights be Saturday nights."