Mommy Can We Keep The Cat?

As the Late News media enters its last decade, let us return to yesteryear...

  

It is 1957 and an article appears in the Long Island Press about a cat caught in a tree.  Seems then 7 year old Dennis LaVista saw a cat in the tree, in front of his Garden Apartment on 77th Avenue in Kew Garden Hills, Queens.  Dennis had seen this cat before.  It hung around his block but he noticed something else.  It wasn't moving.  Dennis watched it for awhile and then ran and told his Mommy.

Mommy came outside and they both watched the cat.  The cat didn't move and they realized the cat was scared, frozen by fear and unable to move.  Mommy then went and dialed the Operator.  This is 1957, so there is no 911, 311 or any other designation for some need for city services.  You called the Operator and the Operator called the proper agency.  In this case, the Fire Department.

Now the Borough of Queens in 1957 is not the Queens of today.  It was a lot more rural.  There were no tall buildings and the Borough still had some farms near it's eastern border.  So the Fire Department didn't have that much to do, so they sent out a Truck with a ladder and the Firemen got the frightened cat out of the tree.  The Long Island Press didn't have that much to do either, so this was all dutifully reported in an article.  And the article ends with 7 year old Dennis LaVista asking.  "Mommy can we keep the cat?"

Well Dennis LaVista goes to P.S. 164 and the next day, when he shows up in school, he's a celebrity.  I guess we could all read back then but no one among all the all kids at P.S. 164 has ever known anyone who has been in the newspaper.  And as a hero, who saved a cat.  So everyone comes over to talk to Dennis about this and Dennis basks in the glow of celebrity.

Dennis also happens to sit next to the future editor of NYUUGGEE, and as we are getting ready to leave that day, Dennis first checks to make sure that there's no one else around but us and then he says.  "I never said that.  I knew we couldn't keep the cat.  I didn't even want to keep the cat."

Now you may be saying what's the BFD?  It's a cute little story on a slow news day and it gives the cute little story, a cute little ending.  But Dennis LaVista and the future editor of NYUUGGEE were  horrified, scarred for life maybe that Dennis was not only misquoted, but that a newspaper would just make up something, that was never said.

So as the Late News Media enters it's final decade, try to remember that Fake News is nothing new.  Fake News did not come about because of DJT 45th and 47th POTUS.  And Fake News did not come about when the Late News Media decided to play, It's All That Guy's Fault, sometime during President Bubba and W's Administrations.  Fake News has always been with us and it will outlast the Late News Media, long after its passing.

Just remember, as we always do, that 7 year old Dennis LaVista never asked.  "Mommy can we keep the cat?"

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