"The most popular movie comedy there ever was"

Tony Curtis (left) played Joe/Josephine and Jack Lemmon played Jerry/Daphne in Billy Wilder's comedy masterpiece "Some Like It Hot" in 1959.

You can have your "Tootsie," "La Cage Aux Folles" and "Victor/Victoria." But for me, the granddaddy of all cross-dressing movie comedies was 1959's ribald and raucous "Some Like It Hot."

Tony Curtis, who starred in the film with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon, died yesterday. He was 85.

I interviewed Curtis six years ago for Style Weekly, just before he came to Richmond for a screening of "Some Like It Hot" at the Byrd Theater. We spoke for about a half hour by telephone. I was at my kitchen table, and Curtis was at his home in Las Vegas. He was charming and gracious, despite the fact that he must have answered questions like mine hundreds of times.

"It's still the most popular movie comedy there ever was," he told me.

In the film, set in 1929, Curtis and Lemmon play out-of-work musicians who accidentally witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and then hide from the Mob by disguising themselves as women and joining an all-girl band.

Curtis told me that the key to the success of the movie's cross-dressing element was that "there was no reason for us to be in drag except that our lives depended on it." Both he and Lemmon enjoyed playing in drag. "Jack loved it. He went to pieces over it. We weren't embarrassed or afraid of it. I didn't want to look like my character enjoyed it too much, but I was never worried about it really."

Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx and was the son of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. He told me that director Billy Wilder, who left Berlin and came to Hollywood when Hitler rose to power, was tough on the set of "Some Like It Hot."

"Billy Wilder was an Oberstandartenfuhrer -- he was Austrian, you know -- and he kept a good strong hand on the project. But he allowed Jack and me to develop the characters."

In one of the film's funniest scenes, Curtis drops his Josephine character to pretend he is a wealthy businessman in order to woo Monroe's character.

"I decided that morning to use a Cary Grant accent for that scene" to give the character comic sophistication, Curtis told me. "Wilder let us work out our own roles to a great extent."

When we talked six years ago, Curtis, who served in the Navy during World War II before becoming a star, said he was enjoying living in Las Vegas and was spending a lot of time working on his paintings. He said his art was being shown in prestigious galleries. His plans at the time, he said, included a movie about the Holocaust. The film never materialized.

I was far from Tony Curtis's biggest fan. I enjoyed his movies more for the stories than for his personal appeal. But I was impressed by his intelligence, his charm and his sense of humor. He made our 2004 conversation easy and relaxed.

Curtis was the last of the principals from "Some Like It Hot" to die. Monroe died in died in 1962. Lemmon died in 2001. Wilder died in 2002.

Remembering D-Day

Pointe du Hoc is a 100-foot-high spit of land that juts into the ocean just west of Omaha Beach. It was an especially difficult point of attack for the U.S. Army Ranger Assault Group during Operation Overlord in World War II. Germany's Atlantic Wall defense at Pointe du Hoc included a battery of 155mm guns to protect the coastline. The U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion was assigned to scale the cliff and destroy the strongpoint early on D-Day.

The Germans, however, moved the guns about a mile inland prior to the attack. The concrete bunkers were left intact and were considered by the Allies to be a major threat to the landings.

Few sites on the beaches and shores of the Normandy coast have been left as they were following the D-Day invasion. In 2004, our study group visited Pointe du Hoc. What we saw was sobering.

There are, however, other reminders visible today of the cost of Operation Overlord, as you'll see in this video.

"I was alone in France"

Vierville-sur-Mer on Omaha Beach has been built up considerably since the end of World War II. It is now a center for tourist exploration of the sites of the D-Day landings. (Don Dale photo, 2004)

Just east of Utah Beach was Omaha Beach. The Allied troops who landed there on D-Day faced a far more brutal German defense, and none of America's town, villages or cities paid a price so high as Bedford, Virginia.

The Bedford Boys, as they were later known, were part of the Army's 29th Infantry Division. There were 30 Bedford Boys in an assault force that numbered some 34,000 men.

The Bedford Boys were with the first infantrymen who approached Omaha Beach in the early hours of June 6, 1944. With German forces raining shells from the heights above, the beach quickly became a bloody abattoir.

German fire hit one landing craft as it approached the beach, sinking it with four of the Bedford Boys on board. They were quickly fished out of the water and rejoined the assault. Nineteen of the 30 died approaching the beach or immediately after they hit the sand, among them their company commander. In all, 22 of the 30 died on D-Day. Bedford lost more men per capita on that day than any other town in America. It was that fact that led Congress to support the creation of what is now the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford.

Years after the end of the war, one of the Bedford Boys described what happened when he landed on French soil. Elisha Ray Nance, the son of a tobacco farmer, told a Roanoke TV station: "I waded out of the water up on the beach. I could not see anybody in front of me. I looked behind, and there's nobody following me. I was alone in France."

Nance was the last survivor of the Bedford Boys. He died in 2009 at the age of 94.

Utah Beach, Normandy

(2004 photo by Don Dale)

Utah Beach could not have been more peaceful or serene on the September morning in 2004 when we arrived on the Normandy coast. The tide was out, leaving an immense expanse of smooth sand leading up to the tall green grass that waved in a chilly, light breeze.

A horse drawing a sulky and driver made his way slowly along the water's edge, picking his way around tidal pools. Not another soul was in sight.

Utah Beach was a far different place on the morning of June 6, 1944, as Operation Overlord -- the Allied invasion of Europe -- began. Utah was the name given by war planners to the right flank, the westernmost, of the Allied landing beaches.

At a few minutes after 6:30 a.m., the first wave of Allied landing craft lowered their ramps, and American soldiers waded about 100 yards to the beach. Led by Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., they were about 2,000 yards south of their intended landing zone. Undeterred, Gen. Roosevelt told his men "We'll start the war from here." (Gen. Roosevelt was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that morning.)

At the end of the day, the men who landed on Utah Beach counted themselves lucky. Some 23,250 troops landed safely, along with 1,700 vehicles. There were about 200 casualties. Unlike other D-Day beaches, Utah was not heavily defended, and a pre-invasion Allied bombardment had eliminated many fortified positions. American bombers flew low to provide air support. And, significantly, 13,000 glider and paratroop forces from the 101st and 82nd U.S. Airborne Divisions that had dropped inland hours before the coastal assault had been fighting their way toward the beach, clearing enemy positions and preventing any significant German counterattack.

Utah Beach was the first of the Allied invasion sites we visited that day. We walked quietly along the pristine beach. A few of us used film canisters to scoop up sand to take back home.

And we tried to imagine what it must have been like 60 years before.

"Nothing is the same"

(Photo by Don Dale, 2004)

The three veterans of the Normandy invasion in 1944 who accompanied us on a 60th anniversary tour made it somehow more authentic. All we had to do was look at any one of them and remember that they had been there, they had risked their lives, they had experienced the horrors.

As our bus approached the coast of France one morning, they agreed to pose for a picture. The experience seemed to make them slightly uncomfortable. They weren't seeking attention, and none of the three was comfortable with the word "hero."

But they couldn't escape the fact that they had been there 60 years before, under circumstances that were nothing like those of a group of tourists in 2004 who viewed D-Day as history and not as a personally terrifying, ever-present reality that still shaped 21st-century thoughts and feelings, and even yet provided a framework for viewing the world.

I am deliberately not using their names or hometowns: I neglected to seek their permission then, and I have since lost touch with them. If they are still alive, the youngest would be in his mid-80s.

They were three distinct personalities.

One rarely talked to anybody on the tour other than his wife. He would exchange pleasantries if prompted, but beyond that -- nothing.

Another was gregarious and hearty, full of the excitement of seeing Normandy again for the first time since he was a teenager. He socialized with anybody who wanted to strike up a conversation and enjoyed telling stories. He, his son and I enjoyed too many snifters of Calvados one evening as he told stories of 60 years ago.

The third D-Day veteran was one of the first people I met as we tour participants gathered in a hotel dining room in Paris on the night before our excursion began. His wife chattered away, excited about our upcoming visit to Omaha Beach, where her husband had landed. As is the case with many veterans who had horrific experiences, he never told her much about what had happened to him that day. For their anniversary, she had booked the tour. He, she said, had been reluctant to come along. She, however, had finally persuaded him, but it was clear that he didn't share her eagerness to see Normandy again. For him, the memories were best left in the past, undisturbed.

Several days later, when we arrived at Omaha Beach, I saw him at the end of a long pier stretching out into the English Channel, standing alone, apparently lost in thought. I wanted to walk out to the end of the pier myself to photograph the beach as it might have been seen by those wading ashore. But I was reluctant to disturb him. Instead, I busied myself for a while reading inscriptions on a nearby monument, chatting with others on the tour, and taking a photograph of the -- to me -- incongruous "Omaha" miniature-golf course just across the road.

Perhaps 20 minutes passed before I again looked out to the end of the pier, and he was still there, still alone. I made my way out to where he stood, apologizing for interrupting. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. He sighed deeply.

"I was trying to figure out where we landed. I can't find any landmarks. It's all been built up. Nothing is the same. I just don't know where I was."

And with that he walked back along the pier to the beach. I took a few photographs and followed him back to the shore as the waves lapped gently on the sand.

Pvt. John Steele's D-Day story

The tower of the church in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église stands today much as it has since Medieval times. (Don Dale photo)

If you've read the book or seen the movie "The Longest Day," you know the story behind what you see in the picture I took in Sainte-Mère-Église.

The church has stood in some form since the 1080s in a town that has seen its share of wars -- from the Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453) that pitted two royal houses against each other in their quest for the French throne to the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), primarily fought between French Catholics and Huguenot Protestants.

Allied and German forces also faced off in Sainte-Mère-Église on June 6, 1944 -- D-Day.

In the early hours of the invasion of Europe, just before 2 a.m., American paratroopers suffered heavy casualties as the Germans who were occupying the village began to realize what was happening. Burning buildings in Sainte-Mère-Église illuminated the sky, making easy targets of the invading paratroopers. Some landed directly on the fires. Many landed in trees or dangled from utility poles and were shot.

One man who made the jump over Sainte-Mère-Église featured prominently in author Cornelius Ryan's book "The Longest Day" and in the 1962 film that followed. U.S. Army Private John Steele's parachute snagged the tower of the town church. Wounded, Steele hung from the church for two hours, watching the fighting below and pretending to be dead -- until the Germans eventually took him prisoner. Though deafened by the church bells that had rung since the invasion began, Steele soon escaped and rejoined his division in time for an Allied attack on the village that captured 30 Germans and killed another 11.

When I was there for the 60th anniversary D-Day observance in 2004, the French had gone all out to welcome Americans back to Sainte-Mère-Église. In the intervening years, Ryan's book and the movie had made a folk hero out of John Steele. To memorialize Steele's story, the people who lived in the ancient French town had hung a parachute and an effigy from the church tower on which he was accidentally entangled.

Private Steele survived the war and continued to visit the town throughout his life. The townspeople made him an honorary citizen. A tavern named for Steele now stands near the town square . Steele died on May 16, 1969, in Fayetteville, N.C., just three weeks before the 25th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

But thanks to Ryan's book, the movie, and the people of Sainte-Mère-Église, his story lives on.

If only ...

Some historians disagree with the traditional view that Harold II is the figure struck in the eye with an arrow in this section of the Bayeux Tapestry.

If Harold Godwinson had not been struck in the eye with an arrow at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he might have remained on the throne as the king of England.

And if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their little butts every time they jumped. (My Appalachian grandfather, who was never at a loss for aphorisms, used to say that every time I'd begin a sentence with "if.")

I had heard about the Bayeux Tapestry since high-school history class. The tapestry, which is really an embroidery, is a 234-foot-long illustration of the events leading up to the epic Norman conquest of England. The really exciting part is toward the end and depicts the Battle of Hastings, which took place not far from the English Channel seacoast at Hastings, England, in 1066. It was there that the invading Norman French defeated the Anglo-Saxon English. The Anglo-Saxons were led by Harold Godwinson, who had recently been crowned as king of England, and the Normans were led by the man who was thenceforth known as William the Conqueror. Legend has it that Harold was killed by a Norman arrow that struck him in the eye.

There's a lot more to the story of the Bayeux Tapestry, which could be said to be an early example of pictorial journalism. Some date its origins to the 1070s, just a few years after the battle was fought, although the earliest written reference to it is from 1476.

The tapestry, which was made in England, was earlier housed in the cathedral at Bayeux, which is on the Normandy coast and was the first French city to be liberated after D-Day in World War II. Now it's on display in what used to be the Bayeux Seminary, a classical-style building that stands on the site of a medieval priory from the 13th century.

As our D-Day anniversary group entered the room housing the tapestry, which is dimly lit to preserve the ancient cloth and dyes, we were given hand-held audio devices that told the story of the tapestry picture-by-picture. As somebody who spent a career in a museum, I picked up right away on the fact that the audio devices also kept us moving right along in order to stay in synch with what we were hearing. Visitors flock to see the tapestry, and if somebody stops to study a panel, the line clumps up quickly. Yet I didn't sense that I was being rushed.

And as in museums everywhere now, the exit leads through a gift shop. It costs about $10 to see the tapestry, and for me it was money well spent. But the gift shop is where museums really make their budgets. And that's okay by me. As Harold might have said, it beats a sharp stick in the eye.

A purple cat. How cool is that?

"Purple Cat," 2010, by Carlos (born 2004); papier-mâché, pipe-cleaners, plastic, ribbon; 3 1/4 inches tall by 10 1/2 inches long. (Collection of the author)

Yesterday's birthday was a good one. My niece Terry and her family took me out for a barbecued rib dinner at what I think is the best place for barbecued ribs in Richmond, and my nephew and his family joined us. There were funny cards, and I took in a lot of birthday loot, ranging from a simple bag of M&Ms -- a favorite since childhood -- to a bottle of really excellent small-batch bourbon.

But the best present was a purple cat.

My 6-year-old great-nephew Carlos made it himself, out of papier-mâché, pipe-cleaners, plastic eyes and red ribbon. I think it's wonderful. And it's not just me: two people with no connection to Carlos or the family have now seen it. Both said they were astonished that it was the creation of a 6-year-old. One said it would be quite an accomplishment for a grown-up.

I agree wholeheartedly, and Carlos's purple cat has now found a place of honor at my house. It's evidence of much creativity and talent.

There's a story, as there always is, behind Carlos's purple cat.

Two years ago I gave him a book for Christmas that was designed to teach him his colors. We were leafing through it on Christmas morning when we came across a picture of a purple cat. "Purple is my favorite color," I told him. It was not meant to be a statement of any significance -- I'm also, in fact, quite fond of blue - but it stuck in Carlos's mind.

Last Christmas, I gave him a great tub of art supplies. His mother tells me that the tub is nearly empty now, but that's where he found the pipe-cleaners, the ribbon and the plastic eyes for my purple cat.

Carlos is also well aware that I like cats. He's met two of my cats over his few years, and he's lived with his own dogs and cats for almost all of his life.

So he put all of that knowledge together and decided to make a purple cat for my birthday. His mother says it took him about a week.

Kids' minds work in wonderful and strange ways. It's been a truly educational experience for me to see him grow, develop an imagination, explore the world outside himself, learn life's lessons both the easy way and the hard way, and become a unique individual with interests and aptitudes emerging almost week by week.

Had I made that purple cat at his age -- or even now -- you would be hard-pressed to identify what I had set out to create. I work in words, not images. Ergo, I am impressed by where his mind led him, into what is alien territory to me.

A purple cat.

How cool is that?

Paris never changes

Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Construction began in 1163.

I went to France in the summer of 2004. I wanted to mark the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe by seeing the D-Day beaches and following in the footsteps of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation as they fought their way from the Normandy coast to Bastogne and beyond.

For the first time in many years, I joined a group tour. Group tours have their pluses and minuses, but in this particular instance the upside far outweighed the down. Arranged by the University of Virginia, the tour was a serious educational experience. Traveling across France with us on our comfortable Mercedes bus -- complete with onboard bathroom and mini-kitchen -- were an excellent tour guide and a superb military expert who was a retired Army colonel and had taught command and tactics at West Point. Both made every mile of the journey come alive through history lessons masked within absorbing stories.

We were also fortunate to have three elderly veterans of the Normandy invasion as fellow tour participants. The experience was one I will never forget.

We began with a flight to Paris, where we spent one night. While others in the group climbed on board a bus for a "panoramic tour of Paris" on our lone free afternoon, I struck out on my own for the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine to spend some time, naturally, at Notre Dame de Paris cathedral.

The day was not without its challenges. I don't speak French, so getting from our hotel by myself via the underground Metro armed with nothing but a simple map and advice from the hotel's concierge was not easy. I made the journey without much trouble. But as I exited the Metro and began the walk across the bridge to the island, a working woman of the streets linked her arm in mine and suggested in fractured English that she could show me a much more interesting time than I'd find at an old church. I purposefully misunderstood everything she said, and after about 5 minutes of walking with her clutching my arm, she gave up, disengaged herself, and wished me bonne chance!

One of the great pleasures of travel is serendipitous adventures. There were to be many, many more on this memorable trip.

Southern iconography

"The Burial of Latane" is an engraving by A.G. Campbell after an 1864 painting by William D. Washington (1833-1870). (Collection of the author)

The combat ranged not long, but our's the day;
And through the hosts that compassed us around
Our little band rode proudly on its way,
Leaving one gallant comrade, glory-crowned,
Unburied on the field he died to gain,
Single of all his men amid the hostile slain.
--"The Burial of Latane", John Reuben Thompson, (1823-1873)

It happened on a warm day in 1862, during General J.E.B. Stuart's daring ride around Union General George McClellan's army, which was threatening Richmond. Stuart's task was to assess the enemy. On Friday, June 13, he and his riders were headed towards Old Church, situated a few miles east of Mechanicsville, when they began to encounter resistance from Union pickets. McClellan's main force was at Old Church, prepared to move towards Hanover Courthouse.

A Confederate squadron under the command of Captain William Latane of the Essex Light Dragoons was approaching the bridge across Totopotomy Creek. A Tidewater native, Latane -- whose surname was pronounced LAT-uh-ny -- was also a physician. He had studied medicine a decade earlier at the University of Virginia and Richmond Medical College.

Also headed for the bridge was a Union squadron commanded by Major W.B. Royal. The major was armed with pistols and a saber. Captain Latane was armed only with a saber. Jeb Stuart later reported that Latane and his men attacked the Union squadron in columns of four along the approach to the bridge, making a "most brilliant and successful charge." The skirmish was hotly fought and hand-to-hand.

Latane singled out Major Royal and dashed forward, 15 paces ahead of his men. He hacked the Union major's hat from his head. In retaliation, the major drew his two pistols and fired point blank, killing Latane instantly. Captain Latane was the sole Confederate casualty on that sunny summer morning.

The Federals were pushed back, and Stuart continued his ride around McClellan's army, meeting with no other important resistance and no additional casualties.

Shortly before the battle at Totopotomy Creek, Catherine Brockenbrough, who lived at the closest plantation, Westwood, had sent her ox-cart to the mill laden with bags of corn. The driver was on his way back when he came upon a group of Confederates at the side of the road. They were gathered by the body of Captain Latane, whose head was cradled in his brother's lap. The Confederates stopped the cart, concealed the bags of corn in bushes by the side of the road, and lifted the dead officer's body into the cart.

"I was in the back yard attending to the sunning of some wool," Mrs. Brockenbrough later wrote. She saw her cart approaching and heard a servant cry out that there was a body. She directed that Latane's remains be brought into the house and laid upon a cot in the hall. "At this moment, stepping out onto the veranda, I saw a pedestrian rapidly approaching."

The man on foot was the dead captain's brother, who implored Mrs. Brockenbrough to see to a proper burial. She agreed readily, and having no horse to offer, she sent him to nearby Summer Hill plantation where he was offered the only horse at hand -- a blind nag -- on which to make good his escape. Mrs. Brockenbrough wiped away Captain Latane's bloodstains, smoothed his hair, and cut a lock to be sent to his mother. Not wanting to spend the night alone in her home at Westwood, she made her way to Summer Hill and returned home the next morning to arrange for a coffin, which was made by her own carpenters.

Mrs. Brockenbrough told others later that she sent an elderly slave, Aaron, to fetch a minister, but Union troops prevented him from getting through: The women and children of Westwood and Summer Hill would have to see to the burial themselves. Mrs. Brockenbrough herself was too distressed to attend the funeral she had promised to arrange. Mrs. Willoughby Newton of Summer Hill read the service from the Book of Common Prayer, attended at the Summer Hill graveyard by Catherine's daughter, Judith, and female members of the Newton family including two young children. Aaron dug the grave and also attended the service. The day of the service, June 14, 1862, was the first in more than three weeks when no gunfire was heard near the plantations and all was peaceful.

"The girls covered his honored grave with flowers. He now lies martyred to a holy cause," Mrs. Willoughby Newton later wrote.

* * *

The story of the burial of Captain Latane soon spread throughout the region and became emblematic of the courage of Southern womanhood and their valiant endurance in service to the Confederacy.

Two years later, as the war still raged, artist William D. Washington -- a native of Clarke County who was then living in Richmond -- memorialized the story in a large oil painting at his Richmond studio. For models, he used students at Miss Pegram's School for Girls on Linden Row, across from where the city's main public library now stands on Franklin Street.

The painting was exhibited first in a Richmond gallery but was then moved to the State Capitol where masses of people flocked to see it. It was said in several accounts that a bucket placed beneath the painting was soon filled to overflowing with valuable personal items given to support the Confederate cause.

A few years after the war ended, the painting was reproduced as an engraving. Copies of the engraving, illustrative of "the Lost Cause," hung for generations in homes throughout the region. I recall seeing one on the dining room wall in my grandmother's house when I was a child.

Washington's original oil painting was lost for many years following the war. When the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts began to research its whereabouts for a 1983 exhibition titled "Painting in the South: 1564-1980," it was discovered that the painting had been held in a private collection in South Orange, N.J. and then in a collection in Gloucester, Va. The exhibition's curator, Mrs. Ella-Prince Knox, arranged for the loan of the painting to VMFA, where it was shown publicly for the first time in many decades.

I remember walking through the exhibition on the day after it opened. The painting had attracted so much attention that a velvet rope was placed in front of it to keep people from touching it. I watched quietly as a large but respectful crowd of Virginians stood reverently in front of this rediscovered icon of the Confederacy. The painting continued to draw far more than its share of attention, day after day, for the full two-month run of the show.

* * *

As a native Richmonder, I was fascinated by the painting and its history as we began to prepare for the exhibition . My training as a journalist kicked in, and I began to dig deeper and deeper into the story of the burial of Captain Latane. I am particularly grateful to the descendants of those who attended the burial in 1862 who, when they learned of my interest, generously provided me with copies of unpublished accounts, including personal diaries kept during the war.

Alas, as is the case with so many good stories, one key detail was elaborated during the telling of it. Additional research in recent years revealed that Mrs. Brockenbrough, years after the war, admitted that neither she nor Mrs. Newton had performed the burial service. A Methodist minister, she said, had arrived just in time.

A print after the engraving was commissioned by VMFA in conjunction with the exhibition. A framed copy now hangs in my dining room. It reminds me every time I see it of the old -- and sardonic -- advice of a cynical journalist: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

And when Virginia, leaning on her spear,
Victrix et vidua; the conflict done,
Shall raise her mailed hand to wipe the tear
That starts as she recalls each martyred son,
No prouder memory her breast shall sway,
Than thine, our early-lost, lamented Latane.

Cassie's 15 minutes of fame

Fifty Plus magazine photographed Cassie, my 5-year-old calico cat, and me for a cover story about the Richmond SPCA's Seniors for Seniors adoption program.

Cassie seems to have become the poster kitty for the Richmond SPCA's innovative Seniors for Seniors program.

She's on the cover this month of Fifty Plus, a monthly magazine aimed at those of us who have attained a certain age, and pictures of her were featured this week on a segment of WTVR TV's "Virginia This Morning." (Click here to see the segment.)

I adopted Cassie from the SPCA in March. She's my fourth SPCA cat -- filling the space left by the late Pusskuss (1970-1990), Boo (1990-2007), and Atticus (1990-2009). I knew I wanted to adopt an adult cat this time, but I hadn't heard about the Seniors for Seniors program before I started exploring the SPCA website. It's a new program that matches those 65 and older with pets who are 5 and older.

Fortunately for me, a volunteer with the Seniors for Seniors program was on hand one morning last spring to fill me in and help with the adoption. I had already taken the SPCA's Meet Your Match online survey. It's a Web-based questionnaire that helps people find the pet that suits them best. It uses color-coded categories. I wanted an affectionate lap-cat, so the survey results suggested I look for one in the orange category. (There are also purple and green categories.) The website has pictures and descriptions of cats in each category.

It didn't take long for me to spot Cassie in a cage with an orange label. After spending about a half hour with her and the Seniors for Seniors volunteer in a private playroom furnished with cat toys and a comfortable sofa, I knew I had met my match.

Because the Seniors program was so new, a volunteer photographer from the SPCA's PR department took pictures of Cassie and me as we got to know one another that morning. A few weeks later, I got a call from an SPCA public relations representative asking if I would appear on Channel 6 to talk about the program. A week or so later, I got another call asking if I would talk to a reporter for Fifty Plus.

Make no mistake: I suffer under no delusions that the sudden flurry of publicity has anything at all to do with me. It's all about Cassie. She's an engaging and intelligent cat. She's beautiful, with her orange, black and white coat and her big green eyes. And she photographs well.

But it hasn't been all fun and games for Cassie. She's had an upper respiratory tract infection that gives her sneezing fits ever since the SPCA rescued her back in January from the Chesterfield Animal Shelter. She's since been on every antibiotic in the book -- some twice. They work for a couple of weeks, and then the sneezing starts up again.

After trying every remedy and test she could think of, my vet referred us to a kitty internal-medicine specialist. After a lengthy consultation and examination this week, the specialist said she thinks it's most likely that Cassie has a foreign body lodged somewhere in her nasal passages. It could be something she sniffed in at some time in the past. Cassie now faces another round of antibiotics to clear up the infection again and then a rhinoscopy and more cultures and biopsies.

Like a good poster kitty, Cassie is facing both her new fame and her medical problems like a trooper. And despite all of that, she manages to charm everybody she meets.