So imagine my surprise when I plowed through yesterday's Mansion Section of the WSJ and got an inspiration to write my next posting, sort of springing from an obituary.
The Mansion section recounts the sales of very upscale real estate, replete with photos that I guess make people wish they lived there. I never wish I lived there, mostly because I know I couldn't afford it, but also because if the place was so great, why are they selling it? Okay, the owners may have passed away, but that's only a small reason you find for the fact the place is up for grabs.
Today produced a total surprise. There on page two of yesterday's paper, complete with mouth-watering photos we learned of:
The Purr-fect Listing: Kitty Litter Inventor's Home for Sale
It's the house that Kitty Litter built. For sale: $15 Million, 1,025 acres, pool, pool house pastures.
WHAT? Yes. The Florida home of the late Edward Lowe, who is credited with inventing modern-day cat litter, is for sale.
One of the most famous obituaries ever written was the one for Edward Lowe. It was penned by the late, great Robert McG. Thomas Jr. and appeared in the NYT in 1995. It is hard to believe that the guy who started experimenting in the 1940s with a clay mixture as a substitute for sawdust as the usual material meant to absorb the stench of cat urine..."an odor borne from a cat's desert constitutional origins that produces a highly concentrated urine that is one of the most noxious effluences of the animal kingdom..." would have leave behind a house and property that his wife, Darlene Lowe, would be putting on the market in 2022.
It is no wonder Mr. Thomas's obituary of October 6, 1995 became titled: Edward Lowe, Cat Owner's Best Friend.
I can attest to the desirable properties of Mr. Lowe's mixture which now has a "clumping" property which turns the wet litter from cat discharge into clumps sometimes the size of Rhode Island, that are easy to scoop out with the proper sieve-like scooper, preserving the rest of the litter in the box.
We're had a cats in our household for nearly 50 years, and the litter box duty always falls to me. I am very appreciative of the fact that whatever the "noxious effluences" once were have now been dissipated by Mr. Lowe's fix. No one walks into our house and thinks we're keeping a lion somewhere.
Mr. Lowe was 75 when he passed away, and his wife, who certainly was much younger than him when the knot was tied, is still with us.
The obituary, probably written on deadline before Mr. Thomas scooped up his NYT friends for dinner in NYC, outlines how Edward substituted a mixture of kiln-dried granulated clay, an absorbent material that "his father who sold sawdust to factories to sop up grease, had been offering as a fireproof alternative.
As anyone who follows and studies obituaries knows, there is a volume of Mr. Thomas's obits, 52 McGs, The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Writer McG. Thomas Jr.
Sadly, Mr. Thomas is no longer with us, having himself passed away at 60 in 2000. Michael Kaufman's obit of Mr. Thomas in the NYT describes him as having "flunked out of Yale, out of his decision, Mr. Thomas said, 'to major in New York rather than anything academic.'"
I always liked that turn of phrase, and somewhat use it to apply to myself, after having dropped out of two colleges, an engineering school and City University to eventually major in drinking beer in Blarney Stones, working, and attending New York Ranger games, eventually marrying and raising a family. I somewhat like that arc.
To illustrate how famous the Edward Lowe obituary is, you had to be there in 2008 when Paul Holdengraber of the New York Public Library, in his very Teutonic Austrian accent, was interviewing two obituary writers, Marilyn Johnson, Ann Wroe, and a newspaperman Daniel Okrent of the NYT on the stage about why is the Edward Lowe obituary about "keeeety-litter" so famous.
Today's Mansion piece makes no mention of Mr. Lowe's obituary, or Mr. McG. Thomas. And why should it? It's about the house, its sprawl, it rooms, what it initially cost, its location in Arcadia, Florida, and everything you'd expect to read about a trophy home, with of course those photos that I guess make some others jealous of how the rich and famous live..
"The Lowes both loved animals, and the property contains three barns and about 600 acres pf pastures and hayfields...The property has a forested area with about 2.5 miles of riverfront that is home to deer, turkey, hogs, armadillo and tortoises..."
There is no mention of cats anywhere on the property.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment